Tag Archives: local tv

First local TV stations planned by Hunt to be licensed by 2012

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The government outlined its plans for structural reform this week, including a timetable for media reform from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMA).

Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for DCMS, writes in the report that he hopes to “roll back media regulation” in order to “encourage investment and create the conditions for sustainable growth”.

Plans for local media include a relaxation of the rules governing cross-media ownership by November this year and for the first of Hunt’s local TV stations to be licensed by summer 2012, with a target of creating 10 to 20 new stations by the end of parliament.

Actions laid out in the plans include changes to the media regulatory regime by reforming Ofcom and deregulating the broadcasting sector. Measures to scale back Ofcom’s duties are planned as part of a Public Bodies Reform Bill and Communications Bill, with the legislative process set to begin by November 2012.

Hunt also plans to agree the terms of a new licence fee settlement between July 2011 and April 2012.

He said these plans aim to give the public an idea of the programme to follow, but that much “broader ambitions” will be set out in the autumn in a spending review.

See the plans here…

Jeremy Hunt: No local TV is one of biggest gaps in British broadcasting

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In his inaugural speech on the media and digital economy yesterday, new Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt tied his colours firmly to the local TV mast:

New York has six local TV stations – compared to London which has not one.

Birmingham Alabama, an example some of you may have heard me use before, has eight local TV stations – despite being a quarter the size of our Birmingham that, again, doesn’t even have one.

Paris, Lyon and Marseilles have local TV. Why not Glasgow, Sheffield and Bristol?

Unfortunately even as politicians have paid lip service to localism, our broadcasting ecology has pursued the polar opposite model – with a large proportion of news beamed shamelessly from the centre.

In his speech, Hunt said he would:

He also outlined plans for the roll out of superfast broadband in the UK. His speech is available in full at this link, but a Wordle of the top 50 words used gives an overview of his priorities for media:

Media Guardian: Regional news consortia will miss election contract deadline

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Attempts to rush through plans for Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNC) to replace regional news provision by ITV ahead of the general election on 6 May have failed.

The winning bids for the IFNC pilots in Tyne Tees/Border region, Scotland and Wales were announced on 25 March, but contracts for the scheme will not be signed before the election date, a spokeswoman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport confirmed to the Guardian.

Those involved will now have to hope for a Labour victory on polling day as the Conservative party has said it will scrap the IFNC plans.

Full post at this link…

IFNC update: CN Group, STV, ITN and Bauer in race for news consortia pilots

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Following news at the end of last year of new bids from partnering media groups for the independently funded news consortia pilots (IFNC) in Wales and the Tyne Tees and Borders region, Scottish broadcaster STV has confirmed its bid in partnership with ITN and Bauer Media for the scheme in Scotland.

This group’s bid will go up against a partnership of Trinity Mirror and production company Macmillan Media, which will include the support of newspapers the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, the Galloway News and the Daily Record and Sunday Mail.

ITN now has its hat in the ring for all three of the proposed pilot projects for the consortia, which will form a replacement service for ITV’s regional news network. ITN will work with Johnston Press, Newsquest, Metro Radio and the University of Sunderland on its Tyne Tees plan and ITV, Northcliffe, Newsquest and Tindle Newspapers on the Wales bid.

In competition for the north east pilot it will face a tender from UTV and a separate bid from a partnership of Trinity Mirror, the Press Association, TV production company Ten Alps and now additionally newspaper publisher CN Group. The TM/PA consortium will announced further partnerships for its bid, a press release from Trinity says.

SFNBlog: Local TV is ‘most important’ news source in US

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SFN’s World Digital Media Trends 2007 has reported that local TV news is rated ‘as the most important news source,’ followed by the internet. The report uses information from the Carnegie Corporation’s ‘Abandoning the News’ survey.