Should there be local TV services?

We already have local TV.

Here in Wales we have S4C/BBC Wales/HTV Wales etc. Or does he mean each town and village should have their own station. How are they going to acheive this when they are cutting BBC Budgets.

If local media want to run TV stations I see no earthly reason why they should not - provided that they can fund it for themselves.

I doubt I'll have any more interest in a local TV station than I do in a local paper... I watch TV for entertainment not for information (well, apart from a heavy documentary habit but that's mostly archaeology, history, biology and maths shows...).

Local democracy comes from getting involved by joining in, not by watching TV or reading a newspaper.

Why add to the 400 + channels of rubbish we already have?
The regional ITV and other independent stations seem to produce enough other content already.

Another gimmick from this joke of a government.

The same government that want to get rid of the BBC, at the request of their pal Rupert Murdoch.

Apart from local news & weather I can't really see the need or other regional programme.

Anyway the following from the article above is far more interesting.

'In a speech later Jeremy Hunt will outline how rules governing the ownership of media organisations would be relaxed to allow local newspapers and radio stations to run TV services.'

Is this the moment we finally find out the details of the Cameron/Newscorp pact made before the election.


Will the 'relaxation' rules allow a Fox News style channel to begin broadcasting here?

One things for sure in return for his support in the election, the Tories have offered Murdoch (a non-British citizen)concessions on the future of British Broadcasting without even pretending to consult the British public over their preferences.

Is that how a democracy is supposed to function?

I was under the impression we already had localised TV broadcasting...?

Growing up in the West Country, I distinctly remember HTV and TSW.

One thing I would strongly advise against in any form of political interference in TV scheduling, programming and broadcasting. Given the current state of politics and the various insidious agendas that many politicans ascribe to, I cringe at the thought of the drival we would have to endure...

Stick to fixing the country's economy and stay the hell out of broadcasting. Its bad enough the Left-wing have infected the BBC...

Will it allow Local people to run Newspapers ?
Currently 3 main organisations own 99.97% of ALL UK News Papers both Local and National.
Ever wondered why they all sing from the same Hymn sheet ?
Now they want these big 3 to run our local TV ? er No thanks.

Absolutely not! TV has already been dumbed down beyond belief and is infested by repeats and soap operas. If there is a plethora of new, small and low budget stations on air they will not have the funding or the experience to do anything new or interesting and will probably show repeat after repeat interspersed by an irritating quantity of local advertising.
No thanks.

We already have regional TV...! For me, in the southwest, we have HTV(ITV) Bristol, BBC Bristol, both of which cover local tv events and news around Bristol/S.Gloucestershire/Bath/Wiltshire/Somerset, but every region has similar regional coverage via ITV and the BBC..

I don't have a problem with local tv/radio services being operated by commercial stations, it's good for local economy, but I do not think it should be funded by the license payer, or have government policy dictate content (like the chinese). There are far more important services (which are being cut) that demand the governments attention - they should not be meddling with what we watch or listen to on TV and Radio.

Refer to post #01 @ 11:10am on 28 Sept - 'suzie127'.

Your post is clear and concise. Jeremy Hunt as Tory Culture Minister has a clear and concise brief too? Any champion of News International (Murdoch et al) has the ear of the PM., including the No10 Director of Communications, still at the heart of Downing Street after recent disgrace, but the media bus has moved on.

This is pay back time for the PM David Cameron, who was openly supported by Rupert Murdoch during the Election.

The 'Culture' Minister Jeremy Hunt today had to apologise to the victims of Hillsborough for his crass comments - just before the Conservative Party Conference to come. Hmmm.

If you wish to look further into the connections of Jeremy Hunt with News International - just go to TheyWorkForYou.com?

Obviously, Jeremy Hunt, Culture Minister, is totally impartial and his focus and intentions are not driven by Murdoch International are they? Just a thought.

Yes,a good idea.Quite often local opinion is forgotten.It would certainly keep councils on their toes.The only downside would be the demise of the local papers as Im sure if the idea has come from the Tories it will mean private money funding the station who would want a return on their investment.

I don't have a problem with this idea, but it does seem rather quaint and old-fashioned in the days of the internet where anyone can broadcast whatever they want anyway. TVs are becoming capable of accepting internet-sourced content too.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

BREAKING NEWS: Cat stuck up tree at 35 Acacia Avenue. Man throws away cigarette butt in High Street. Corner shop now open until 10PM! Stay tuned for more developments, as they happen!

I have no problem with local broadcasting - he's suggesting for an hour a day. We already have this a bit with local news on BBC/ITV.

There could be a 'Local Slot' on BBC1 (instead of EastEnders for instance), and communities could send in videos to play to their local BBC regions. That wouldn't cost any extra to broadcast over an existing network, and the communities would have to fund their recordings themselves.

However, I suppose there'd be issues if choices had to be made about which item(s) to show if there were too many available.

Wales has done a lot of moaning in the past about not having enough time for news. They get dedicated half an hour in the evening and on many occasions 50% of that time is used up talking about rugby, they're obsessed with it. Surely there's more going on in Wales that could be given the time other than rugby, I mean, who cares about it anyway?

I think something similar to the American "Public Access" channels would be a fantastic addition to the idea of the Big Society. Let community groups and interested individuals produce their own programs. They would need to produce a lot of the funding themselves but sponsorship from local businesses would go a long way to helping.

Well, as the introduction of the digital signal has been an absolute and utter farce, this has to be yet another silly joke surely?

Many areas where the much hyped digital signal has already been introduced still cannot get any worthwhile digital channels.

But the TV sellers will still con you that if you have the latest all singing and dancing TV you will be able to receive Freeview.

Untrue!! Try areas around Weymouth in Dorset, Dawlish in Devon and Beaminster in Dorset for just a few examples. No signal. Lousy reception and no prospect of any change unless "commercial operators" decide to invest. That's not a TV service. It's a joke of a TV service.

Get THAT right first.

No! We are already innumdated with cheap nasty TV!

This story stinks as said before its probably more to do with changing laws in favour of mr.murdoch than extending our tv coverage,Why is there no mention of the bbc in this acticle our public broadcaster.

why do we need more tv would be a better question?

It's not a bad idea in principle, but the execution is likely to be terrible: I can already see it now, dull content backed up with early 90s production values and the same endless barrage of government PSAs (that would insult the intelligence of the average 5 year old) in lieu of actual advertisers. And how can I be so sure of this? Because it's already happening. The Sky and (to a lesser extent) Virgin platforms are littered with channels that, at best, have a small cult following: people in this country generally don't watch information-driven programming. It would be cheaper and more effective to vodcast this content.

Unless, of course, the suspicions expressed in the views before mine are correct and this is just Murdoch's Trojan Horse attack on the BBC. Seems plausible enough...

Local news, as victor lewis smith put it, is usually 'local man short changed in little chef! 10p piece found in phone box! we have pictures!'

It's only there in a token way to justify the licence fee and I could quite happily live without it. Anyhow, back in the days when itv had more individual regions you would miss out on some programmes because of regional infighting and some regions didn't produce anything anyway. I was crying out for my itv region just to make some appealing escapist drama.

So I could live without this thanks

LOL, under preasure from governments, including this one the BBC has already implemented many many cut backs to local services budgets.

Maybe a few local drug dealers could sponsor these new enterprises, because advertising revenue has already suffered a free fall and drug dealers will essentially do much better out of impending police and other cuts.

Maybe Rupert Murdock will be able to extend his media empire after all.

This pretence of strengthening local democracy is just vile/sick political spin.

If you want to strengthen democracy, local or national, then implement proportional representation voting system. It wont happen, because politics is essentially about maintaining self interest bias, which Lib Dems have factually proven by their discarding proportional representation and going through the motions with AV Alternative Vote system, whereby people who most dont want to get in, get voted in solely because of SECOND choice, as is the FACTUAL reality of Labours attrocious and FAR FAR from democratic leadership election.

So much DECEITFUL political retence and DEVIOUSNESS over "local democracy" when national democracy is in itself a NATIONAL and MORAL digrace, for an apparantly advanced moral nation.

GIVE ME BREATH!!!

There already are.
Personally i would prefer to see less "media made television" and more public access television.

That way we may be more inclined to get honest true reporting rather than constant spin and lies from all media venues in the uk.

Take for example x factor that is an advertising program for sony bmg and simon cowell we all are aware of the artists that are portrayed as new discovered members of the public but infact are artists that have previously recorded in a different band or under a different recording name. such as katie vogel and others !.

5. At 11:30am on 28 Sep 2010, Nok wrote:
"Will the 'relaxation' rules allow a Fox News style channel to begin broadcasting here?

One things for sure in return for his support in the election, the Tories have offered Murdoch (a non-British citizen)concessions on the future of British Broadcasting without even pretending to consult the British public over their preferences.

Is that how a democracy is supposed to function?"

First things first: I can't stand Murdoch and have just the 5 analogue stations at home because digital is 400 channels of trash.

HOWEVER (and ignoring the fact that we're not a democracy) how is it democratic for the BBC to levy a compulsory TV tax to fund their output but undemocratic for Murdoch to broadcast something like Fox News (which is self funding and a subscription service) in the UK?

As I don't like Murdoch I don't buy his papers or subscribe to his TV channels. I can't choose to do the same with the BBC. I would have to pay the BBC £150 for the right to watch Sky!

Didn't a council want to do this as a propaganda exercise. The problems as I see it would be a group using a local TV station to promote their views and the lack of revenue generated from advertisers at a time when advertising revenue for local radio is being squeezed. If a group using the big society idea wanted to start a web based local TV channel they could with very limited equipment, but the big but who would watch?

14. At 11:46am on 28 Sep 2010, Graphis wrote:

BREAKING NEWS: Cat stuck up tree at 35 Acacia Avenue. Man throws away cigarette butt in High Street. Corner shop now open until 10PM! Stay tuned for more developments, as they happen!

Mind you, that's more interesting than 'Ed Miliband will today talk about how brilliant he is' every 5 minutes...

Where I live (the East Midlands) the BBC is hard pressed to find 30 minutes of local news to fit in the 6:30pm broadcast. There's usually 5-10 mins of abandoned kittens in Mansfield to bulk it out with or the weather broadcaster explaining why rain is wet or stormy sky's are grey (really!... and thats when he doesn't burst into song!).

While I support the right of anyone local to set up their own TV station I think they'll have an almost impossible job finding enough content to get more than a few dozen viewers.

It will help strengthen local democracy!

Mmmm, how exactly?

Unless of course it is to be used for brain washing campaigns like the current poster campaign being run by the Police in North Staffordshire stating that a group of officers will be in the local supermarket to discuss matters that matter to us and yet when you want a police officer you never see one or get a response.

The other concern of course is that funding for these local TV channels will be paid for at the expense of the excellent BBC channels because they will never be funded through advertising as the ITV channels know too well and was predicated by Lord Sugar back in the early 2000’s.

If people want to run TV channels then let them do it through the Internet.

13. At 11:43am on 28 Sep 2010, Emily radetsk wrote:
Better for kids if we kept the local libraries and cut down on TV watching. Psychologists reckon it's a big part of why our society is a lot more violent than 1950.


Can psychologists prove this?
This is worth a read:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/12/teen_homicide.html
Our murder rate is now the same as during the mid-Victorian period. The 1950's might have had a lower crime rate but it was also the era of the Krays & Richardsons, Haigh the acid bath murderer, serial killer John Christie etc and was neatly between the end of WW2 and the start of the Korean War. Not THAT peaceful!

I remember watching so-called 'local' or 'regional' news and programmes when I lived in Teesside, and the broadcasters seemed to think that Carlisle, Berwick, Middlesbrough and York were all the same place, when in fact they took hours to drive to from where I lived. Not very local really...

There is local TV already?!? What are they blathering about?

If you want to make it interesting then encourage people to be able to cheaply create local or creative channels on digital (like Wayne's World). That would be interesting as a creative and social enterprise and it might create the odd cult success.

Encouraging creativity at grass roots level by making things accessible without pots of money or the backing of media luminaries. That makes total sense. This country once thrived on its creativity but it seems sadly lacking at the moment.

Creativity is of course partnered with local enterprise. If government cuts are to increase unemployment then the encouragement of local enterprise to create jobs will be critical. The best way to do this is to take away the barriers to entry and allow more experimentation and creation.

If this is what they intend then I am all for it. If it is some tiresome turgid local cheapo version of Midlands Today then there is no point.

Wasn't it last year that ITN was talking about cutting the number of regional news bulletins due to a lack of money?

People probably think we have local TV at the moment. I live in Southampton, local TV seems to cover most of the south and north up to oxfordshire and whilst hearing what is going on in Oxford might be interesting(?) I wouldn't necessarily call it local.(BBC South and Meridian)

When everyone can make their own shows and host them on youtube, what part does local tv have anymore?

Local TV is DULL, dull dull

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

We can't afford local stations if they are publicly funded.

They will be inane if they are commercial.

How will these local TV stations be paid for, if it is to be from the national TV licence, I think we already pay for 4 TV stations many radio stations and internet I already think this is over the top for a public broadcasting company.
If it is by adverts will they be on freeview? Are there enough slots left?
I never listen to the local radio or only in the car mainly because it is not on freeview, we should more democracy at local level if only to stop the councils building thousands of houses on our doorstep.

What a treat BBC Look East is. Two smug presenters, an air-head weather girl, and a thinly-veiled editorial policy of pandering to the narrow-minded prejudices of its audience. There is not a day goes by without some spurious piece of nostalgia about the good old days when we were fighting the war. A few days ago a story about volunteering for the 2012 Olympics was introduced with a gratuitous reference to the Women's Land Army of World War 2. Pathetic.

Look East steadfastly refuses to confront the real issues facing people in the region: a chronic housing shortage, poor employment prospects, and badly-funded public services. Still, isn't the scenery marvellous?

I would happily see this regional broadcaster closed down and replaced with one that reported the news - from this century, not the last.

More waste of money then.

This is completely unecessary.

August 2009 - Jeremy Hunt visits the United States to meet with representatives of News Corporation.

2010 election - News Corporation's UK titles provide support for the Conservative party.

September 2010 - Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt declares that what we need is less regulation of the media industry so that companies such as News Corporation are able to control an even larger share of the UK media industry. The cover story for this deregulation is a load of guff about the need for local TV.


And we have the gall to complain about the level of corruption within African and Asian governments !

Should there be local television services? Only if it costs the taxpayer/licence payer nothing. It must either be completely paid for by advertising or by subscription payment by the user, it certainly must not be funded by local authorities or controlled by them in any way.

all channels have now gone from the best to the worse
to many celeb programmes which should be pay per view
manipulated talent shows generating large pay for the panalists
and same artists
game shows which appears to be only for the affulent contestants
children tv which normal kids cannot get tickets to see or be on
news programmes that fail to give news but centers on mostly
current affairs, films and shows repeated to many times
my feeling is as a ex tv addict now i keep thinking it is
time to get ride of my tv

1. At 11:10am on 28 Sep 2010, suzie127 wrote:
We already have local TV.

Here in Wales we have S4C/BBC Wales/HTV Wales etc. Or does he mean each town and village should have their own station. How are they going to acheive this when they are cutting BBC Budgets.

Spot on.

'Should there be local TV services?'

What for...don't we get lied to quite enough as it is?

2. At 11:18am on 28 Sep 2010, Megan wrote:

If local media want to run TV stations I see no earthly reason why they should not - provided that they can fund it for themselves.

I doubt I'll have any more interest in a local TV station than I do in a local paper... I watch TV for entertainment not for information (well, apart from a heavy documentary habit but that's mostly archaeology, history, biology and maths shows...).

Local democracy comes from getting involved by joining in, not by watching TV or reading a newspaper.

= = = = = = = = =

Completely agree

25. At 12:26pm on 28 Sep 2010, Peter_Sym wrote:
5. At 11:30am on 28 Sep 2010, Nok wrote:
"Will the 'relaxation' rules allow a Fox News style channel to begin broadcasting here?

One things for sure in return for his support in the election, the Tories have offered Murdoch (a non-British citizen)concessions on the future of British Broadcasting without even pretending to consult the British public over their preferences.

Is that how a democracy is supposed to function?"

First things first: I can't stand Murdoch and have just the 5 analogue stations at home because digital is 400 channels of trash.

HOWEVER (and ignoring the fact that we're not a democracy) how is it democratic for the BBC to levy a compulsory TV tax to fund their output but undemocratic for Murdoch to broadcast something like Fox News (which is self funding and a subscription service) in the UK?

---

Your'e absolutely right - its not undemocratic for Murdoch to btradcast, it is, however, undemocratic for his organisations to wield the influence that they so obviously do on British politics and policy.

I would argue that its not in the interest of the British people to see a website such as this one cut back in scale because Murdoch feels they represent unfair competition for his pay for use news websites.

And i don't solely blame Murdoch for the way he operates, politicians across the political spectrum are equally to blame for being so morally weak that they jump at he opportunities he offers them. He just takes advantage of that weakness.

Its just another indication that the welfare of their own political party is far more important than the British public in the eyes of most politicians.

There are hundreds of channels in the uS and canada and elsewhere all showing rubbish. Just look at the output from the Tory backers at SKY.
This is simply an attemtp to widen the influence of local media that is predominately right wing and to dumb down news to meet the needs of the tory party. Wholly wrong and misguided. Like everything else they stand for.

26. At 12:28pm on 28 Sep 2010, mintman60 wrote:
Didn't a council want to do this as a propaganda exercise. The problems as I see it would be a group using a local TV station to promote their views and the lack of revenue generated from advertisers at a time when advertising revenue for local radio is being squeezed. If a group using the big society idea wanted to start a web based local TV channel they could with very limited equipment, but the big but who would watch?


-----

If it was of a similar quality (low) and insanity of some the US public access TV I've seen I'd definitely be tempted to browse occasionally.

We already have very Local Radio, it is financially non viable. How will Local TV be financed, what sort of quality will it provide? More Importantly who will OWN the stations?

Will anyone watch?

"32. At 12:40pm on 28 Sep 2010, Portman wrote:
There is local TV already?!? What are they blathering about?

If you want to make it interesting then encourage people to be able to cheaply create local or creative channels on digital (like Wayne's World). That would be interesting as a creative and social enterprise and it might create the odd cult success."


I think its stuff like a real life version of 'waynes world' that they mean... low budget broadcasting by smaller players. With digital TV and internet TV its very easy.

No. Boring waste of money. I don't even watch the regional news - but then they often cover the same stories as were in the national news.

And can you please get rid of those annoying people who talk between programmes? They usually tell you the story of the programme you're about to watch - why pay someone to spoil people's entertainment?

In the days before Electronic Programme Guides they may have been seen as a necessity to let people know what s on other channels but today they are totally a wast e of time and money and... I repeat: why tell us what will be on the screen within 5 seconds?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

so these new stations will help strengthen local communities, i hope they have subtitles in english for the minority group in my community?

Not at my expense please.

We already have a bloated state broadcaster that we fund and that should be cut back to the bare bones. Much of it's output is indistinguishable from the commercial stations.

If a commercial case can be made for local tv, let somebody risk their own money.

Broadcasting is designed to get simultaneous information to an awful lot of people. If people want to make a limited interest, short duration item about local affairs, for the benefit of a few hundred at a time, then posting a video clip on the web will do perfectly well.

we already have local news tv, good if you live in Nottingham (where its broadcast from) but nonsence if you happen to live in Leicester, Derby, or Lincoln though!!

post 28 has it spot on

And the programme content will be.............. ?

What will they find to put on? Already with BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, the freeview channels a programme that was on one channel one day is repeated on another channel the next day.

They have run out of ideas and money, just with the channels that they have.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Ask Rupert Murdoch....he will decide if the Con/Dems know whats good for them.
He might even change his status to 'British' as long as he does not have to pay tax here.....like his Lordship Ashcroft!

Genuine regional TV would be good - the BBC and latterly ITV are basically national (Londoncentric) broadcasters.

If we had channels such as in Germany where WDR, NDR, Bayern TV cover their regions individually from ARD / ZDF in UK carrying their own output of a mix of regional programming and the usual diet of films, drama and sport that would be good.

As for local TV covering individual towns that just doesn't work for me - just too parochial.

I don't suppose there should be any reason why not to have local tv stations, but who on earth would watch them??? Local radio is fine, people rabbiting on about local issues and playing music while you're busy doing something else, but you'd have to be a loopy to spend your time watching local tv....

Personally, I rather miss having a choice of just the 5 channels I used to. Despite having freeview, I channel surf through and find nothing but banal nonsense and repeats on most of the channels... and end up watching the same old 5 channels (and BBC3/4 to be fair) as before. Choice isn't all its cracked up to be!!

Frankly, I couldn't give much of a stuff about local news. I find BBC Scotland horribly parochial because of its local focus and if there's anything interesting enough to make the national news you end up getting the whole story repeated in the Scottish 15 minutes!! The whole Al Megrahi issue was like Groundhog day!!!
I'd much prefer to get a bit more global news - Russia TV is pretty good!!

Anyway, I assume that producing TV is more expensive than radio, so if its a struggle to become a good local radio station, I can only assume that local TV stations will be either appalling in content and quality or simply go bust anyway.

An idea long past its time, superseded by the internet - anyone with a webcam can broadcast anything 24/7 if they want; and with digital video, local events, sporting fixtures etc, can also be transmitted online - all at no cost to the taxpayer or licence-fee payer.

Whether there's a demand to watch such parochial trivia even locally, let alone worldwide, is another question. The quality of local radio is almost universally abysmal, despite receiving a decent budget from the BBC or advertisers; why should local TV produced on a shoestring budget be any better?

This is a bit late, should have happened long ago, now it may be quickly overtaken by web TV before it starts.

Now we have Web / Internet TV, anyone can produce and distribute content (as long as it's legal), Sony and others will have Web / Internet TV sets out in the UK in 2011, apparently enabling viewers to browse and search the web for on demand TV content to watch on their TV.

We (at work) already have a 10 year archive of online on demand content (local sport) which can be watched any time on TV or PC.

If its as bad as local Radio...No Thanks.

We are trying to claw our way out of a massive national debt. The BBC has been told to cut its expenditure, ITV is broke, only Sky has any money. Does this mean that we will only one provider for this, 'peoples service'and won't that therefore be rather biased?
I think it is a good idea because here in Bucks' we are not covered by either the BBC or ITV because we are on the border of their regions, however,I do have reservations as to how it is going to be funded.

Since the majority of people don't read local freebie newspapers I'm not convinced that there is a big enough demand. Let's face it we did have regional TV until Granada swallowed them all up. Bearing in mind most local papers are all owned by one group anyway I'm not convinced it'll really be local enough,and therefore pretty pointless.

From the Article:

"He said restrictions would be lifted on ownership of local papers, TV and radio."

This is the bit I don't like. One person should not be able to own or part own more than one TV station, newspaper etc. And if you're in TV you should not be in publishing etc.

There is already too much rubbish on tv as it is. Still, so long as the tax payer and/or license payer does not foot the bill who cares?

We've already been here really. There were more programmes made locally in the seventies and eighties. BBC (Regional TV) Manchester for example made it's own prgrammes(some of which would go out on national network BBC1 if they were deemed to be of national interest) ,dramas! ,light entertainment and music shows , apart from it's own documentaries.(a forgotten era? Well, i used to work on the stuff) It was as regional as TV could reasonably be and i can't see it happening again to that extent ,in spite of the BBC trying to re-invent what it threw away twenty years ago. Granada TV(remember that great name... it's disappearing!) likewise today,less regional output...but a fabulous archive for evidence! There were some good regional programmes made, on a tight budget too. The BBC also had the 'Open Door' department , programmes made by the community with professional 'craft' help. Nothing is new in this country ,things get thrown away ,reinvented ,passed off as original and someone takes the credit for it to justify their big salary..tell me about it!!

Wouldn't be a bad idea! Rather than letting the big hitters like ITV and Sky One take all our attentional all the time, could work out for the local community better if we had coverage of what was happening around our local town, voice from our borough MP (who I didn't elect, but I'm not a prune), and creative arts and documentaries filmed by creative individuals with no jobs but a Media degree.

No, I'm not being sarcastic either, I really think it would be a good idea!

The vast number of local TV stations in the USA and Canada are used to promote this argument, but these are nations of millions of square miles - we are but 120,000 square miles, and we already have regional news programs and weather reports, plus a number of programmes aimed at ethnic minorities in Welsh, Gaelic and Indian sub-continental languages, etc.

Any voice to local people only counts if it has a vote attached to it
( like in Switzerland ); so every opinion is a valuable vote in important subjects like the obscene wages of some staff in councils,BBC,british waterways etc,etc .
if your voice does not count on specific matters you might save your time and go fishing ; because nothing will happen ; like giving your opinion here YOU'R JUST WASTING YOUR LIFE TIME .

7. At 11:32am on 28 Sep 2010, yorkshire News wrote:

Will it allow Local people to run Newspapers ?
Currently 3 main organisations own 99.97% of ALL UK News Papers both Local and National.
Ever wondered why they all sing from the same Hymn sheet ?
Now they want these big 3 to run our local TV ? er No thanks.
_ _ _ _

This is true. For instance, this extract from the Trinity Mirror website underlines this point:

"Trinity Mirror is one of the UK's largest newspaper publishers with an award winning portfolio including five national newspapers, over 150 regional newspapers and more than 500 digital products."

Trinity Mirror owns all of the local papers in Birmingham, so I think it's rather misleading to draw a distinction between the ownership of the local and national press. In most cases, it is only these larger media companies that will have the resources to set-up and run local TV services.

We do not have to listen to a person just because he has a medium to lend a voice to.

I listened to Hunt on Radio4 Today this morning. He didn't sound convinced of the merits himself so why does he think anyone will take up the challenge? Local newspapers are already in steep decline and those that survive contain less and less content that is "local". Their advertising revenue must be down given the lack of small ads.

As a number of posters have written technology has already made this idea obsolete. Listening at odd times to local commercial or BBC local radio (last years big freeze was the last time to check road and transport availability)makes me understand why their listening figures are dire. Would anyone actually view a TV equivalent?

I agree with comment 30. We have a television but only watch it about once a week in winter, not at all in summer. There used to be a programme "Why don't you switch of your television and do something more interesting". I concur with the idea.

Still if people want to make local TV they could give it their best shot and then see if it takes off.

That is all we need. Local channels filled with local politico's and self-proclaimed local celebs wasting bandwidth whilst massaging their egos.

Do we really need a culture secretary?

More pathetic drivel from this sorry excuse for a Government.

Who is going to pay for these local services, and who is going to organise the traffic? People can set up Internet based local news services very easily but require money and support to maintain real independence from domain controllers. How about making independent server centres available for any public user who wishes to utilise same?

It all costs money, though, and I thoight this Government was saying we are broke.

1.We already have several local TV services, and it's all rubbish
2.Our local council also produce a local propoganda, sorry news, service which blasts out of TVs in every doctors surgery and supermarket.
3. No, stop spending my money on garbage nobody needs or wants. And if they do want it let them pay for it.

Yes , 'Why Don't You....?' ..was an excellent motivational programme for children , 'confident' programme title that! There is nothing worse than amateur looking(trying to be 'Hollywood Movie' quality) films and tv. 'You Tube' is excellent though..it doesn't need to be high definition and so called 'broadcast quality' either to be entertaining. A lot of money is spent on achieving technical excellence in broadcasting , when the 'content' is often dismal! Am i bothered if a quiz show is in so called 'high definition'...no! The majority of people in the UK have never seen, (and will never see) how good the 625 analogue system was anyway, due to the relatively poor quality of domestic tv sets(and display tubes) ,made to a price. Local tv, great, but lets keep it useful, not gratuitous and close it down when it has nothing more to say. I think that the motto 'must get out more' is good too!

In scotland we can only hope we dont get regional t.v, already we have probably the most terrible soap called river city, its horrific but luckily we have a remote so i never need watch. Should their be more regional t.v development i dread to think what utter crap they would make. we are subject to gaelic t.v once a month on bbc2 which i have never known a single person to watch. stick to the big programme makers with bigger budgets making better telly

70. At 2:55pm on 28 Sep 2010, Wyn wrote:

From the Article:

"He said restrictions would be lifted on ownership of local papers, TV and radio."

This is the bit I don't like. One person should not be able to own or part own more than one TV station, newspaper etc. And if you're in TV you should not be in publishing etc.


I strongly concur with this! News from newspapers should remain independent from tabloid simply not to spread their propaganda they are often sued about because they are false.

Too late. VoicesTV ltd already exists.

The internet and digital cameras have already enabled the creation of genuine home made local TV relying on local advertising that can be targeted at and priced for single households, streets, types of residence, etc, with viewings counted in real time not guesstimated.

This is the age of tightly targeted advertising. The broad sweeps of TV for 100,000 can't compete.

NO! NO! A thousand times NO! Local TV can never be "Local". BBC News "South Today" programme usually carries stories from Pompey and Southampton areas, not 40 miles away in Guildford where it's also transmitted. On certain days we also get "London Today" as a change. London is also 40 miles away from Guildford where I live and I don't give a damn where Boris rode his bicycle today or any other day!

Without the News, there is very little for Local TV to transmit - I think we'd get fed up with W.I. and Residents Association meetings very quickly. No, the rest of their airtime would be padded with repeats of BBC and ITV comedy shows and documentaries that we already get from Dave, Dave deja vu, Yesterday et al.

Sorry Jeremy, stop trying to spend your budget on things very few people want or need.

Please please please, not another TV station there are already far too many. A few years ago people were complaining about being irradiated by the transmissions from mobile telephone masts. If there was an iota of truth in that fear then we must all be absolutely fried by all the TV transmissions, (maybe that is what has happened to our politicians brains).

What we need are more decent TV programmes, there are so many repeats, reality shows, pop music shows, "talent" shows, retailing progrqammes and porn being transmitted already.

There is of course only a limited amount of real talent in the world and the cost of real talent grows ever greater whether it be actors, script writers, musicians, singers or even undrugged sports stars.

Please no more channels, just more watchable, interesting, entertaining, stimulating progammes.

This needs to take further shape before we can gauge what it is all about. For example, what are the local issues? Granny's bunion? etc., etc. Good to have ideas but what will it boil down to in effect?

We definately need less Fox style media.

They get around libel and false reporting with little tricks like
"some have said", "rumours are", "it is alledged", Basically this equals were making it up to push our message paid for by our sponsors and you listen like good little puppets
fox sky method

Talking point
WE BELIEVE YOU SHOULD THINK THIS WAY ABOUT THE ISSUES WE TELL YOU THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO YOU, ONCE WE HAVE ESTABLISHED THAT ONLY ODD ANTI WHATEVERS TAKE A CONTRARY POSITION TO WHATEVER WE ARE PUSHING. THEN THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO BUT AGREE.

this is the typical murdoch tv doctrine forget what the news is this is our message for the day and we shall push it .....

These people should not be allowed to run a school magazine let alone a tv or newspaper, it is dishonest and offensive.

Look at Foxnews and how everything was going fine in the us economy and in both iraq and afghanistan until obama came into office and all of a sudden they are all "OMG OBAMA HAS MADE THE SKY FALL".
OPINIONS ARE NOT NEWS
THEY ARE OPINIONS
BROADCASTERS OPINIONS ARE NO MORE VALID THAN MINE.

However i do not broadcast an opinion as if it is a statement of fact like both fox and sky do. so keep them out of local media.

19. At 12:06pm on 28 Sep 2010, Les Acres wrote:
"No! We are already innumdated with cheap nasty TV!"

It's probably a typo, Les, but I love "innumdated". I think you meant "innumbdated": so appropriate for the plethora of TV channels we now get!

39. At 1:10pm on 28 Sep 2010, RadialSymmetry wrote:
"What a treat BBC Look East is. Two smug presenters, an air-head weather girl, and a thinly-veiled editorial policy of pandering to the narrow-minded prejudices of its audience. "

Move to Yorkshire, matey: Look North is brilliant. Mind you: it'd be about 10 minutes shorter if Bradford was somewhere else, like Berkshire.

13. At 11:43am on 28 Sep 2010, Emily radetsk wrote:
"Better for kids if we kept the local libraries and cut down on TV watching. Psychologists reckon it's a big part of why our society is a lot more violent than 1950. . ."

Totally agree with the libraries point, but didn't research also show that children only behave like the TV tells them if their parents behave like television personalities. Ah: I see the problem.

I suppose local TV would be like local radio: a bit bland and a bit naff. So we'll probably be getting it then. . .

Here on the Isle of Wight we had the UK's first truly localised TV channel in the UK, TV12, that went bust, was then run by a charitable organisation as Solent TV that too went belly up. Southampton too had a TV station and that also went bust. Perhaps Jeremy Hunt should do some research before outlining his plans.

I don't see the big deal one way or the other. There's no indication that government is going to be spending any taxpayers' money, and no one is forced to do it (and so divert funds from exisiting projects).

Personally I find local news programs particularly dull, and imagine the idea comes from the sort of public-access TV available in the US. Most of it will certainly be dross, but I've no doubt that some gems would come to light too.

If you don't like it, don't watch it. Better still, make your own TV program that isn't dull or dumbed down. It could be a huge opportunity for undiscovered talent, or covering subjects (hobbies) that never make it on TV, or just the weird and bizarre!

The nanny state should stop enforcing an annual tax on people who want to watch television from any source, satellite or public service.

The BBC should encrypt its tv signals and then charge the equivalent of the licence fee to have them unscrambled.


Which is the most expensive for the BBC, to provide set top boxes to unscramble tv signals, or to waste fuel driving detection vans the length and breadth of Britian looking for people with unlicensed tv sets, and creating one almighty carbon footprint in the process?

No. We will continue to get what the establishment wants us to know. We are the most spied-upon and controlled nation on Earth. We have so few civil liberties left. And yet, how does our "independent" media regard these infingements? No real news, no real voice of the people.
It will be national control with a local dialect.

Leave local television as it is right now and don't interfere!

Yes, this is a great idea and if done well it could really be a huge success.

Let's face it both BBC and ITV Regional TV is a disaster as is BBC local radio.

I seem to remember we had local commercial television, until ITV decided it couldn't fund it any more.
Now we only have regional ITV programmes. The BBC does an excellent job with local news and other programming.
Where is the money going to come from to finance these stations? Where is the DVB bandwidth going to come from? I thought bandwidth was at a premium. If there is space, it should be used for HD from the existing quality broadcasters. And lastly, what programmes will be shown? Have you seen some of the weird obscure and unbelievably poor stations available on DVB and satellite? I fear these stations will be financed out of taxpayers money so the government can tick a box and meet a target. No-one will be watching.
Ofcom should get its act together and rid our airwaves of the pointless trash that is taking up space on the tv bands and use the space to give us better quality existing stations.
I do not think there is the need, the requirement, the demand or the advertising revenue for more tv stations.
If the government think they can just pinch some of our licence fee and give it to private businesses so they can make money out of it, I will object most strongly. My licence fee is for the BBC only.

No thank you, local tv is not something I would like, More amateurish drivel, regional tv is bad enough as it is. If its self funded fine but I do not wish to pay for more rubbish.
It's bad enough having STV to put up with being fed a diet of repeats and programmes that wouldn't get aired in Korea.

Yes the national news is a load of rubbish