Jeremy Hunt’s ‘let the market decide’ local TV proposals are a vision for Tesco Britain

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 19 January 2011 at 12:54
Tags: Broadcasting, ITV, local, newspapers, regional newspapers

Every time Jeremy Hunt talks about local TV my heart sinks a little further and I feel a little gloomier about the prospects for regional  broadcast journalism post 2014.

ITV regional news currently employs around 600 editorial staff and is subsidised to the tune of up to £50m a year by ITV. Post 2014, when ITV’s current licence comes up for renewal it will be able to argue that it no more has a duty to fund loss-making regional broadcasting in a digital world than does QVC, Babestation or any of the other Freeview channels.

This is set against the backdrop of a regional newspaper industry which  lost around one in five of its estimated 12,000 journalists over the last few years.

Hunt talks a good game when it comes to the importance of supporting local communities – but his answer, when it comes to providing those communities  with quality information which holds those in power to account – is a reckless throw of the free market dice.

In his speech to the Oxford Media Convention today, he seemed to be saying: let’s remove all the regulation, provide a tenth of the subsidy and see what the market comes up with for local TV. I hope it works, but such a Poundshop approach to regional broadcasting will find itself hopelessly out-gunned by the Waitrose-style service offered by the BBC.

I fear that without more state help, public service broadcasting outside the BBC will disappear leaving us with Tesco Britain – where localness and difference has been sacrificed at the altar of the market.

Ofcom: ‘We must safeguard public service broadcasting, let’s dismantle ITV News’

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 1 October 2008 at 12:36
Tags: BBC, ITV

ITV’s dramatic cuts to editorial jobs outlined yesterday expose a paradox in media regulator Ofcom’s proposals for the future of public service broadcasting.

ITV announced yesterday that it planned to cut staffing in its regional news broadcasting division from 1,075 to 646. It has yet to reveal how many of those affected will be journalists.

This followed Ofcom’s finding last Thursday that ITV should be allowed to scale back its public service broadcasting commitments as the benefits of having a terrestrial TV broadcasting licence evaporate in the run-up to complete digital switch over in 2012.

ITV’s cutbacks will include the merger of six of the current ITV regions: Border and Tyne Tees TV regions, West and Westcountry, and Meridian and Thames Valley.

But while allowing ITV to dismantle its regional broadcast news network – Ofcom also said last week that public service broadcasting outside the BBC was essential in the post 2012 world and that public funding of up to £420 million will be needed to fund it.

Ofcom has put forward three proposals for how these millions should be spent – all of which envisage a smaller role for ITV.

It seems perverse and illogical of Ofcom to say that public service broadcasting – and so regional news – outside the BBC must continue after 2012, while at the same time allowing our nation’s network of regional broadcast TV newsrooms to be destroyed.

If we are going to have to start again from scratch in 2012 quality will suffer to say nothing of the unneccessary hardship being inflicted on many skilled and experienced broadcast journalists whose services are being tossed aside.

If Ofcom is serious about protecting public service broadcasting outside the BBC – it needs to find a way to protect ITV’s news infrastructure, while at the same time accepting that its output could be used in a very different way in future.

Public funding should be found to protect ITV’s regional news bureaus and if neccessary sever them from ITV Plc – which clearly is far more interested in maximising short-term profit than it is in safeguarding its regional broadcast news network.

These regional news stations should be protected as agencies which could provide broadcast TV news wherever it is needed after 2012 – whether that is to TV sets via the digital spectrum of channels or via the internet to computers and mobile phones.

Commissioning another series of Animals Do the Funniest Things is no doubt a quicker way to make short-term profits for ITV than investing in news and documentaries.

ITV will find itself in a rapid race to the bottom if it stakes its future on quick profts from cheap trashy telly – rather than the sort of unique service it could provide by continuing to invest in news.

In the meantime Ofcom should fulfil its stated aim of protecting independent TV broadcast news by acting now to protect our network of broadcast TV journalists.

Grade drops the big one

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 12 September 2007 at 14:40
Tags: ITV

Michael Grade appears to have dropped the big one today with the news that journalists on ITV News in the regions must have been dreading ever since digital switch-over has been on the horizon.
He is proposing to cut the number of news regions from 17 to 9 and halve the news budget.
With digital switch over, due to start next year, the commercial advantage from having an analogue TV broadcasting licence is fast disappearing. And with ever faster broadband speeds, even a digital TV licence could become increasingly cheapened.
All this makes it more difficult for Ofcom to demand public service benefits – such as news coverage – from commercial broadcasters.
And it appears that, given the choice, ITV would rather invest in entertainment programming rather than news.
It seems unthinkable that with public involvement in democratic debate already at an all-time low – the Government would allow such a dramatic reduction in journalistic resources throughout the UK.
The question now is what can be done to save non-BBC regional television news?

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