The news from where you REALLY are?

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has a vision.   If he is able to realise it, then large parts of the country will soon be served by their own local television service.   That's right - local. 

Content emanating from the next cul-de-sac, not the next county.    Television news tailored to the community it serves.   What's not to like?    In principle, nothing.   After all, other sub-national media naturally gravitate to the local rather than the regional - local radio, local press, even hyper-local websites.   Yet television in the UK has traditionally been a different story.

Whilst the establishment of the different BBC and ITV regions was often more an accident of history and transmission sites than any plan to form geographically cohesive areas, the regional nature of television news in the UK now has a fifty-year heritage.   Audiences never seem to have balked at the concept - rather they embraced the idea of regionality when it came to television, proudly and affectionately taking regional stations and personalities to heart.   Regional television, largely through its news coverage, helped to reflect - and even forge - a wider geographical identity than had ever before been the case.    Witness the fact that for several generations, the North West of England was often simply referred to as "Granadaland".

Time has undoubtedly moved on - sadly, non-news regional shows have all but been consigned to television history and the share of viewing for regional news programmes themselves has steadily declined in a digital era which offers so much more choice than news and, er, news at 6.00pm.   However, one thing which has never been called into question by the viewing public is the notion of news at a regional level.   In fact, so ingrained is the concept of regionality in television, that in an OFCOM survey, respondents attached equal weight to the importance of regional news as to events affecting their own immediate locality (1).

All of which is not to say viewers do not appreciate regional news on a smaller, more coherent scale.   It is difficult to imagine modern-day viewers accepting the super-region that was the unceremoniously-joined North West and Yorkshire, the sprawling coverage area for the BBC's North at Six back in the early '60s.   Regions steadily became smaller on both the BBC and ITV over the next few decades, with sub-regional opt-outs eventually giving way to dedicated programmes for these new mini-regions.   Unfortunately, by 2009, financial pressures caused ITV in particular to row back on these commitments, re-merging split regions like Yorkshire and Central and even creating pan regions out of once separate entities like Tyne Tees and Border. 

Yet the disquiet at some of these changes was surely an endorsement of television news at the regional level - as long as it was the meaningful regional level which viewers had come to expect.   Even in these straightened times, the ITV licencees which have seen changes to their borders continue to provide significant amounts of split programming to ensure their regional news retains that 'closer-to-home' feel.   Meanwhile, in Scotland, STV has been able to expand its sub-regional coverage after viewers responded well to the pilot of a more targeted service.

The proposals for local TV were born out of uncertainty over the future of regional news provision on ITV when the current Channel 3 licences come up for renewal in 2014 - for the first time in a fully digital televisual world.   So with the BBC guaranteed to continue producing quality regional content, why not experiment with local TV as a complementary, but distinct, alternative?

It is possible that local TV could hasten or encourage ITV Plc's exit from the regional news map.  That would be a spectacular own-goal given that Hunt's plan is at least partially designed to protect plurality.   Initially, at least, the budgets and audiences for the new services are unlikely to provide the robust competition for the BBC which is currently generated by the healthy rivalry with ITV.   And when there is genuine plurality in news provision, it is always the output - and so the viewer - which is the winner.

Moreover, television is a big medium which thrives on telling big stories.   Of course, regional television does - and should - cover the worthy and the worthwhile.    However, the large geographical footprint of the regions provides opportunity for light and shade in the running orders.   City-based stations would find themselves covering the minutiae of life in the area, something which radio and the press does effectively, but which does not necessarily transfer well onto the small screen.   

It would be trite to say of some of the proposed locations for local TV that nothing much happens there - but that does not mean enough happens there to support an entire television station.    Even some of the bigger cities with experience of local television from the mid-'90s onwards (like Liverpool and Manchester) have seen these services either fold or become hollow shells of their original intentions.   Editorial sustainability, as much as commercial viability, will be a key factor in the success or otherwise of these new ventures - and, in an unproven market in much of the UK, neither can be guaranteed.

So can local TV work?   Of course - in a decade's time, we might be wondering what took us so long in this country to embrace a concept which thrives in other parts of the world.   However, at a time of increasing uncertainty over the future of regional news outside the BBC, is it the surest way to secure a diversity of news providers?   My instinct would be to find a sustainable way to carry on doing what we have long done so well - making the regional relevant.   

(1)    New News, Future News, OFCOM (2007)

The power of the package

The opening and closing segments of last week's BBC Politics Show could have been produced as a tutorial for trainee broadcast journalists.    The programme was helpfully bookended with demonstrations of two very different ways of covering a story -  first, the big, set-piece interview, where the heavyweight journalist grills guests from opposite sides of a particular debate, perhaps generating a headline for that day's other news programmes in the process;  last, the pre-recorded package, an altogether more reserved affair, which epitomises the broadcast news conventions of balance and fairness, using carefully selected contributors to guide the viewer/listener through a story in a short space of time.

Both have their place, of course - but the success of one is heavily dependent on the other.   Live interviews and debates are an invaluable method of putting decision-makers and opinion-formers on the spot and exposing them and their views to scrutiny.   In a journalist, they require a quick mind and copious amounts of research, ideally to cover every eventually.   They are challenging to conduct and often theatrical to watch - at their best, they can be an adrenaline rush both for the participants and those at the other end of a television or radio.

Yet what if the subject under discussion is one about which the viewer or listener is not fully informed?   Will they really engage with the topic, listening intently to glean any snippets of hard fact that might emerge from the debate - or will their interest wain in the cacophony of claim and counter-claim?   And, if it does, could their attention have been better held by setting up the story with a package (as discussed elsewhere)?   Imagine Newsnight without the packages.   Just a constant stream of consciousness from guests wanting to get their point across.   Would we really be that much better informed by the end of the proceedings?   

As for the example from the latest Politics Show, it was editorially entirely justifiable to cover the two stories in the way in which the programme did.   The first topic - the public sector strikes - necessitated the interrogation given to the two main protagonists in the story, the unions and the government.   While the packaged story - which trailed this week's Autumn Statement - lent itself to a more considered approach.   Yet even as somebody taking a keen interest in the news, I found myself distracted during the live interview, busy trying to call to mind the minutiae of the issue, prompted by certain references made by the contributors - a mini package beforehand might have given me the best chance of getting the most out of the subsequent interview.

The package - thankfully - remains the default unit of broadcast news.   Television news bulletins, at least, could not properly function without it.   However, it has endured a recent period of being considered rather unfashionable in some quarters.

While Radio 4's very deliberate brand of pause-punctuated packages continue to dominate the station's news programmes, packages on local radio became an endangered species in the 2000s.   On commercial radio, this was a fait accompli, as the time given over to extended bulletins (remember them?) dwindled to almost nothing.   On the BBC, meanwhile, the trend was for presenter-led news programmes, a tactic which usually resulted in a story being told via the live guest (usually over the phone), in much the same way as described above.   "Don't give the listener the opportunity to tune away" - an oft-used mantra in radio - but why the presumption that the package provides an excuse to do so?     Even on television, the advent of the superfluous pre-package introduction from the reporter in the field seemed to be subliminally apologising to the viewer for what was to follow -  "I'm so sorry, but I'm now going to have to force you to watch a package." 

The implication of all this seemed to be that the package should be tolerated only when no other suitable device could be conjured up.   Of course, all programmes need and benefit from lives, two-ways and the rest, but the package was fast acquiring the stigma of being uncreative.    Yet anybody with an interest in the art of broadcast news need only witness the packages produced by the best in the business to understand that this aspect of journalism is, indeed, an art.   Watch the workmanship of a Paul Mason extended package on Newsnight or the master craftsman at ITV News like John Irvine, Bill Neely and (taking the baton for the next generation) Geraint Vincent - subtly, they impart information and leave impressions without appearing to do either.

Similarly, in radio, IRN stalwarts Kevin Murphy and Political Editor Peter Murphy made necessary brevity a speciality.   When radio news bulletins usually provide thirty seconds to cover a story, a two or three minute package is a gift from the radio gods, which the best reporters can use to great effect.

The package gives a story room to breathe, to garner an understanding of each side of a debate.   Crucially, it also offers a platform for the facts, which are sometimes a casualty of other methods of covering of a story.   The package requires incisive, yet uncomplicated writing, the creation of an easily understood, but never simplistic, narrative and the ability to match words with pictures or to use atmospheric sound to bring a story to life.   All of which requires real skill and makes real impact - that's the power of the package.