There are those who are aware of proposals for local TV channels across the country, those who had no idea it was happening, those who think it’s a choice, those who want control of it and those who don’t care. There are also those who are thoroughly bemused, confused and vaguely amused. We sent Ben Brady to this week’s ‘Leeds TV: What’s the Score‘ event to make sense of the debate.
What exactly is ‘Local TV’? The following is a tale of excitement, passion, political motivation betrayal! OK, maybe that sounds a little dramatic, but it’s not too far from the truth (apart from the betrayal bit, I just added that to round it off).
A couple of weeks ago I heard about an exciting proposition; Leeds was getting a TV channel…maybe. Like a few of the other people heading down to Opera North’s Howard Assembly Room, I’d heard there would be chances for people to get involved in making programming based around the culture and arts in Leeds. Expecting the format of the evening to be all smiles and high fives about a range of cool and interesting shows and creative ideas from some of the countries finest musicians, filmmakers, fashionistas and journalists, it wasn’t until about lunch time that I started catching up on the #TVLeeds tag on Twitter (which, if you’re interested in following the topic is a great place to start, once you’ve finished reading this of course).
It seems that the event wasn’t just about discussing ideas for a channel that was well on the way to being set up. There were a lot of other issues that were still to be decided, before we got to the point of having the channel, never mind deciding what goes on it. The channel had doubters from all sectors, and even political motivations were rearing their ugly head. This was going to be exciting albeit confusing.
So what exactly was going on?!
It’s hard to describe the night’s discussion in chronological order because it often flitted between arguments for and against, but I’ll do my best.
Leeds is one of twenty cities awarded a licence to broadcast a local TV channel. A REAL TV channel, beaming from the sky straight down your aerial and into your gogglebox, assuming you still have one, which was one of the more prominent discussions of the night.
Some of the debate focused around the need for this TV channel that we will be getting regardless of the need for it. People in and around Leeds are already out there making great content on the web. It’s there when you want it, you can choose who makes it. But either way, this is happening, and the truth is that like with all government schemes, there is a lot of dirt to get through before we find out the plain English.
Words like ‘£5,000,000’ and ‘Local News’ were being thrown around like a rugby ball, and several twitter feeds and websites have sprung up already that make it sound like the foundations are in place, but actually nobody has been awarded the licence yet. In fact, several businesses are bidding for it as you read, and it will be up to them to fulfil a BBC criteria of creating 6 local news items a day. What then happens to these new items? What constitutes a ‘News Item’? Who is responsible for creating this content? The money for creating this ‘new’ content will be split between the 20 cities, and will degrade year on year as the channel becomes self-sustainable, with Leeds expecting a content budget of £150,000 in the first year.
Wait a second, as each minute of this debate passes by it sounds more and more like this isn’t quite the talent showcase I was expecting, but a government loan to start cheap local campaign. The next Rupert Murdoch in the making wants to start by devouring our fair city?
The discussion moved on as audience comments came thick and fast. Broadcast journalists gave their view of how the channel would impact on existing local radio, and this seemed to set a tone for much of the audience. The overall consensus worried that sustainability of a local channel for local people would be difficult to achieve. People started to voice concerns that ‘our’ channel would not be protected from corporate takeover similar to that seen in other media. Was this all just part of a ‘Big Society’ ploy to get us thinking the government cared about our community?
Scepticism was often met with optimism. Once the discussion moved away from the politics of it all, the idea of a hub to ‘advertise’ Leeds as a place was very apparent, and done right this could be a great opportunity to showcase work from the region in a way that was accessible to all in a passive medium, not having to go out of their way to find it on the internet. It’s very easy for a body of digitally minded people to talk about how we can do all of this already, but lets not forget that the majority of people are still happy to while away the hours on Facebook talking about, you guessed it, what they saw on TV or local gossip – I think we just killed two birds with one stone.
In fact, the truth is that in modern society people can be quite lazy. Sure some of us love trawling the internet to find new things to share, but at the end of the day there is so much content floating out there now we often rely on someone else to tell us what to look at. For a lot of people a local channel would be a great way for them to passively soak in this info. While I’m writing this, the TV is on in the background. How great would it be knowing that a half hour program was coming up where I could hear performances from Leeds bands, and then pop onto Leeds Music Scene to find out more about them. A way to find a band that although I love live music, I likely wouldn’t have heard of because I didn’t happen to be in town the night that they were playing.
The audience seemed to think it was a great idea, but simply not sustainable and like all great debates, more questions were asked then answered. My opinion? Leeds and the wider region already has an amazing digital community, so lets give it a go by taking some of that and spreading it through the TVs of the millions of people that do watch. If they don’t like what the city has to offer, then all the more for us that appreciate it.
But this is just my view and the debate rages on.
I’m tired, it’s bedtime my rabbit keeps jumping on the keyboard and I can’t possibly convey everything from the short two hours, but hopefully I’ve given you enough insight to add your tuppence worth below and keep the debate going. Who will watch the channel? Do local people actually want to watch other local people? Does being local make it any good? Is the platform useful for local authorities to connect with civilians? Can we just show endless repeats of ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’?… wait sorry, that would put BBC3 out of commission; but you get the point – the questions were endless.
Hi, I’d also written a piece on this – but for all the right reasons I’m submitting my thoughts here instead!
One of the main reasons being I’m still left feeling pretty bemused by the whole affair and my thoughts are questions rather than answers…
Who?
I’m not sure who decided on the panel for this evening or why some people were chosen over others. There were some valid, interesting and useful contributions from the panel members, but why had certain people and not others had ‘earned’ their places at the ‘top table’?
I wasn’t sure what one panelist was thinking when he launched into a ‘I have a dream’ speech (seriously), and quoting Steve Jobs and focus groups in a “coastal town due west” (Blackpool?) and “down south”. Judge your audience, please – you’re in Leeds now, Dorothy.
What?
Yes, OK, a Leeds TV channel, but what will it be about? Where will it come from? Who will make it?
I waded in on the name of it with my size eights, and made the point that if we’re to call it ‘local TV’ or ‘community TV’, it will already be starting off on the wrong foot.
Rightly or wrongly, these terms have negative connotations of poorly made, naff programmes, that will excite no one. I threw the simple idea in to the pot that ‘City TV’ could be much more palatable and positive, which seemed to catch on.
It got me thinking why I give up my ideas – albeit very brief ones in this case – for free. But I suspect I won’t be on my own in this when it comes to the content of this new channel.
Creativity, ideas and content won’t be the problem here; people will be queuing up to be featured. But will they get paid for it? With an initial budget of £150,000 per station, I think we all, sadly, know the answer to this.
When?
This process is much further down the line than I thought. The licenses will be awarded this very summer – the companies bidding already know who they are, as do those doing the awarding. It’s probably a done deal, so tonight was a bit of a ‘after the horse has bolted’ situation, which makes me sigh.
What makes me sigh even more, though, is that despite this being an imminent occurrence – the first broadcasts are due next year – no-one seems to have any clue about the whats, whys and hows. Not because it’s still open for debate and influence, either, but because this is being driven by a political and financial agenda, without any real consideration to content or viewership.
Where?
Where will Leeds City TV be made? And who will own and run it – the same company that run Birmingham, Liverpool and, erm, Blackpool TV? Will it be available to watch only in Leeds or beyond? And where does Leeds end – anyone with an LS postcode or 0113 number?
How?
With regard to revenue and funding, I’ve already mentioned the figure of £150,000, which is taken from the £5m the BBC are giving, to be spread over the 20 initial channels. I’m shit at maths but even I know that doesn’t add up to £5m, right? Right. The rest of the pot will be bid for by the 20 channels in a seemingly endless game of bids and funding allocations. The bid/allocation process itself don’t come cheap, you know. Where’s that cash coming from? Just asking…
So, the commercial route it will have to be. What with? Advertising? Sponsorship? We all know the ways these are going for broadcast media. So, product/service placement, it is, then?
Ah, lovely. A TV channel funded by the city council, fire service and police – as suggested by our “I’ve spoken to people down south” friend – with a whole host of other corporates ready, willing and able to throw their cash in to get their share of voice and opinion.
It’s going to be Freeview Channel 8, next year, by the way – I can just feel you itching towards your remote as I write…
Why?
Ah, I’ve saved the best ‘til last! Why do we need this? Where’s it going to bring value or offer ‘a voice’ to people who aren’t already self- or indy-broadcasting on the internet?
It was argued that telly still has a place for certain groups of people and not others (I really can’t go into this now, I may throw something), so what will this new channel bring that the media isn’t already offering?
We know it’s happening, so we’ll get involved, of course we will, but WHY?
p.s. We can see through you, Jeremy Hunt et al: We know you’re trying to
make the BBC more and more crap by taking away more and more money from it until no-one cares about it anymore. And then ‘lo and behold’, here are these amazing ‘City TV’ channels that are so much better, so why don’t we just scrap the BBC and use these commercial, local channels instead?
Win/win? I think not. We’re on to you, sunshine.
There are are lots of things I want to say about this issue, but I’m a bit short of time at the moment. The one thing I will say, now, is, please stop talking about this as Leeds City TV. The Local TV idea as shaped by Government will cover a much wider area than the city of Leeds. If anything emerges that fails to take that into account it will be an even bigger waste of time and money than I thought it would be in the first place.
I’m wondering if being negative is the way to go. I went to the event, I was really pi**ed off by the negative tone at the start, even the ‘friend from the South’, (Nick Vat, was his name), mentioned above, who’d actually asked some real people what they think about a local TV channel had his points trashed, they weren’t published after all. (AND he’s from the South, in fact South Africa judging by his accent).
I went to this event because I hoped to hear about how something would develop that could be a positive. It is after all very easy to trash anything, much more difficult to come up with something that might get this going in a positive way.
Has anyone got anything, dare I say it?, positive they could come up with for the use of a local TV station?
So, lets think about this on a bigger level. The community, the very same one that Clancy points out here would be negative if mentioned in the very name of the station, community, taken as a whole, IE, everyone who owns a Telly at least, pays for the BBC. We actually own the BBC if you think about it. Is interaction with channel 8, if it was a ‘Community business’ (as Nick Vat suggested), funded by the money which community pays out (the council, Police, large business adverts etc etc), possibly a way of supporting local activity.
Could channel 8 be a way of engaging more people, people who aren’t involved in ‘twitter feeds, facebook, blog’s’ etc. Or are we in danger of becoming internet snobs?
Suppose we could use channel 8 as the pinnacle of the knowledge of communities, the front door to the activity on line by so many hard working passionate individuals.
Suppose we could use channel 8 to create too many foster parents, eliminate domestic abuse, create too many local jobs for our young people, get people involved in refurbishing empty homes locally so there are no homeless individuals, encourage land use to grow more food locally, I’m sure there’s more to add.
These points too are easy to trash, when you’re thinking about trashing the points I’ve made though, think on this; by not taking a positive stance, by not working together, by being negative, the corporates will have the channel. They’ll not be bothered about the children in need of a foster parent, the homeless person, the abused wife existing in life rather than having a life. We will have missed a mammoth opportunity to have a stronger society, run by the local people who are mostly treated as ‘Mushrooms’ at the moment – (Kept in the dark and fed on s**t).
I’m not being negative. am I?
I love the optimism that you’re showing but if this event did anything it crushed any optimism that I had. Your battle cry of
“[by] not working together, by being negative, the corporates will have the channel.”
seems irrelevant as it was made abundantly clear that “The Corporates” clearly already have the channel and there is no opportunity to alter that.
Television could help to raise awareness of problems such as the lack of Foster Parents but wouldn’t National Television be a better medium than local TV for something which is so difficult to be specific about in programming?
The negativity in that room was fostered by the panel themselves who, rather than opening with a discussion about what the channel could be and how it could benefit the city and in turn the wider area, they chose to pitch it to us as though we were potential investors that were desperate to get down to a profitability assessment.
I had my say on the night but I’ll try to keep this tight. This as an idea is lovely, but in reality no body will watch it, or not in enough number. We have local BBC news on TV and Radio, great web content and an army of local newspapers with their own websites and other websites. We don’t need this.
Why spend such a tiny budget on the most expensive media? I always thought a good business idea was to start small and grow. You open a small shop and then blossom to become M&S. Do this online if you’re going to do it anywhere. Then if it works move it to local TV, although why you would do that is beyond me.
£150k will go nowhere, it will barely fund the production of these news items for the BBC. Then the rest has to come from local advertising. Ask the current crop of local media and the recently deceased Leeds Guide about local advertising. It is hard to come by, let alone at the level to fund a local TV station.
I also echo the question about panel members. The young girl seemed nice enough but the idea that ‘young people’ would tune in to view local listings was as crazy as the idea that ‘young people’ would tune in at all. Would you wait for a listings show or head online and find out what’s going on?
I’ve been in Leeds for 8yrs now and I’m always getting hit by the idea that Leeds wants to prove a point. We need a tram to prove we’re as big as Sheffield and Manchester, we need a park right in the city centre etc. Instead, I’d like Leeds to say, you know what, this would have been a great idea 20 years ago but now it’s just pointless. Then when it all falls down in five years time we can say “Hey, we’re Leeds and we we right”, instead we will be seen as a silly city that thought local TV was a great idea.
I know this will be tagged as more negativity but I see it as realism. Leeds doesn’t have to be positive about everything, sometimes we need to stand up and say this isn’t right for us.
I agree with you on this on every point except one. The Tram had nothing to do with proving a point. Leeds has an abysmal public transit system which doesn’t come close to serving the needs of its inhabitants. The point of the tram was to provide a clean method of traversing the city at low cost to the service users and not about drawing comparisons with Manchester.
Every time anyone suggests doing something in Leeds someone will say that is an attempt to emulate Manchester. This is a ridiculous way to look at things, assess the need of each suggestion by all means but don’t avoid a project simply because a similar project has been attempted in another city.
Ironically the only thing in which Manchester hasn’t been prominently mentioned is the Local TV debate. TV:M existed and failed, and no-one is talking about it.
I whole heartedly agree with you Matt.
I am an interested party with no ties to broadcasting whatsoever. I attended the “debate”and quite frankly was astonished by the tone of the evening. The panel was quite predictable… humble apologies to the only female on the panel, but I didn’t feel it was a debate of any description. It seemed more like a done deal, with the licenses being granted this summer.
If anything I felt like Cinderella… It kinda felt a little like I was invited to the ball only to find I’m stood on the red carpet with no hope of getting in… simply there to make up the numbers.
Also, it has to be said that there are people in the Leeds area who are already providing a fantastic service. Culturevultures (many thanks to you for putting on the evening!!) Leeds Television, Yorkshire Telly to name a few are already doing it. Perhaps the question could be, how can the £150,000 aid and develop these wonderful agencies to work together?
We have a habit of reinventing the wheel in the UK. I’m sure there’s a way for all interested parties to collaborate on “West Yorkshire Cities TV”. And it would need to incorporate a wide area. It simply doesn’t make sense to keep it within the Leeds City boundaries.
I know what I WOULD make time to watch: a half hour programme on the latest PFI housing deal in Leeds; a video of Phil Kirby ranting as he walks along Dewsbury Rd; a feature on an unsigned local maker of great dubstep; a history of “Leeds, the Motorway City”, and lots of the kind of news that our local media can’t be arsed to cover…
Is that the kind of thing the people bidding to run the station will be putting on? Who knows?
Whatever views anybody had at Tuesday’s deeply uninspiring meeting, the bidding is not a popularity contest – the GOVERNMENT decides who gets it, not us. So it’s disappointing that at least two of the bidders (the most local ones) haven’t been willing or able to pool their presumably meagre resources, and have left the field wide open for one of those companies run by men with moustaches in beige suits who want to be in charge of at least half a dozen stations across the country.
The big unknown in all of this is our local papers (the YP and the YEP). They’ve been courted without success by some of the bidders, because they’re the only organisation in the city with the capability to run a decent comprehensive news-gathering operation.
Trouble is, their owners (Johnston Press) have just decided they’re getting new websites and going “digital first”. Sounds to me like they’re aiming to end up with just the kind of local multi-media platform that the other bidders are dreaming of getting by the back door through a local TV license. No wonder that the Johnston Press blokie on the platform wasn’t saying anything.
There’s some great and very differing comments on here, so I’ll throw mine in as well even though they are more questions/thoughts than comments.
The first point to make is that this is happening. We could turn round to Jeremy Hunt and say we don’t want it but that won’t put us as a city in good light for future proposals that we might want. Politically it’s unlikely to be an option. So it’s coming, whether we want it or not. The questions is what to do with it? Do we do nothing and pass this over to a national bidder and watch it fizzle out as we don’t think we need it? Or do we try to provide local content that might actually be engaging?
For me the content is key. Two things worry me with this:
1. The guidelines for how much sport/news/entertainment we need to provide. For the channel to be truly unique surely the local audience need to dictate the content mix? If it’s a rehashing of listings and news from elsewhere it will hold little interest for anyone. If it’s genuinely fresh content created locally offering an insight into Leeds life then there’s a chance it could be worth watching.
2. The person suggesting this should be about ‘worthy’ causes and offering jobs for local youths and outreach for those suffering from domestic violence. I wouldn’t tune in for this and I doubt those audiences you’re trying to reach would either. People are working with those audiences in a media that suits them – which isn’t TV. The idea of anything that is used as vehicle to ‘engage communities’ and ‘reach hard to reach audiences’ is an instant turn off for most.
The young audience question was interesting. Whilst Mercedes didn’t get much chance to speak at the event what she did say was not dismissive of the idea of a local TV channel and put to bed the rumour that the youth of today don’t watch TV. It comes back to content – what the youth of today watch not whether they watch at all. Then how they interact across other platforms. Ben raises a good point a lot of user-generated social media content is talking about local life and what people saw on TV. The Leeds Young People’s Film Festival last week was an indicator of how relevant film and television can still be to a younger audience is programmed right.
For me there needs to be a clearer view of what programmes we can expect to see on this channel before we can judge if it will work or not. Bidders need to be lobbying harder for the rules and regulations governing the channel to have more of a local focus if it really is local TV, otherwise we will have several new ‘local’ stations that all look the same and aren’t actually ‘local’ at all.
I’m still sat on the fence but happy to be influenced if anyone else has the answers.
Just to clarify, I wasn’t suggesting we have a public information film on DV or fostering etc. I was thinking more on the lines of a story, inclusive of issues, which would get messages out.
I did say channel 8 could be the front of house to other media available. (Meaning social media content which could be used for channel 8?)
We do have such a wealth of talent that I’m sure we could engage to get this stuff out there. I’m not against a bit of singing, dancing, local gardening, etc etc, it’s community choice, whatever floats your boat. (Boat building?).
I rather thought we could be creative, well, someone could be, who is creative, I probably haven’t got a creative bone in my body. Someone will have though.
The point I was making is that, if it’s run locally in some form then this local form would be in charge. Thats better than a faceless corporate isn’t it?
Albert I do love your name, and some of your ideas too, but why hide? Do you fear people knowing your opinions? Leeds is a village for sure but you’ve not said anything that would get you into a fist fight or sacked from work have you?
I was part of the consultation with Jeremy Hunt last April and told him that what was being proposed was already obsolete; creatively, technologically & socially. Ominously, he seemed to agree.
You wanna make local TV?
You no longer need licensed spectrum, government permission or regulatory oversight. The tools of production are dirt cheap and the means of distribution are pretty much ubiquitous.
Worried about universality for those without access to broadband or mobility? Well, it’s gonna keep trending up, perhaps not evenly, but certainly upwards. Build infrastructures for the future, not for a declining past.
Why would you want locally produced content to be geographically limited in audience? With distribution regulated by broadcast restrictions and content bounded by license conditions? Build local, but stream global. Your audiences are everywhere, not just in Harehills or Beeston.
Learn from TED… ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Zo53M0lcY ).
Pitch & fund on Kickstarter.
#JFDI.
Emma
I’m not hiding, Just that I wanted an opinion of me own without judgment one way or another on what I do or who I am.
Partly it’s because of the negativity that has developed around the local TV concept, I don’t do ‘fence sitting’, I didn’t want to offend the negative thinkers, but I wanted an outlet to what I thought. I found it very liberating actually.
Albert
Hello – I just blogged myself over at http://richardhorsman.com inspired by Leanne’s original report of the Leeds local TV meeting, then checked in back here to find a debate raging; and that I’m not the only sceptic.
Keep up the good work reporting developments. If local TV happens in Leeds it could be very significant, not least for existing local media. If I were still working in commercial radio I’d be especially concerned about the new boys and girls fishing in my pool.
The local TV debate rages on nationally and in Leeds, and as it does we learn. I share the many valid concerns raised in this blog and I certainly don’t have all the answers.
For the benefit of those who did not attend, please permit me to repeat some of the things I said in the #TVLeeds panel discussion; and for those of you who were there, there are some links I will share that may get your juices flowing a bit more.
What I think is:
1. There is an opportunity and we all need to toss it about a bit to develop a better understanding of what it is. Some good questions to think about are:
* What are the reasons for having Local broadcast TV?
* The schedule is key, what would be in yours?
* How does Local broadcast TV complement or be a portal to other media (such as the Internet)?
My sense is that it is a good opportunity with positive (obviously) ramifications on local communities and the local economy and the people who should be interested are local communities and the public and private organisations that serve them. Importantly, it’s got to be seen as a medium for community engagement and dialogue (not just one-way traffic).
2. Someone is going to win the Leeds license and the people of Leeds need to know whether or not they want to get involved, and how best to do so. What’s really interesting is that the bid process is going to be a ‘beauty parade’ in which bidders are going to have to demonstrate:
* How they will enable the attainment of Jeremy Hunt’s vision of localism (local engagement and debate)(VISION);
* Their relevant and compliant schedule (QUALITY); and
* Their financially viable business model (SUSTAINABILITY).
I think the best bids will be those produced on the back of some serious engagement in the relevant local communities and with the whole-hearted support of those communities and the public organisations that support and serve them.
3. There is a way to make Local TV work, where everybody could be a winner. The essence is that it needs to be owned and run by the local community with a clear mandate to support the attainment of relevant local community outcomes, supported by private and public investment but not requiring a profit, and enabled by media services supplied ‘in bulk’ to a consortium of Local TV stations.
Here are some interesting links:
a. What’s the government (BBC) investing and how will the funding work?
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/consultation_responses/local-tv_making-the-vision-happen.pdf
Thoughts: Go straight to page 31 for the answers to this question; the whole document is quite informative though if you really want to get into it.
b. Would anybody watch it?
http://www.attentional.com/farid-el-husseinis-blog/2012/04/03/the-value-of-epg-prominence/
Thoughts: By making it visible it will draw attention; of course to get repeat viewers it’s going to have to deliver something worth paying attention to.
c. Compared to other media, how effective is Local TV advertising?
http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1818
Thoughts: Even with concerns about viewership, would local businesses divert some of their advertising investment? There is a compelling case to give this serious consideration.
d. What parts of the Leeds area are covered, and what’s the potential audience?
http://maps.ofcom.org.uk/localtv/downloads/ofcom-uk-local-tv-report-2011.pdf
Thoughts: Ofcom have provided some very useful information and statistics; now we really need to understand the local populations.
e. Hear it from the ‘horses mouth’; podcasts of Jeremy Hunt and others at a recent event.
http://www.salford.tv/multimedia/2012/podcasts/podcasts2012.html
Thoughts: You could spend a whole day listening to all of this, at least give Track01 an hour of your time.
Sceptics to the local TV proposition can be forgiven as the economics of Local TV are very challenging. Those bidding for the licenses are however convinced it can work – otherwise they would not be bidding. But don’t expect a white knight coming forward to defend its financial viability as we are still in the bidding phase of the awards so it makes no sense to disclose any strategic advantages.
My advise: Lets simply assume local TV’s commercial viability and focus on creating a COMMUNITY FORUM where we all can discuss CONTENT. Not only is this a far more enjoyable topic for community engagement but the eventual bidder will also do well to listen in to what their potential audience want! This would be a great way to support local TV, and trust me whoever gets the license will need ALL the support they can get! The BBC’s contribution to local TV content is only a fraction of local TV’s annual operating costs. A city the size of Leeds should budget in excess of £1m for year 1 launch. There are no profit margins here that would get any would be investor or bank manager excited. Its high risk stuff and I applaud anyone who has taken an interest in heading this project for this city. They are either brave or mad or both. Regardless of who funds this project, local TV can only be good for Leeds, and it stands a better chance of succeeding if we all gave it a chance. Lets support it.