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)
