TECHNOLOGY is great when it works. When it doesn’t, it is a mind-numbing, business killing, debilitating nightmare.
None of these thoughts is very original, but I am prompted to utter them because of a chain of telecommunications challenges that have dominated my week.
First the landline in and out of our house went dead, overnight Monday to Tuesday. I used my mobile to telephone BT who supply the service and found myself talking to a nice young lady, by the sound of her, in Bangalore.
I pointed out I was paying for the phone call, so she agreed to ring me back. When she did, and while she had me on the phone, she did a diagnostic and found that BT had an “underground” problem. It could not be fixed straight away as a contractor had to be called in.
I had no choice but to accept this, forgetting that the internet line on which both my, and my wife’s, businesses depend used the BT lines. So that jacked up the scale of the problem.
I phoned Bangalore again. They repeated there was no hope of repair until Friday. Then we started getting phone calls on the landline. But when we tried to ring out the line was so crackly that it was impossible to conduct a conversation.
The internet was lost most of the time, although flickered on tantalisingly now and then.
On Wednesday morning my mobile stopped sending SMS messages, commonly known as texts. All attempts met with the little red cross that means a message has not been sent.
I couldn’t use BT to phone the company which supplies my mobile service, Vodafone, as recommended, so had to ring on the mobile. That meant they had to talk me through the procedure, then ring off and then ring me back to see if it worked.
The SMS had apparently lost network connection, although how it could do this and still make calls was beyond me and the nice young man, from Cairo in Egypt this time, who talked me through the process. We ended up shouting at each other, in an entirely friendly way, across the world’s airwaves down my crackly BT line.
The solution worked, although the Vodafone signal continued to be weak and remains so.
On Thursday the telephone man arrived and used all his clever gizmos to find the fault, which turned out to be a tree interfering with the line 60 metres from my property. It was too high for his ladders so he, and we, had to wait for a cherry picker from another job.
This finally arrived Thursday tea-time and the BT line was restored, along with the Internet and no more crackly phone calls.
Two hours later the electricity went off all together, so the family stumbled around in the dark with torches, making frantic phone calls and being updated on the fault, which turned out to be caused by a fire in a sub-station. Electricity was restored two hours later.
By then I had given up all hope of getting any work done. From Bangalore to Cairo to Britain there were people tried to solve my telecommunications problems.
I lost three days all together. I couldn’t even post this blog until BT had sorted the “underground” cable, which turned out to be so over-ground they couldn’t reach it.
Before rural England gets too uptight about broadband speeds, perhaps it should insist that fundamental modern services, like mobiles, telephones, Internet and even electricity actually work at all.
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Monday, 8 November 2010
The real threat to BBC journalists
THERE is something about being employed by the BBC which shields employees from the real world. That sort of naive idealism is part of its charm and also why it sometimes has a head-on confrontation with the Government, whichever party is in power.
But I fear that its journalists are about to get a rude awakening. The National Union of Journalists has warned the BBC it faces a fresh wave of disruption to news broadcasts that could affect programmes over Christmas.
But in this household at least we actually preferred the presentation of the news by bosses as they battled over the weekend to keep programmes on air during a 48-hour strike organised by the NUJ in a row over pensions.
Perhaps that was because high-profile presenters such as Nicky Campbell, Fiona Bruce, Bill Turnbull and Huw Edwards supported the walkout, leaving the way for less histrionic replacements. Perhaps it was because the facts were given without the endless verbiage of one journalist interviewing another.
The next 48-hour strike, is planned to take place on November 15 and 16. But the NUJ really needs to warn its members what would happen if the BBC was run as a commercial organisation.
The bean counters would be saying to the editorial managers: “Well you managed quite well without those journalists. Why do you need so many?”
Someone in accounts would be measuring the number of stories filed without the journalists and comparing the number with what happens when the journalists are at work.
Quality would be out of the equation. The time taken to research or interview contacts or monitor sources would be ignored.
And next budget time, the head count would be queried and the number of journalist jobs would be cut.
There would be no redundancies, no announcements, no high-profile confrontations. Vacancies would be left unfilled. Journalists would be allowed to retire early.
Particularly vulnerable will be the producers and desk heads who monitor reports to ensure they are accurate and relevant.
Already the war of words has started. BBC chiefs said only one in six employees had joined the strike and that its output was not as badly affected as it feared.
In an email to staff, director general Mark Thompson said: ‘No BBC services have been blacked out or gone off air. However, a few programmes have been lost and our ability to deliver the normal scale and quality of news and journalism to our audiences here and around the world has been impaired.’
Mr Thompson knows that if he doesn’t admit some impact during the strike, he will be undermining his own case when he goes into battle with the bean-counters.
But in austerity Britain with a Government bent on cutting costs, the journalists will not be sure of him winning those battles in the wake of their own strike.
If the BBC doesn’t tackle a £1.5billion pension deficit by putting a cap on rises in pensionable pay at one per cent after April they will have to cut costs elsewhere. It will not have escaped those who hold the purse strings that a deal had been agreed with the other major union, BECTU, which represents camera crew and technicians.
It is only human nature that when the cuts come, the journalists will be in the front line.
But I fear that its journalists are about to get a rude awakening. The National Union of Journalists has warned the BBC it faces a fresh wave of disruption to news broadcasts that could affect programmes over Christmas.
But in this household at least we actually preferred the presentation of the news by bosses as they battled over the weekend to keep programmes on air during a 48-hour strike organised by the NUJ in a row over pensions.
Perhaps that was because high-profile presenters such as Nicky Campbell, Fiona Bruce, Bill Turnbull and Huw Edwards supported the walkout, leaving the way for less histrionic replacements. Perhaps it was because the facts were given without the endless verbiage of one journalist interviewing another.
The next 48-hour strike, is planned to take place on November 15 and 16. But the NUJ really needs to warn its members what would happen if the BBC was run as a commercial organisation.
The bean counters would be saying to the editorial managers: “Well you managed quite well without those journalists. Why do you need so many?”
Someone in accounts would be measuring the number of stories filed without the journalists and comparing the number with what happens when the journalists are at work.
Quality would be out of the equation. The time taken to research or interview contacts or monitor sources would be ignored.
And next budget time, the head count would be queried and the number of journalist jobs would be cut.
There would be no redundancies, no announcements, no high-profile confrontations. Vacancies would be left unfilled. Journalists would be allowed to retire early.
Particularly vulnerable will be the producers and desk heads who monitor reports to ensure they are accurate and relevant.
Already the war of words has started. BBC chiefs said only one in six employees had joined the strike and that its output was not as badly affected as it feared.
In an email to staff, director general Mark Thompson said: ‘No BBC services have been blacked out or gone off air. However, a few programmes have been lost and our ability to deliver the normal scale and quality of news and journalism to our audiences here and around the world has been impaired.’
Mr Thompson knows that if he doesn’t admit some impact during the strike, he will be undermining his own case when he goes into battle with the bean-counters.
But in austerity Britain with a Government bent on cutting costs, the journalists will not be sure of him winning those battles in the wake of their own strike.
If the BBC doesn’t tackle a £1.5billion pension deficit by putting a cap on rises in pensionable pay at one per cent after April they will have to cut costs elsewhere. It will not have escaped those who hold the purse strings that a deal had been agreed with the other major union, BECTU, which represents camera crew and technicians.
It is only human nature that when the cuts come, the journalists will be in the front line.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Waking up to impact of cuts
I fear that the country is still not waking up to the implications of the Coalition government’s plans to cut back on state intervention. This applies particularly to its own supporters.
While all the headlines, quite rightly, are about major issues like housing, jobs, defence, student fees and the like, it is the relatively minor victims of the cut backs that best illustrate their impact. It is in the minutiae of daily life that the pain will be felt.
Arts organisations everywhere in the North West were today having to come to terms with reduced funding. If we cannot afford homes, public services or aircraft carriers, then how on earth can luxuries like festivals expect to get away scot-free.
A good example is South Lakes MP Tim Farron calling on the police to meet to discuss the future of Kendal Torchlight Carnival.
He says the annual event has recently come under threat, with cuts in the Cumbria Police budget pressuring the local constabulary to consider charging for their support on the night.
Apparently the event organisers may be forced to find £15,000 to secure a police presence for the evening, which helps with crowd and traffic management throughout the town. Such a cost burden would almost certainly jeopardise the future of Kendal Torchlight, an event which is organised and managed entirely by local volunteers, said Mr Farron’s statement.
He goes to say: “Kendal Torchlight is a fantastic event for people of all ages across the South Lakes and has become a cherished tradition in the town after 41 years.
“The carnival plays a major role in instilling a sense of community and culture in our area. I, therefore, urge Cumbria Police to consider these merits when finalising their decisions on cut backs. It would be a significant loss to our area and something I will not let go of without a fight.”
Mr Farron is to be commended for pledging to fight student fee hikes, but he cannot expect every organisation in his Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency to escape the effect of the cuts. His party signed up to a Government that thinks it is necessary to reduce police funding. There are bound to be repercussions.
The police have to decide their own priorities. They cannot be blamed if they think Bobbies on the beat and tackling burglaries and violence have precedence over festivals.
Football clubs have for years had to pay the policing of match days, so why should a carnival be any different?
A far better case can be made to events such as the Mintfest International Street Arts Festival, which has been shown to generated £1.6m for the Cumbrian economy. The festival, also in Kendal, attracted thousands of visitors who watched performances by artists, comedians, acrobats, dancers and musicians.
The ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at Manchester University into the impact of the Lakes Alive events in Cumbria showed that Mintfest makes a very important contribution to the local economy. That is the sort of cost effective event that deserves to escape the cuts. And not a policeman was in sight.
While all the headlines, quite rightly, are about major issues like housing, jobs, defence, student fees and the like, it is the relatively minor victims of the cut backs that best illustrate their impact. It is in the minutiae of daily life that the pain will be felt.
Arts organisations everywhere in the North West were today having to come to terms with reduced funding. If we cannot afford homes, public services or aircraft carriers, then how on earth can luxuries like festivals expect to get away scot-free.
A good example is South Lakes MP Tim Farron calling on the police to meet to discuss the future of Kendal Torchlight Carnival.
He says the annual event has recently come under threat, with cuts in the Cumbria Police budget pressuring the local constabulary to consider charging for their support on the night.
Apparently the event organisers may be forced to find £15,000 to secure a police presence for the evening, which helps with crowd and traffic management throughout the town. Such a cost burden would almost certainly jeopardise the future of Kendal Torchlight, an event which is organised and managed entirely by local volunteers, said Mr Farron’s statement.
He goes to say: “Kendal Torchlight is a fantastic event for people of all ages across the South Lakes and has become a cherished tradition in the town after 41 years.
“The carnival plays a major role in instilling a sense of community and culture in our area. I, therefore, urge Cumbria Police to consider these merits when finalising their decisions on cut backs. It would be a significant loss to our area and something I will not let go of without a fight.”
Mr Farron is to be commended for pledging to fight student fee hikes, but he cannot expect every organisation in his Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency to escape the effect of the cuts. His party signed up to a Government that thinks it is necessary to reduce police funding. There are bound to be repercussions.
The police have to decide their own priorities. They cannot be blamed if they think Bobbies on the beat and tackling burglaries and violence have precedence over festivals.
Football clubs have for years had to pay the policing of match days, so why should a carnival be any different?
A far better case can be made to events such as the Mintfest International Street Arts Festival, which has been shown to generated £1.6m for the Cumbrian economy. The festival, also in Kendal, attracted thousands of visitors who watched performances by artists, comedians, acrobats, dancers and musicians.
The ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at Manchester University into the impact of the Lakes Alive events in Cumbria showed that Mintfest makes a very important contribution to the local economy. That is the sort of cost effective event that deserves to escape the cuts. And not a policeman was in sight.
Monday, 18 October 2010
Confessions of a Sunday newspaper reader
I HAVE a confession. For the first time I chose my Sunday newspaper yesterday on the basis of an advertisement for a free CD offer.
My preferred option is The Sunday Times, which has cleverly adopted the slogan “THE Sunday newspapers” and indeed has the most comprehensive and intelligent coverage of politics, sport, culture and all other subjects which interest me.
I occasionally replace it with a joint purchase of the Mail on Sunday and Independent on Sunday, partly because they give a different insight and partly as they are my best customers as a freelance journalist. Interestingly the Sunday Times has recently raised its cover price to £2.20p, which has confused customers and newsagents, but is still incredible value for money.
The Mail shouts it is 70p less expensive than the Sunday Times but this wasn’t why I chose my other selection. The reason I opted for the alternative was that The Mail on Sunday gave away a CD of Atlantic Crossing by Rod Stewart, my favourite singer. I have a vinyl version of this album but the CD would be good to have for the car.
My only reservation was that the Mail over-egged its promotion by saying it was Rod the Mod’s “Greatest Album.”
It should have been as he travelled to all the great studios in America to record it, using icons of American popular music, such as the remnants of Booker T and the MGs, including guitarist Steve Cropper, and The Memphis Horns.
But unfortunately the songs were bland, commercial and poor compared with the great tunes and interpretations of Rod’s previous masterpieces: An Old Raincoat Will Never Let You Down; Every Picture Tells a Story; and Never a Dull Moment.
There was a run of compositions by Rod which put him up there with the greatest. Raincoat had the premier version of Handbags and Gladrags, copied so successfully by Stereophonics decades later. Just listen to the title track of Every Picture, especially the duet with Maggie Bell from Stone the Crows, or Mandolin Wind or Maggie May. Or examine the popular poetic brilliance of You Wear It Well, off Never a Dull Moment.
In comparison Atlantic Crossing is a pale shadow. The track everyone has heard of is Sailing, which is a poor attempt to create a football crowd pleasing Anthem. A rock classic worthy of an acolyte of Sam Cooke it isn’t.
Still, I suppose “Rod Stewart’s fourth or fifth best album” wouldn’t have had the same promotional appeal.
My preferred option is The Sunday Times, which has cleverly adopted the slogan “THE Sunday newspapers” and indeed has the most comprehensive and intelligent coverage of politics, sport, culture and all other subjects which interest me.
I occasionally replace it with a joint purchase of the Mail on Sunday and Independent on Sunday, partly because they give a different insight and partly as they are my best customers as a freelance journalist. Interestingly the Sunday Times has recently raised its cover price to £2.20p, which has confused customers and newsagents, but is still incredible value for money.
The Mail shouts it is 70p less expensive than the Sunday Times but this wasn’t why I chose my other selection. The reason I opted for the alternative was that The Mail on Sunday gave away a CD of Atlantic Crossing by Rod Stewart, my favourite singer. I have a vinyl version of this album but the CD would be good to have for the car.
My only reservation was that the Mail over-egged its promotion by saying it was Rod the Mod’s “Greatest Album.”
It should have been as he travelled to all the great studios in America to record it, using icons of American popular music, such as the remnants of Booker T and the MGs, including guitarist Steve Cropper, and The Memphis Horns.
But unfortunately the songs were bland, commercial and poor compared with the great tunes and interpretations of Rod’s previous masterpieces: An Old Raincoat Will Never Let You Down; Every Picture Tells a Story; and Never a Dull Moment.
There was a run of compositions by Rod which put him up there with the greatest. Raincoat had the premier version of Handbags and Gladrags, copied so successfully by Stereophonics decades later. Just listen to the title track of Every Picture, especially the duet with Maggie Bell from Stone the Crows, or Mandolin Wind or Maggie May. Or examine the popular poetic brilliance of You Wear It Well, off Never a Dull Moment.
In comparison Atlantic Crossing is a pale shadow. The track everyone has heard of is Sailing, which is a poor attempt to create a football crowd pleasing Anthem. A rock classic worthy of an acolyte of Sam Cooke it isn’t.
Still, I suppose “Rod Stewart’s fourth or fifth best album” wouldn’t have had the same promotional appeal.
Friday, 8 October 2010
Historical gaffe
THE fact that Tullie House Museum tried to play the geography card to “keep the £2 million bronze relic Roman helmet in Cumbria” should have been ridiculed from the start. But no, the media went along with it.
Cumbria, as we were all told in 1974 when it was created by the Conservative government as part of its disastrous local government reorganisation, was purely an administrative area and not an attempt to roll away 2,000 years of history.
The helmet was found, by a student from the North East of England, on farmland near Crosby Garrett, near Kirkby Stephen, which is in Westmorland.
Tullie House Museum is in Cumberland. So how can it get away with playing the “keep it local” card? It is like the British Museum trying to keep the Elgin Marbles because London is in the European Union, so hard luck Athens.
The answer is that the media have forgotten that the traditional counties still exist, on opposite sides of the Orton Scar, with a great big mountain range between them. Cumberland looks to Newcastle for its soul mates. Westmorland looks to Lancaster, Preston, Blackpool and the rest of Lancashire.
So there is no foundation for the helmet going to Carlisle. And the buyer of the helmet needs pay no attention to the emotional blackmail Tullie House is still trying to apply even now to be able to show it.
Even Radio Cumbria, the very name and existence of which is part of the attempt to re-write history, tried to point out this anomaly to a Tullie House spokesman. But to no avail. The spokesman didn’t even seem to understand the question.
There are so many officials, politicians and bureaucrats who have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth of Cumbria, mainly to play the game of grabbing funds from the European Union regional policy, that they don’t even know there are two distinct counties.
If the helmet belongs anywhere it is probably in the Museum of Lakeland Life in Kendal.
But that seems unlikely, unless the anonymous purchaser was a Westmerian who actually understand history and intends to put it on public show in the county to which it really belongs.
Cumbria, as we were all told in 1974 when it was created by the Conservative government as part of its disastrous local government reorganisation, was purely an administrative area and not an attempt to roll away 2,000 years of history.
The helmet was found, by a student from the North East of England, on farmland near Crosby Garrett, near Kirkby Stephen, which is in Westmorland.
Tullie House Museum is in Cumberland. So how can it get away with playing the “keep it local” card? It is like the British Museum trying to keep the Elgin Marbles because London is in the European Union, so hard luck Athens.
The answer is that the media have forgotten that the traditional counties still exist, on opposite sides of the Orton Scar, with a great big mountain range between them. Cumberland looks to Newcastle for its soul mates. Westmorland looks to Lancaster, Preston, Blackpool and the rest of Lancashire.
So there is no foundation for the helmet going to Carlisle. And the buyer of the helmet needs pay no attention to the emotional blackmail Tullie House is still trying to apply even now to be able to show it.
Even Radio Cumbria, the very name and existence of which is part of the attempt to re-write history, tried to point out this anomaly to a Tullie House spokesman. But to no avail. The spokesman didn’t even seem to understand the question.
There are so many officials, politicians and bureaucrats who have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth of Cumbria, mainly to play the game of grabbing funds from the European Union regional policy, that they don’t even know there are two distinct counties.
If the helmet belongs anywhere it is probably in the Museum of Lakeland Life in Kendal.
But that seems unlikely, unless the anonymous purchaser was a Westmerian who actually understand history and intends to put it on public show in the county to which it really belongs.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Cry for freedom
THERE are healthy signs that the judiciary is waking up to the very real threats to society’s basic freedoms from the flood of political interference on the media through new laws and case precedents.
Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, in a speech to the Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges' Association Conference, said judges could not afford to be divorced from the modern media because of the media's "impact on public thinking and public perception".
He said: "One of my constant refrains is that our judicial independence and the existence of an independent press are mutually self supporting.
"I ask you to find me a society or state in which you have an independent judiciary and a subservient media, or a subservient judiciary and an independent media.
"The short answer is that the pressures that would remove the independence of the judiciary are identical to the same pressures that would remove the independence of the media."
According to Solicitor Nigel Hanson, a member of Foot Anstey's media team writing on the excellent HoldtheFrontPage web-site, he continued by endorsing the right of reporters to challenge inappropriate reporting restrictions themselves in court.
Judge Patrick Moloney QC, a circuit judge who used to be a top libel barrister, expressed concern about the lack of open reporting of the courts.
In a speech he gave to a media law conference, he said: "The time-honoured old art of court reporting, even in the Crown Court, let alone of course the County Court, is dying away."
He was subsequently reported as saying there was no point in judges making lofty pronouncements in court for the benefit of society if no one "ever hears about it because there is nobody in court to hear us say it".
Judges can always arrange for their clerks to ring the local freelance or news desk of the local media if he wants to say something of wider interest to the public and have it reported.
But the judges' comments are valid and bring to mind a string of recent judgments that have highlighted the desirability for court reports and journalism in general to contain real names and personal details so as to be interesting and readable.
In a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year Lord Rodger said: "A requirement to report in some austere, abstract form, devoid of much of its human interest could well mean that the report would not be read and the information would not be passed on.
"Ultimately, such an approach could threaten the viability of newspapers and magazines, which can only inform the public if they attract enough readers and make enough money to survive."
This was a rare recognition of the realities of the commercial media world and welcome. But it is even worse during the current inquest into the death of a barrister by “suicide by police” in an armed siege in London.
Judges, coroners and others in the judiciary need to push back far harder against misguided legislation, which can be complicated, unhelpful and badly drafted.
They need to organise the court system, and this is particularly true of magistrates, so that cases happen when scheduled and are seen through to completion so that there is a final outcome for the media to report on.
Too often lawyers, social workers, the CPS, police and others treat the courts with scant respect by not having their cases prepared in time. Delays for background reports are a further obstacle to timely and topical justice.
Justice needs to be seen to be done as well as done. In the modern world the public at large find it virtually impossible to turn up in courts to see cases for themselves. The media should be enabled to act as their eyes and ears.
This means courts and the media working together for complete mutual benefit. The real winners would be society. Police contacts used to tell me the best crime prevention of all is the fear of publicity.
Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, in a speech to the Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges' Association Conference, said judges could not afford to be divorced from the modern media because of the media's "impact on public thinking and public perception".
He said: "One of my constant refrains is that our judicial independence and the existence of an independent press are mutually self supporting.
"I ask you to find me a society or state in which you have an independent judiciary and a subservient media, or a subservient judiciary and an independent media.
"The short answer is that the pressures that would remove the independence of the judiciary are identical to the same pressures that would remove the independence of the media."
According to Solicitor Nigel Hanson, a member of Foot Anstey's media team writing on the excellent HoldtheFrontPage web-site, he continued by endorsing the right of reporters to challenge inappropriate reporting restrictions themselves in court.
Judge Patrick Moloney QC, a circuit judge who used to be a top libel barrister, expressed concern about the lack of open reporting of the courts.
In a speech he gave to a media law conference, he said: "The time-honoured old art of court reporting, even in the Crown Court, let alone of course the County Court, is dying away."
He was subsequently reported as saying there was no point in judges making lofty pronouncements in court for the benefit of society if no one "ever hears about it because there is nobody in court to hear us say it".
Judges can always arrange for their clerks to ring the local freelance or news desk of the local media if he wants to say something of wider interest to the public and have it reported.
But the judges' comments are valid and bring to mind a string of recent judgments that have highlighted the desirability for court reports and journalism in general to contain real names and personal details so as to be interesting and readable.
In a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year Lord Rodger said: "A requirement to report in some austere, abstract form, devoid of much of its human interest could well mean that the report would not be read and the information would not be passed on.
"Ultimately, such an approach could threaten the viability of newspapers and magazines, which can only inform the public if they attract enough readers and make enough money to survive."
This was a rare recognition of the realities of the commercial media world and welcome. But it is even worse during the current inquest into the death of a barrister by “suicide by police” in an armed siege in London.
Judges, coroners and others in the judiciary need to push back far harder against misguided legislation, which can be complicated, unhelpful and badly drafted.
They need to organise the court system, and this is particularly true of magistrates, so that cases happen when scheduled and are seen through to completion so that there is a final outcome for the media to report on.
Too often lawyers, social workers, the CPS, police and others treat the courts with scant respect by not having their cases prepared in time. Delays for background reports are a further obstacle to timely and topical justice.
Justice needs to be seen to be done as well as done. In the modern world the public at large find it virtually impossible to turn up in courts to see cases for themselves. The media should be enabled to act as their eyes and ears.
This means courts and the media working together for complete mutual benefit. The real winners would be society. Police contacts used to tell me the best crime prevention of all is the fear of publicity.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
TV local news plan doomed
THE new coalition government is not too busy slashing public services and cutting budgets to interfere in the commercial viability of the media, despite numerous warnings of how it is doomed to failure.
The last Labour Government got in a dreadful mess trying to save local independent television news from the bean-counters who run ITV.
In the old days ITV was run by regionally based stations who were obliged by conditions in their licences to provide local news programmes.
Since the internet stole what little remains in advertisement revenues in the lingering recession, independent television has gone down the route of economies of scale so there is in effect just the one national station. When it wants to squeeze costs, then local news in which it has no interest is an easy target.
Labour’s answer was the concisely-named Independently Funded News Consortia. These were conglomerate of current media companies who thought they could provide a service for local TV.
Trinity Mirror's bid to run regional TV news in the North-East and Borders region was joined by The CN Group, publishers of the News and Star, Carlisle, and the North West Evening Mail, in Barrow, joining the Press Association and production company Ten Alps.
It geared up to do battle for the right to broadcast regional TV news on Channel 3 with a rival team featuring Newsquest, publishers of the Northern Echo, and Johnston Press, which owns the Sunderland Echo and Hartlepool Mail. Johnston Press and Newsquest have joined forces with ITN, Metro Radio and the University of Sunderland to form a consortium to provide broadcast news in Border and Tyne Tees.
The groups were seeking to win the public funding which was to have been made available for one of three broadcasting pilot projects to replace ITV news in Wales, Scotland and this English region. If the pilots had been successful, Independently Funded News Consortia could be rolled out across the UK.
Luckily for all concerned this idea bit the dust in the lead up to the election.
Now the new Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is believed to be pressing ahead with plans for local TV stations despite a critical report on the idea.
A panel set up under investment banker Nicholas Shott to look into the idea has cast further doubt on its viability in an interim report published today. It says advertising alone will not be enough to pay for the network of new stations and that it may need a big corporate sponsor to get off the ground.
He cites Barclays Bank’s sponsorship of the London cycle scheme to the tune of £25 million as a role model. But cycles do not have sensitive issues like freedom of expression.
Would the likes of Barclays want to sponsor a news outlet that may ridicule the record of its new chief executive, or attack the closure of local bank branches for example?
Mr Hunt told the Today Programme on BBC Radio Four this morning that the absense of a city TV sector in the UK represented a "market failure." Well the virtual closure of Manchester Evening News’s M Channel, despite that city’s vibrant economy is not a good omen.
Mr Hunt thinks the answer is to life restrictions on cross-media ownership to allow newspaper publishers who already own big city titles to also control TV stations. But regional publisher Trinity Mirror, which owns the major newspaper titles in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Cardiff, has previously expressed strong reservations about the business model.
In a letter to Mr Hunt today, Mr Shott said the stations were more likely to succeed in urban areas, despite the Manchester experience, although he did accept that even there "the economics of a TV business funded mainly by advertising will still be challenging" and "additional revenue sources" would have to be explored, hence the sponsorship idea.
He added that stations could be hosted by existing channels and that discussions had started with "senior management" at the BBC which were showing "early promise". Well we all know what BBC managers know about viability and value for money.
Mr Hunt will argue the case for more local television in a speech to the Royal Television Society at the Barbican Centre in London.
He will say that an expansion of superfast broadband and the removal of cross-media rules preventing companies controlling newspapers, television and radio stations will all help make the plan more likely to succeed.
Still the old media and their supporters flail around in the post-Internet world. If broadband is to continue to improve then the obvious source of local news is web-based local providers.
These can be existing local media companies, like Newsquest or Trinity Mirror, or new independent entrepreneurs like the excellent Lakes TV. Keep television out of it.
And better still, keep the Government out of it. They have other more important issues to focus on than worrying about who provides your local TV news.
The last Labour Government got in a dreadful mess trying to save local independent television news from the bean-counters who run ITV.
In the old days ITV was run by regionally based stations who were obliged by conditions in their licences to provide local news programmes.
Since the internet stole what little remains in advertisement revenues in the lingering recession, independent television has gone down the route of economies of scale so there is in effect just the one national station. When it wants to squeeze costs, then local news in which it has no interest is an easy target.
Labour’s answer was the concisely-named Independently Funded News Consortia. These were conglomerate of current media companies who thought they could provide a service for local TV.
Trinity Mirror's bid to run regional TV news in the North-East and Borders region was joined by The CN Group, publishers of the News and Star, Carlisle, and the North West Evening Mail, in Barrow, joining the Press Association and production company Ten Alps.
It geared up to do battle for the right to broadcast regional TV news on Channel 3 with a rival team featuring Newsquest, publishers of the Northern Echo, and Johnston Press, which owns the Sunderland Echo and Hartlepool Mail. Johnston Press and Newsquest have joined forces with ITN, Metro Radio and the University of Sunderland to form a consortium to provide broadcast news in Border and Tyne Tees.
The groups were seeking to win the public funding which was to have been made available for one of three broadcasting pilot projects to replace ITV news in Wales, Scotland and this English region. If the pilots had been successful, Independently Funded News Consortia could be rolled out across the UK.
Luckily for all concerned this idea bit the dust in the lead up to the election.
Now the new Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is believed to be pressing ahead with plans for local TV stations despite a critical report on the idea.
A panel set up under investment banker Nicholas Shott to look into the idea has cast further doubt on its viability in an interim report published today. It says advertising alone will not be enough to pay for the network of new stations and that it may need a big corporate sponsor to get off the ground.
He cites Barclays Bank’s sponsorship of the London cycle scheme to the tune of £25 million as a role model. But cycles do not have sensitive issues like freedom of expression.
Would the likes of Barclays want to sponsor a news outlet that may ridicule the record of its new chief executive, or attack the closure of local bank branches for example?
Mr Hunt told the Today Programme on BBC Radio Four this morning that the absense of a city TV sector in the UK represented a "market failure." Well the virtual closure of Manchester Evening News’s M Channel, despite that city’s vibrant economy is not a good omen.
Mr Hunt thinks the answer is to life restrictions on cross-media ownership to allow newspaper publishers who already own big city titles to also control TV stations. But regional publisher Trinity Mirror, which owns the major newspaper titles in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Cardiff, has previously expressed strong reservations about the business model.
In a letter to Mr Hunt today, Mr Shott said the stations were more likely to succeed in urban areas, despite the Manchester experience, although he did accept that even there "the economics of a TV business funded mainly by advertising will still be challenging" and "additional revenue sources" would have to be explored, hence the sponsorship idea.
He added that stations could be hosted by existing channels and that discussions had started with "senior management" at the BBC which were showing "early promise". Well we all know what BBC managers know about viability and value for money.
Mr Hunt will argue the case for more local television in a speech to the Royal Television Society at the Barbican Centre in London.
He will say that an expansion of superfast broadband and the removal of cross-media rules preventing companies controlling newspapers, television and radio stations will all help make the plan more likely to succeed.
Still the old media and their supporters flail around in the post-Internet world. If broadband is to continue to improve then the obvious source of local news is web-based local providers.
These can be existing local media companies, like Newsquest or Trinity Mirror, or new independent entrepreneurs like the excellent Lakes TV. Keep television out of it.
And better still, keep the Government out of it. They have other more important issues to focus on than worrying about who provides your local TV news.
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