The Local TV Debate – A View from the Mersey

In response to Raymond Snoddy’s ‘It’s too early for Hunt to get excited, but is the local TV solution staring everyone in the face?’ article and the comment from Robert Kenny, Phil Redmond of MerseyFilm suggests Ray and Robert should get out and about a bit more…

I’ve just read Ray Snoddy’s article on Local TV and Robert Kenny’s (Managing Director, Human Capital) comment. I’m glad Ray’s stumbled across the obvious – but both really do need to get out more – especially to places like Liverpool where they would find that the ethos of local TV has been alive and well for a great many years either as local IPTV initiatives like Kensington (yes the real one up North) and Alt Valley Vision, Liverpool.TV or indeed the Open Culture Satellite Channel hosted by, yes, Information TV in 2008.

As regards costs – they are negligible once you break the mindset that media is something the chosen few are allowed to control from, well, London where a 60p cup of coffee is often sold as a £3.75 metrocino. Take Channel 5. Started life as a great social intervention idea to provide an alternative view to London based media. The cheapest, easiest and most desirable place was the North where there would be no technology conflicts. The decision? Well, we should all know the history.

As far back as 1983 I tried to establish a local TV Station for Liverpool – but was always met with the same metropolitan myopia that I face when suggesting that you could produce network programmes like Brookside, Hollyoaks and Grange Hill in a “non-TV franchised city” like Liverpool. It is still lacking its terrestrial TV service of course.

I used to think that it had something to do with the narrow, unenlightened and parochial thinking that usually accompanied people needing to support London based teams like QPR, – or worse, as infamously highlighted by one Broadcasting Minister – Chelsea. Such supporters were, obviously, only ever engaged in domestic, therefore London-centric competition focused on Wembley. Without the stimulation of a European culture how could anything other than London-centricity flourish? However, recent events in football have forced a change in view. It is, after all, simply a case of metropolitan myopia.

Get out and about a bit more guys and discover the real Big Society.