Local TV: Will Jeremy Hunt's grand plan for local television work?

Amongst all the riots this week there was the announcement by culture minister Jeremy Hunt of the 65 locations which can bid to have a local television station. This of course caused the obligatory calls of "unfair" from areas which were not allowed to bid (and there were some pretty large urban areas not allowed to bid), but moving away from the local politicing I'm not sure the idea of local television can really work. I don't doubt the local bit, we know there is interest in local affairs, issues and sport. Just look at the passion with which people support their local football teams, get outraged at their local council and turn out to sweep up the mess when riots tear apart their high streets. People do still live and care locally. My issue is with the television bit. We're living in a culture where appointment to view television is rapidly declining (apart from for the biggest shows, the likes of X-Factor and live sport). We live in a long tail culture, with shows gaining views increasingly after the time when they have been broadcast. Having a freeview channel spitting local news/history/sports segments out on a regular basis isn't going to inspire me to tune in - but if something is posted by my friend on Facebook or there's a buzz about a certain show in the office then I might seek it out. Gaining these channels a prominent freeview listing number (as Hunt's document boasts) and some money for the BBC to buy £5m worth of programming is small change for the corporation, what Hunt needs to insist is a prominent showing on the BBC's iplayer (can they target by location, after all you have to put your postcode in to use the service?), Virgin Media's OnDemand service and YouTube featured slots. I think Hunt has missed a trick by not looking online for his solution. TV is bloody expensive, not just the broadcasting but the whole process of making the shows. Online video is considerably cheaper and the barrier to entry is much lower. I would have liked to have seen Hunt open discussions with social media giants like Facebook and Twitter on how local - I want to call it television, but I'm struggling, so I'm going to call it video instead - can be supported. Facebook asks users to define a location, so these networks have ready-made local audiences sitting there waiting to be captured. When I login on Facebook it automatically knows where I'm browsing from, it knows which geographic areas my friends live and work in, imagine targeted slots on the Facebook news feed saying 'Your area featured...' or the ability of Facebook to say 'Your friends featured on...' and it goes straight through to watching the video on the 'local video site'. Or could Hunt have partnered with existing local online outlets who have proved they have longevity and the imagination and passion to produce engaging local content? I'm looking at the likes of Lichfield Live and Ventnor Blog. What we don't want to see come from this local TV project is a repeat of those horrible local news video bulletins a lot of local newspapers tried on their websites in 2005/2006. If these local stations are simply going to read the local paper's headlines every day, or every week, while sat in a make-shift studio this won't add anything to the mix. And looking at the budgets they will be operating under - £500,000 a year per station - there's a strong likelihood this might happen. This brings up the issue of content. A lot of blog posts have already ridiculed the idea of having TV stations in such small places - David Mitchell rips into the local TV idea in his Observer column and I particularly liked this tweet from Media Wales' Senedd correspondent Matt Withers with his take on Bangor potentially getting a station: .bbpBox100887154972037120 {background:url(http://a0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/190559590/news.jpg) #0a1b33;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

"TV Bangor - all the Bangor news, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Except May to September, when the students go home and there's noone here."less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyMatt Withers
mattwithers

While this post from welshnewsnot makes light of a Cardiff being one of the cities which can bid, which is highly amusing for anyone who lives or has lived in the city:

Cops and Slappers: Our in-depth documentary series is filmed on location on Saturday nights in the city centre. For those who think local TV will just be a small crew with a handheld video camera running after police chasing drunk women and their aggressive boyfriends as they indulge in low level criminality and disorder, we say watch on.

So, what would work? The other side could be well put together online video packages on particular topics, with well targeted advertising. Discussion based video shows featuring plenty of local people giving their views. Sport has to play a huge role, local sports coverage needs to be top-notch as it would get the highest audience levels. Perhaps somewhere these new local stations could look for inspiration is student television. These local interest stations have operated for years in many universities, and while they get grant money, they consistently produce high-quality television, cover the big events on their campuses (freshers, elections and grad balls) and provide valuable experience for trainee broadcasters before they attempt the mad scramble into the BBC or ITV. Just take a look at Southampton University Students' Unions TV station website - it's all there to watch, right now. The web offering for any local station has to be spot on or it will struggle. Or look at how Sangat TV came to national prominence during the Birmingham riots - David Higgerson reflects on its unconventional broadcasting style in this post. Sangat showed it's not about well-polished shows, people just want local and in the heart of the action. Hunt in his vision document seems convinced there is the commercial market out there for the stations to survive, but this is a market where local newspapers and radio are already going hammer and tongs to secure every £ they can. Add in inexperienced broadcasters and an unproven media and it's not going to help. Channel M couldn't work in Manchester, one of the UK's largest urban areas and with what you'd think would be enough advertising to get somewhere. So, in summary, Mr Hunt think again about this project. TV may currently be the 'mass' medium but its rapidly changing and any station which wants to succeed needs to make sure its online strategy is up to scratch. You can read the framework for local TV plans in this PDF and let me know your comments and views in the comments below. Image credit to an_agent