Fade to black?

So, in the most widely expected of early announcements by the new government, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has pulled the plug on the independently-financed news consortia due to be piloted later this year.   Barely twelve months after their inception in Lord Carter's Digital Britain report, they have become a casualty of Britain's uncertain plans for the future of public service broadcasting in the digital age.

Ultra local television has been heralded by the coalition as the saviour of plurality in broadcast journalism in the nations and regions, should ITV decide that it can no longer honour its commitments to regional news.   Several commentators and industry insiders have now begun to ask the obvious questions about the financial viability of such a plan.   Factor in the dubious editorial sustainability and resultant quality of hyper local broadcast news and the proposal is far from an appealing one to those of us who value regional broadcast journalism.   Parochial news on the cheap?   Hardly an enticing prospect.

The IFNCs were not without their flaws, both ideological and practical.   Their worth would largely have depended on the make-up of the groups chosen to run them.   Now we'll never know for certain whether they would have been a success.   They were, however, at least a stop gap, where now only a void appears to exist.

In an ideal world, ITV would find a sustainable way of staying in the game.  Sadly, the world of regional television news is anything but ideal.

What next for regional news?

So, where does OFCOM's slightly surprising announcement of its preferred bidders for the ITV regional news pilots leave this interminable debate?   The failure of ITN to win control of any of the three schemes can surely not have been the outcome anybody expected.   It means that the Scottish and Tyne Tees/Border pilots are to be operated by newspaper groups and television production companies with little or no track record in broadcast news.   That doesn't mean it is impossible for them to be editorially successful, but plans in the Scottish bid to include ultra-local news provided by community groups and children has raised concerns that the ouput might be rather parochial for regional television news.

In the Scottish case, it also creates the invidious situation of requiring STV to surrender its regional news slots, in spite of the fact that, unlike ITV Plc in England and Wales, it has never sought to do so.   Indeed, STV has increased its sub-regional opt-outs and, as part of the ITN consortium for the Scottish pilot, planned to create a more rounded, outward-looking news offering in Scotland.   It does seem a perverse outcome that STV might be forced out of regional news provision when it has never suggested that it wanted to walk away from its licence obligation in that regard.   The pre-occupation with trialling the independently-financed consortia in the nations, as well as the regions, meant that the possibility of such an outcome was overlooked.

Added to the mix is an apparent softening of ITV's position when it comes to the future of regional news on the channel.   Chairman Archie Norman has said it is an important strand of ITV's output, a very diffferent tone to the one set by his predecessor, Michael Grade, who started the stopwatch ticking on the demise of the channel's newsgathering presence in the regions.   

Meanwhile, the Tories remain implaccably opposed to the IFNC concept and, with the contracts now unable to be signed this side of a general election, they could be in a position to scupper the entire scheme.   As could ITV, if it decides not to surrender its airtime and either maintains its own output or walks away from regional news altogether.

So at least the future looks a bit more certain, then.  

Regional news re-think?

A change of government in the Spring would doubtless have many consequences.   One of the less publicised (and, to many minds, less important) of these would be its effect on the future of regional news provision on ITV.   The Tories are now openly admitting they would scrap the fledgling concept of independently-financed news consortia (IFNCs).

This is hardly surprising, given their lukewarm response to last year's Digital Britain report, in which the proposal was first mooted.   What is surprising is their proposed solution - the creation of more than eighty "local media companies", which will be able to take advantage of plans for a burgeoning number of local television licences.   These LMCs will apparently generate sufficient advertising revenue across print, broadcast and on-line and will require no government subsidy, either directly or through the licence fee - the very reason the Tories run for the hills whenever IFNCs are mentioned.

This seems a curious standpoint for two reasons.   First, given the collapsing revenue and readership levels of the traditional local print media, why would LMCs with their websites (a concept with which most local newspapers are familiar) and their substandard television channels be any more successful?   Second, what would their presence mean for said crumbling local media, apart from a more rapid decline?

Meanwhile, even ITV is trying to distance itself from IFNCs, in spite of the fact that they were created as a solution to what the company claimed was an acute financial drain on ever-dwindling resources.   Contention over on-air branding and generation of advertising revenue around regional news lots (thereby reducing its potential ad minutage around peaktime audience grabbers) are the two most significant issues.   Yet surely these are mere sticking points in comparison to the implacable objection of a future government.

Encouragingly, there has been no shortage of bidders for the pilot schemes due to operate in Scotland, Wales and the Tyne Tees/Border areas.   Those of us keen to see the survival of a plural system of regional television news will be hoping some pretty watertight contracts are signed before May.    

Redrawing the map for ITV regional news

At last - an announcement about the future of ITV in the regions which isn't just about allowing further drift towards the impending digital glacier looming larger than ever on the broadcasting horizon.

For so long we've been used to OFCOM and the Department for Culture Media and Sport acquiescing to ITV's (from a commercial outlook, understandable) demands to reduce its presence in the regions.   First, the non-news regional quota was slashed and then virtually abolished.   Next, network production outside bases in London and Manchester sharply declined and once iconic production centres like Central and Yorkshire were reduced to little more than a collection of offices.   Finally, and most damagingly, various regions and sub-regions were merged to create geographically meaningless newsgathering areas - viewers suddenly found that their 'regional' news could now encompass places as far as two hundred miles away.

As a fan of ITV regional news and a firm believer in plurality, I feared for the future - I feared whether there was a future.   The announcement late last week by Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw that trials of so-called Independently-Financed News Consortia (IFNCs) would begin next year (in the Scotland, Wales, Tyne Tees and Border areas) was a welcome one.   It is probably not the panacea I would like to be, but it's a step in the right direction.

There are certainly some issues which need addressing, the most obvious being the question of where the "independent finance" comes from.   The perceived wisdom is that it will originate from that part of the licence fee reserved in recent years for funding the digital switchover.   That is top-slicing in all but name.   Personally, I am surprisingly indifferent about it, but it is far from a done deal.

Another issue is the composition of the consortia themselves.   Several local newspaper groups view INFCs as a much-needed way of diversifying, but concerns have been expressed about the ability of print media to operate a broadcast-led operation.   For me, local newspapers undoubtedly have a contribution to make in this evolving model, although I would probably be more comfortable with an established broadcast news provider like ITN taking the lead.

Then there's the Tories.   The other side of a general election, a future Conservative government would seem to favour taking the IFNC approach beyond what I believe to be its logical conclusion.   Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested creating a network of local TV stations, adopting some aspects of the successful American model.    In the States, there is competition between local broadcasters serving the same populations.   Hunt concedes that there isn't the scale for this in the U.K., but believes monopolies of privately-funded local commercial broadcasters could be created.

As far as I'm concerned, the U.S. model, albeit modified, simply doesn't transfer to the U.K..   Local television news, let alone local television per se, would be too parochial and poorly funded to attract an audience.   It could only mimic what local radio and the struggling provincial press already does so well - but which would be too naff to contemplate on screen.   It would replicate the problem in local radio about ten years ago, whereby heritage stations with large populations were allowed to jettison many of their news commitments, whilst ultra-local stations had unrealistic quotas imposed on them even though they served unsustainably small audiences.   Television is much more deft at reflecting, perhaps even forging, a strong regional identity in otherwise disparate areas.

That's not to say the slightly anachronistic map of the ITV regions shouldn't be redrawn.   There are clear anomalies, such as the presence of the Scottish Borders in an English ITV franchise.   Other tweaks to questionable border demarcations could also be made and, at the very least, the level of regionality enjoyed by viewers pre-2009 should be reinstated.   This is eminently possible, since the annual budget for ITV regional news stood at £100 million before this year's mergers and that is now the level of funding being suggested for the IFNCs.   Noises from the DCMS suggest that they share my sentiment and it is one aspect of the proposals which should be non-negotiable.   If broadcast regional news needs one thing to survive it is an injection of relevance.

There is still plenty to be finalised, both about the trials themselves and any concrete inception of IFNCs in the near future.   For once, though, I'm excited - and it's a long time since I've been able to say that about the future of regional news on ITV.