I often compare the new band of local TV stations to local commercial radio. It's a simpler comparison than a like-for-like with ITV. In a situation like this, even the smallest of local radio stations would have absolutely consumed this developing story. Every resource would have been thrown at covering it with the small news team doing frequent updates, a travel presenter offering the latest need-to-know information and some scripted links from the DJ reminding people of the situation. The lack of even a graphic on-screen shows two things. 1: London Live's heart just isn't in. Local radio guys love these stories and jump on them. 2: There is zero collaboration between ES and LL. That ultimately means that the owners want to keep them separate so they can cut LL loose without damaging their main brand. Sad times for a TV station serving the UK's capital.
As far as the link between the ES and LL is concerned, it's notable that the channel's first birthday was hardly mentioned (if at all) whereas a year ago there was London Live branding all over the paper.
Also i think this exemplifies how deep the cutbacks were at the station. If the staff that they currently have was completely incapable of cover this one story, they really dont have anyone working there. They could have covered this story from a variety of angles. But they chose to blow what little resources they have on other stories that they could have held off until the next day. Being most of the stories were not time sensitive as this one. Covering a series of major local stories like these is how you make your name. Sitting back and relinquishing control shows disinterest in news.
The cutbacks were indeed deep and in my opinion they got rid of the wrong people. There are no real news reporters left. Those they have, while ok covering features and the arts (which is all they seem to do nowadays) have little experience covering real or breaking news.
I'm also not a fan of the 'no fixed presenter' rule. To build viewer loyalty, a news show in particular needs a regular presenter or presenters, oh and some credibility. Sorry London Live - you failed tonight.
Incidentally there was no mention of the blackout in the 9pm headlines or even a photo from the Standard website. Instead they chose to run some footage showing the smoke from earlier then moved on to a second story and the weather.
Obviously 'News Bulletins for Dummies' says 2 stories then the weather. It's hardly worth bothering.
A small positive from today is that they actually recognised the story and sent a reporter to the scene which I doubt would have happened under Vikki Cook, where we'd get a picture from Twitter, then onto Scodie interviewing fashionistas.
However, what was apparent was the inexperience of the young reporter who was at the scene, who I felt was badly ad libbing, A story of this magnitude should have had one of the senior presenters. Beard or Baxter who could have anchored or at least reported from the scene. This would have been the alternative to BBC London (who IMHO were laissez faire) and ITV News London who had two reporters at the scene.
I agree about having a fixed presenter for at least the evening bulletin, which would allow some continuity, however it can be argued how many times per week Riz Lateef or Nina Hossain present their respective bulletins? It's rare that Nina does a full week on the bulletin with either Charlene White or freelancer Lucrezia Millarini covering for her, while Riz has cover from virtually the whole reporting team, when she goes off to cover a network shift or film for Watchdog.
Jim Grice needs to be careful not to slip into old habits from Vikki Cook, they did it straight at the beginning of March, but the budget restraints are starting to show again.
I often compare the new band of local TV stations to local commercial radio. It's a simpler comparison than a like-for-like with ITV. In a situation like this, even the smallest of local radio stations would have absolutely consumed this developing story. Every resource would have been thrown at covering it with the small news team doing frequent updates, a travel presenter offering the latest need-to-know information and some scripted links from the DJ reminding people of the situation. The lack of even a graphic on-screen shows two things. 1: London Live's heart just isn't in. Local radio guys love these stories and jump on them. 2: There is zero collaboration between ES and LL. That ultimately means that the owners want to keep them separate so they can cut LL loose without damaging their main brand. Sad times for a TV station serving the UK's capital.
I agree with this. When they could have really shone they dropped the ball. I also think Mouseboy33 and SuperDave make some points too - this is a great example of how deep the cutbacks were at the station. This is perhaps the first major incident in the capital that they could have covered really well since they launched and they blew it. And the lamentable social media activity? That's where they could have impressed too but again, they failed.
I often compare the new band of local TV stations to local commercial radio. It's a simpler comparison than a like-for-like with ITV. In a situation like this, even the smallest of local radio stations would have absolutely consumed this developing story. Every resource would have been thrown at covering it with the small news team doing frequent updates, a travel presenter offering the latest need-to-know information and some scripted links from the DJ reminding people of the situation. The lack of even a graphic on-screen shows two things. 1: London Live's heart just isn't in. Local radio guys love these stories and jump on them. 2: There is zero collaboration between ES and LL. That ultimately means that the owners want to keep them separate so they can cut LL loose without damaging their main brand. Sad times for a TV station serving the UK's capital.
I agree with this. When they could have really shone they dropped the ball. I also think Mouseboy33 and SuperDave make some points too - this is a great example of how deep the cutbacks were at the station. This is perhaps the first major incident in the capital that they could have covered really well since they launched and they blew it. And the lamentable social media activity? That's where they could have impressed too but again, they failed.
Sad times indeed.
I'd compare most of these Local TV stations to the worst of the Community Radio stations personally, they are regrettably dreadful, a waste of space and make the commercial operators of TV and Radio look better. However I think there is a case that this Licence Fee money could have gone to make some of the Community Radio stations more listenable as it's a cheaper form of Media to produce*. I say this as someone who supported the case for Local TV too...I'll say what the Tories won't in that I think I was wrong!
* I'd personally allow all the Radio commercial operators to merge, in exchange for more Local programming on stations such as Heart, Capital and Smooth with them handing some frequencies back for use by Community stations backed by some Licence Fee monies. I know people would say this could cause a lack of competition but I feel you need to look at the Media industry as a whole. As for the small screen, instead of the failing Local TV idea, I feel ITV should be given less regulation (such as amending Contract Rights Renewal, allowing ITV to make more programming for Channel 3 than the current 75%, taking a 25% share in Channel 4 etc) to help fund (sub) Regional News/programming and other PSB such as Childrens TV.
Shocking state of affairs that London's local TV station can't produce a News programme over the Bank Holiday...things still happen especially in such a giant metropolis as the Big Smoke...
Local radio has been killed by the mergers - Heart especially has ironically ripped the heart out of many local operations. Others aren't so bad, Real Radio was a million times better than Heart, but sadly ousted by them here about a year ago, while Free Radio in Birmingham and the West Midlands shows how local stations merging on a regional rather than national basis could work.
Sadly our local and regional TV woes go back 20-30 years and are probably quite difficult to undo now. Even though in theory OFCOM would be perfectly within their rights to put all the Channel 3 licences out to tender again and perhaps include new requirements for each region to offer more at a local level (whether that be as a secondary channel or through local opts) I suspect a legal challenge would be forthcoming from ITV Plc and they'd probably find it difficult to fight off.
Looking at the smaller picture OFCOM do seem to be turning down a few licences recently, either deciding the catchment area is too small or that the bids aren't realistic in terms of their funding. It does look like the multi-licence holders are set to have the best chance of success, but we're still quite away from seeing if that really turns out to be the case. Other than STV there's only really Made TV and That's TV in the market at the moment.
What is lacking with Local TV, and this stems from the fact it's existence is driven by politicians, not viewer demand, is any ambition. It isn't seen as a real opportunity which people are willing to throw money at and invest to make it a respectable service. London Live is clearly one of the better funded stations and as much as we've criticised it in the past for looking a bit like E4 London at least it's looking like a modern TV channel. The news though is letting it down - as others have said the fire was the sort of thing they should have been on. It was a story which affected Londoners but not much beyond that, and also didn't require much more than them being at one location and pointing a camera. Rolling news would have been over the top but updates during the afternoon and a bit more indepth in the evening shouldn't have been out of the question.
Also tonight with these debates this is where local TV should be getting the local reaction while the BBC and ITV are concentrating on the national picture.
Without wanting to go off topic too much about the Digital Economy Act which allowed local radio stations to merge with neighbouring stations which have created the quasi-regional stations, the reforms saved smaller commercial radio stations which would have otherwise gone bust, while allowing the larger groups to merge output, which lead to the quasi-national networks including Heart and Capital.
It's very likely that some local tv licences outside of London will go this way in the future to survive. We've already seen the Maidstone and Tonbridge licences merged as it wouldn't be viable as two stand-alone channels.
London Live will always be a special case due to the unique situation of it's large transmission area (while still smaller than ITV London) and population.