Is local TV sustainable?
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced plans to lift restrictions on the ownership of local media in a bid to make British TV less centralised.
In his call for a "landscape of local TV services" around the UK, Mr Hunt says that local people have the right to local content. Citing the televised election debates, he suggests a local version, to elect town mayors for example, would be important to local people.
Enterprising broadcasters would be encouraged by an easing of the rules governing media ownership and by support to link TV areas to create partnership working with advertisers.
But haven't we been here before? A decade or so ago Trinity launched a new cable-based channel, Channel One, a TV station to serve the Liverpool City Region. The station was supported with content through the Daily Post and Echo's newsrooms and with funding from the cable supplier, keen to drive viewers.
However there's a delicate balance between viewing figures and advertising revenue and once the cable firm's funding finished, this balance just didn't work. I'd suggest a similar issue arose for Manchester's Channel M.
The problem with local channels is that local advertisers are skeptical. The fact that the majority of these channels will be broadcast on the internet makes it even more difficult to get reliable viewer figures, a basic 'must have' for anybody deciding where to place their advertising spend.
Mr Hunt's vision of channels that could be "broadcasting for as little as one hour a day" might be great for community activists putting out podcasts with an i-phone from their back bedroom. I'd question if it'll stack up for more commercial operations.
Time will tell, but while the Government can encourage localisation, it can't force it.
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