London Live

I totally agree that news needs a rethink. It is a licence requirement, but you're right, management don't consider it a priority, despite the fact that if done well, could be the station's USP.

Non news programming (the movies and comedies particularly) draw reasonable audiences. News has only appeared in the top ten on a handful of occasions in the past 2 years.

A tight format of essential information every 15 minutes would work well at breakfast, a time of day where they could really make a mark, particularly as many have remarked, if there were up-to-date travel and weather updates included.

Maybe an extended 30 minute wheel would work at other times, repeated twice at lunchtime and 3 times in the early evening. A 30 minute late night bulletin around 11pm would also be welcome, particularly as many commuters are not home for the 6pm show.

Style wise they need some personality and energy. It's been said before, but the old City Pulse/Channel M format might be worth dusting off?

Another thread reminded me of News 12 in New York, which has a number of channels providing hyper-local news for different boroughs.

Anyone know how these channels work? I flicked between the Bronx and Brooklyn channels and the same presenter was on both but in different studios.

It is crazy how local the US market can go and makes you wonder how different the UK television landscape may or may not be if ITV hadn't had a monopoly on commercial television for so long.

https://www.transdiffusion.org/2004/05/24/multiperplexing

Quote from that article:



I disagree that higher quality is what "most people want", surely it's quite clear that most viewers want more services or more choice? They couldn't give a stuff about the quality of it beyond a certain point, really. Otherwise there would be more uproar about it both in TV and radio.

Here's hoping for a transition to DVB-T2 at some point down the line anyway.

If people think a 544x576 DVB-T picture is bad, try watching Vintage TV when it was a connected tv channel. Awful picture, poor quality sound etc. The move to DVB-T2 is very welcome.

Well, the US does have a far bigger, more drawn out population than the UK with different time zones. What we would see as a ridiculously long journey people in North America would occasionally see as a journey to work. On those grounds everything centralised from New York clearly isn't going to fly.

Both British radio and television were heavily regulated, with the regional ITV contractor providing a real local service with one (or two in London) radio stations. With the changes first with the 1993 franchise awards, which led to Granada and Carlton buying the licences and then the merger of ITV franchises under a single brand in the early noughties, that sense of localness has eradicated on a commercial level.

The US on the other hand has always operated under a local system of brand affiliation with local channels and stations providing that service with syndication.

I still think they'll be some form of local tv in the future, but it may become like ITV during the 90s owned by one or two companies who then provide a network schedule with local slots. The worthy Bay TV Liverpool is set to be acquired by Made TV. STV already have a monopoly on licences in Scotland and are sharing output with their two channels.

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5048e660e4b0bd178ab35a57/t/55facae7e4b04160d2f3222b/1442499309684/

News12 was the first 24 hour local news channel. Starting first with News12 Long Island in 1986.
There are 7 channels.
News12 Long Island
News12 The Bronx
News12 Brooklyn
News12 Hudson Valley
News12 West Chester
News 12 News Jersey
News 12 Traffic and Weather

Most of the channels operate independently of each other and are all based in separate facilities with separate newsrooms and buildings in their own part of metro NY. Only News12 Bronx and Brooklyn are headquartered it the same building and have separate service areas, but they utilize the same teams even on air. I believe they run a jukebox type system as well.

In addition to NY1, News12, The network affiliate news teams, the 2 24 hr news radio stations there is also the FiOS News Channels. These are news and information channels run by the Verizon FiOS cable tv system. They are what I term as hyper-local news channels. The news is very local. NYC Metro is the only place where you have something like this. Since they get their budget from the cable company that airs the channel its mainly used as a selling point to get their service. I'd pass.
FiOS1 News News Jersey
FiOS1 News Lower Hudson
FiOS1 News Staten Island


As side from NY1, News12, Brooklyn and News12 Bronx and Fios1 News Staten Island, most of these channels main service areas are outside the legal city limits of New York City, they cover suburban and exburbs and surrounding NYC Regions that people commute from to get to NYC. The NYC Metro spans several Boroughs, States, Islands, across bridges, tunnels and surrounded by water, rivers lakes and bays so people their tend to think in their little region. Most US cities will have 1 24hr news channel. LA for example doesnt have a channel at all. And that region is massive and geographically more diverse and spread out.

As a brief aside, choice isn't even a big driver in radio, which is one of the reasons why DAB is only growing relatively slowly.

Here's a good piece on this from 2012, which mentions that 86% of kitchen radios and 79% of bedroom radios are permanently tuned to a single station:

https://media.info/radio/opinion/how-the-industry-should-be-promoting-digital-radio

This is one of the biggest differences between radio and TV. While TV is very much geared up for channel-hopping (programme guides, easy channel +/- remote buttons, similar channels grouped together etc), radio really isn't.

For example, I have 8 presets on my bedside DAB radio. If I want anything else, I have to click through a truly massive (in London) alphabetical list of stations, with no way of knowing what's on each of them.

To bring things neatly back on-topic, it's London Live's prominent EPG slot on a medium that favours channel-hopping that would probably make decent local news and information a viable prospect. But, sadly, this very same thing is what drives the owners to fill the schedule with repeats of shows from national channels.

As reported in TV Home, London Live have requested a further reduction of local programming to 3.5 hours a day Monday to Friday and 1 hour on Saturday and Sunday to focus resources in key viewing periods. Ofcom are inviting comments with a closing date of 13 October.

Significant cuts to news.

The @standardnews local TV station London Live wants to cut the amount of local TV it airs AGAIN. A total farce. pic.twitter.com/Z62Bz25YlN

— Jake Kanter (@Jake_Kanter) September 14, 2016