Local TV

I'm glad fellow forum members can now join in with the Sheffield Live discussion, thanks very much to dosxuk for the video uploads.

We can blame Sheffield Live officials for the lack of quality, but realistically why did OFCOM accept their bid over the other bidders? Where the other bidders actually worse than then the Sheffield Live group?

From their publicity...

http://www.sheffieldlive.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/1050927.jpg

I suspect this also answers why wind and traffic noise feature so much in their interviews too.

Oh dear...audiophiles weep. Clearly they need a shotgun microphone with windshield **at least**.

There were 3 bidders, you can see the bids here : http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/tv-broadcast-licences/local/applicants/previous-applicants/

In summary they were :

Metro8 Sheffield - News heavy proposing an 'All News, All Day' format, 55 hours of live news a week. Movie double bills from 8pm every night. This is video of their news proposal :

YourTV - 'Rolling Wheel' format. Had succesful bids in Manchester & Blackpool / Preston.

SLTV - successful bidder.

Looking at the bids, I would say that Metro8's news proposition was too ambitious. I don't think there is an appetite for an all day news format for Sheffield, probably unsustainable. The movie proposition probably didn't sit well from 8pm given the number of other channels showing movies on the EPG.

SLTV appeared to put much emphasis on its existing media outlet in Sheffield (the radio station), which probably swung it for them. It was probably viewed to be the safest proposition. Looking at SLTV's application though, there is probably justification for an Ofcom investigation based on this statement alone:



Can we really see the BBC taking any of the reports or content from Sheffield Live as per the Local TV licensing arrangements ? Thats why there needs to be some form of quality threshold.

There was some controversy surrounding the awarding of this licence in that the original award to SLTV was put under review "after errors in the consideration of the applications", but the end result was the same.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-20340540

Here's today's Sheffield What's On. I've clipped the end of it off, since it's identical to yesterday. I did manage to get the whole torture experience for anyone who wants to see/hear the whole thing - this is really how they hand over from the daytime radio station + slideshow to evening programmes.

http://www.tekspace.co.uk/james/videos/sltv-2014-10-03-whatson.mp4
Direct link

That hand over is just creepy and disturbing, what the hell are they thinking ?

I despair, its something someone whose 'not all there' would think up.

I forgot about Metro8 bid for Sheffield. I dont agree with your assertions about their 'All News, All Day' format. But that can be discussed ad-nausea forever, because everyone has quite opinionated ideas on their idea of local tv and what it should be. But I think OFCOM made a mistake not picking a experienced broadcaster, especially with what I think, were far better proposals that were put forward. To me, this calls into question the bidding processes and the criteria they used to decide the winner. CHCH is an experienced, quality, local broadcaster and wouldn't have had to "learn" how to create local tv from scratch, as they are already successfully doing that. SLTV was an odd choice and to me the on-air results certainly prove that. But with other channels yet to come on line, what can we expect, more of the same amateur-ish public access stuff or proper local tv quality? LondonLive certainly has issues (ie studio programming, demographics ,etc. ) but in general its a channel I think of reasonable quality if we are comparing it against some of the other local stations already on air.

Considering SLTV are struggling to fill 20 minutes with news (they gave up at 18:51 today and put their windmills filler on), even when they repeat items from the previous day, or preview the weekend on wednesday, I can't imagine how anyone would manage to fill a rolling news channel with local content. The local newspapers or local websites don't manage to find that much interest either.

Oh yay, the windmills are back again... I guess that means it's another hour of nothingness. I think the technical quality is one of the lesser issues with the station compared with the impossibility of finding out what's on when, or their ability to provide actual interesting programming - especially bad when you consider they're only trying to fill 5 hours a day.

The last song on the simulcast with the radio station had the lyrics "give it up" How apt.

That spooky clip with the swinging microphone reminds me of the holding slides on the old cable channel, Front Row. Skip along to 1:30 in on this video and you'll see why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtdSwPyfoy4