London Live

While we’re waiting for Ofcom’s sanction decision, here’s an interesting thread on why LL was doomed from the start:

1/ With @timesradio about to launch I thought I’d share a story about the time I helped start a TV station within a newspaper.

I was part of the original team that launched @LondonLive

— Dan Freedman 📺📻🎥 (@NewsmanDan) April 27, 2020

I thought it was said in the thread the sanction was 10% of their income?

That was someone throwing a guess out there - the decision's not yet been made.

From what I've been hearing, they have been quietly relieving people of their duties. They're being told it is furloughing but I think it is safe to say that this could well be the beginning of the end. I would be amazed if they bring all/many/any of them back.

Not sure furloughing necessarily means people won’t be back. Peoples terms of employment still count throughout so if they are employed as staff then normal redundancy would apply. If they’re not employed as staff, furloughing would make no difference.

What is their news content now - just a loop of the OFCOM apology?

Even that would be putting more effort in than they usually do.

Correct, but it is an option. It's not exactly like there is a thriving business to come back to and it's not unreasonable to suspect that the company will be looking for costs to cut.

London Live makes Friendly TV look like a masterpiece.

No further sanctions for London Live:

https://www.rxtvlog.com/2020/06/london-live-escapes-additional-ofcom.html

A huge cynic might suggest that that's actually a worse outcome for an owner looking for an excuse to exit than getting a huge fine... but fortunately I'm not a huge cynic.

Here is the OFCOM decision link
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0031/196465/sanctions-panel-decision-estv.pdf

I've never understood that theory, why would they need an excuse? No ones forcing them to run a TV station, they can just jack it all in tomorrow if they wanted