Drawing the line between local and regional

The news that STV - the operator of Scotland's two Channel 3 licences - has won the local licences for Edinburgh and Glasgow is another interesting twist in the embryonic story of local TV.

At first glance, it appeared a strange notion for the regional, heritage broadcaster to be setting up in seeming competition with itself.   If its local offering were to prove 'too good', then the regional ratings would surely suffer.   A quality localised service (of the kind an established broadcaster like STV is surely capable) could tempt viewers to rethink their attachment to a wider region and become as alligned with the idea of local news in vision as they are with it in print.

Even more curious is the fact that STV already has one of the most localised services on the ITV network, with separate programmes for North, West and East Scotland and further sub-regional opt-outs within them.   As this blog has mused elsewhere, viewers seem to respond well to the regional so long as it is relevant - a feat STV has apparently achieved.   Direct competition from well-resourced local TV might result in a fight to the death - of either one service or the other.

Yet the channel says it can create local TV stations which can "complement" the established output.   And there are undoubtedly benefits to the idea of having an interest in both regional and local services.   Clearly, there is massive potential for cross-promotion.   News-in-brief items that would never make full packages on a regional programme could be highlighted as being covered in more detail on the local channel, for those interested in finding out more.   One of the biggest challenges facing local TV is generating an awareness amongst its potential audience.   The other big challenge - financial stability - will be partly addressed by economies of scale and use of shared facilities, which ultimately might prove the difference between viability and failure.

The heavy involvement of the broadcast journalism courses at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities not only provides an enviable training ground for students, but also ensures that the local services will look somewhat different to their regional counterparts.   That is not to belittle student efforts in producing high quality output (as one who has sweated blood over in-house university news programmes), but the local stations will necessarily be offering a different style of journalism - and could even flourish for it.

Scheduling will be a trickier issue to resolve.   The local stations are tied to broadcasting news and current affairs output at peak time, inevitably prompting a clash with the flagship regional programmes at some point.   Yet even this shouldn't prove an insurmountable problem.

Perhaps the biggest benefit to the channel of being involved at both the regional and local level is also the most obvious one - whatever choice viewers make, there is every chance they will still be choosing STV.

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.