Local
Television's Time Has Come - by Dave Greenhalgh - (December 2011)
With the
first 20 cities to receive local television announced, the bidding
process for the new licences in the UK is about to begin. We ask what
are the constraints and opportunities for local television and what
are the workable models. Particularly, we look at a model for a
typical city the size of Bristol, where we are based.
In its
July 2011 document, 'A New Framework for Local TV in the UK', The
Department for Culture, Media and Sport set out its vision for local
television networks across the UK. The DCMS and OfCom have consulted
widely about the potential for local television and Ofcom is
currently consulting on how its powers and duties should be
exercised. Bids are set to be assessed in late spring with the
winners announced in the summer of 2012. Stations are expected to go
live in 2013. The debate still continues as to the exact criteria for
bids, but it looks as though there is an emphasis on both commercial
viability and social gain.
12 Years
ago, in our 1999 article, 'Will the Television be Revolutionized' we
discussed the potential for a genuinely local service. It would
address local interests and would be created by local people. It
would advertise local businesses and promote local communities.
Moreover, it would be interesting.
Sadly,
while local television has thrived for years in the United States,
Canada and Europe, it has failed to establish itself in the UK. Use
of broadband and delivery systems such as IPTV are changing this but
local terrestrial television channels for local people with
sufficient audience numbers to ensure sustained quality of output
have not yet materialized.
What
is Local Television?
In a country where oddly it doesn't
yet exist, there is no clear consensus on what local television
actually is. So debates have raged often at cross purposes. For some
it is simply means secondary local delivery from a centralised
network spine of locally impertinent material. For others local
television is diametrically opposed to mainstream broadcast: it is
entirely produced from the grass roots of the community; engagement,
democratic values and social gain take precedence over production
standards or economic sustainability.
Criteria for the tranche of licence
bidding process about to be launched have remained inexplicit,
perhaps to allow a multitude of views and potentially diverse models
to emerge before criteria are set out.
Several themes and suggestions
allow a guess as to what a successful bid might look like and the
picture is becoming increasingly clear. It is likely to follow to a
considerable degree the bidding criteria for local radio licences:
It will be economically
sustainable.
There must be a demand.
It will address local issues
and contribute social gain.
Does this mean that it can go
out on a shoestring budget with a largely volunteer workforce and
output 2 or 3 hours of wholly locally produced programming at peak
time.
It will enhance the process of
democracy.
It must be accountable to its
audience.
Local television is about
increasing democracy and developing community through local
accountability and participation. Opposing points of view continue to
be commended, depending on different interests, between models of
complete local autonomy and a national network spine. We actually
believe that somewhere between the two is likely to provide the
greatest opportunity for local democracy and community to be
represented.
The autonomous local approach
usually emphasises bottom-up growth and the democratic values of
local community participation while the national network spine
approach emphasizes commercial viability.
Local advocates often suspect
advocates of the national approach as being led by the desire to turn
large profits by divesting themselves of the burden of idiosyncratic
local output. This would follow the now dropped Channel Six model.
This would, say local advocates, result in yet more trashy generic
network TV, but at a lower budget. At the same time too many local
advocates remain uncomfortable when presenting their own commercial
proposals, which are often come across as being attached as an
afterthought. National advocates on the other hand are more likely to
have sound commercial models. They suspect local advocates of being
woolly-headed when it comes to finances and growing out of a culture
of subsidy. However, the national advocates have often paid little
regard to the values and opportunities of local engagement and
output. Their models are often based on formulaic data and lack
imagination.
The DCMS seem to be consciously
favouring the term 'local television' over 'community television' and
this is correct. Over-emphasis of the term 'community television'
runs the risk of embroiling numerous local institutions in velutinous
campaigns over representation, practical control probably ending up
with a compromised social sector coterie. Real social gain derives
from a statement of intent for deep and wide representation of local
services, underpinned where appropriate on Memorandums of
Understanding with various institutions. The station should not be
constrained though from a duty to the community to scrutinize public
service provision, in the spirit of a free, but sensibly regulated
press. This is not to say that different models for different
localities shouldn't be followed and indeed there should be some
allowance for different approaches, so there can be a rich learning
process. There are many opportunities for community to be involved in
content and production, probably far exceeding what current network
TV is able to offer. Satisfying a wide community in close
communication with itself is to win the audience. Running a
successful television station is competitive. It should be led by
sound business principles and a healthy battle for a loyal audience.
The practical constraints are that
for stations to be commercially viable they have to meet and repay
set up and ongoing costs, including paying the workforce. While there
have been attempts at entirely voluntarily run television stations,
more often than not these have resulted in a poor quality of service
and eventual failure. A number of models may yet emerge, particularly
in regard to more isolated rural areas that serve smaller
populations, but a rule of thumb for a station reaching a population
of around 500,000 is a running cost of about £3,000 a day or around
£1 million a year. The only way to practically fund this is through
advertising, including possibly forms of programme sponsorship. Let's
say we have 24 hour TV with seven minutes of 30 second advertising
slots every hour, that's 336 ads per viewing day, about £9.00 per
slot if you do the maths. This is operating income, not the cost to
the advertiser, as these figures do not include ad sales overheads,
profits and so forth. And of course space for peak viewing times is
going to be considerably more expensive than space at 3.00 am. Local
advertising is an entirely different market to national advertising.
National advertising is largely about brand awareness, but on a local
level it may not be considered cost effective to persuade people that
a particular brand of toothpaste is the only one to buy. Local
advertising will contain a greater mix of double glazing, car
salesrooms and other local business services. Direct measurement of
ratings doesn't seem to be technically feasible for local television,
so stations will need to develop ways of addressing this in order to
sell advertising. This crude model at least outlines what needs to be
addressed to present a viable business model.
The Key to
Successful Local Television
Advertising is sold by increasing
audience share and this is ensured by quality programming that local
people want to watch. This is the key to successful local television.
Simply emulating mainstream networked television is not the answer.
Output produced entirely by the local station is also not feasible.
It is too costly to produce sufficient quantity of sufficient
quality. So how do you produce great local TV? The answer is in
understanding the unique opportunities and branding of local
television as being quite different from national networked
television.
iContact is based in Bristol and
Bristol provides a pertinent model. It is to be one of the first 20
cities to receive a TV licence. The population reach is likely to be
500,000 plus, depending on the extent of coverage. Using the example
of Bristol the following bullet points outline some of the issues and
how our view of a successful local TV station might look - and we will try to
avoid using the term 'stakeholder'.
Firstly, a local channel is
differentiated by its need to engage the actual locality and local
population. Bristol
is a shining example of a globally aware medium-sized Creative City.
This is the reason for and view of companies like the double Oscar
winning Aardman Animations. There is a significant cost/quality
equation for living and doing business here. It has a very large
student population from both a top flight university, Bristol, and
one of the largest and most successful new universities in the
country, UWE. Along with Brighton (pro rata), it has one of the
largest populations of people opting to live here post-graduation in
the country. It's a great place for families to live and a great
place to go out at night for the young and young-at-heart alike.
It's a music-loving city. Beautiful countryside is easily accessible
in four directions. As a once powerful international sea port it has
a unique history with a diverse culture and real sense of growing
cohesion for which it is rightfully proud. It has of course as broad
an age range as any large city. It is a growing and confident
commercial hub 100 miles due west along the M4 corridor and gateway
to the Southwest. There's a lot more to the city's demographics, but
this outlines a few of the key considerations which point towards a
unique local service.
A
local channel needs to have a sense of ownership by its viewers and
has the ability to engage and galvanise a local audience. It can do
this and is indeed expected to this in ways which national and
regional television cannot.
-
Its
bedrock will be its breadth of real-time local news,
and related live services such as traffic and weather reports. Local
people have real interest in local news about people and places they
see
It
should provide a wide range of access services: council services;
health and environmental services; access to education, work and the
voluntary sector; access to democracy.
It
can encourage and support local dialogue in all sorts of areas,
whether leisure, cultural, or topical and can engage a wide range of
communities.
It
can provide leisure, entertainment and local business news to inform
people about their city both on a day to day basis and in a broader
sense.
It
should provide a mix of programming and all sections of the
population should be represented. Pigeon-holing race, age, class and
gender will be challenged though as engagement with the channel
reflects and enriches dialogue in the community.
'High-concept'
networked (arguably exploitative) programmes are probably not
particularly suited to local television. We believe that local
television is more likely to be rewarded by inclusivity than
competition. Extreme Reality TV for example wouldn't provide the level of
anonymity to ensure against potentially unhealthy exposure in the community.
Emulating the rigged juggernauts of Saturday night X-Factor type of
entertainment may seem distasteful or bogus to sufficient numbers to
turn a local audience away. Besides, this form of entertainment is
already provided so there is little point in trying to recreate it
on a lower budget from a smaller demographic. In fact, there is a
close parallel with the differences in the type of advertising
revenue likely to be secured on local television: just as people are
less likely to be sold toothpaste brand aspirations on local TV, so
they are less likely to welcome or respond to the kind of mass
global news gossip typified by enhanced-breast female archetypes and
are far more likely to be interested in the genuine character behind
the facade.
However,
there is still considerable potential for talk shows as part of the
live ongoing stream of newsand infotainment. Localised entertainment
can also feature prominently. For example, Bristol is a music-loving
city and a localized low-budget Jools Holland-type of programme
could work really well. Local bands would have the opportunity to
promote themselves and receive a show reel. This could be studio or
venue-based. If venue-based it could be a form of promotion for the
club as well. There may still be some element of voting or audience
approval as a way of promoting opportunity and involving local
audiences. There is also scope for visiting bands and inter-locality
exchange. Rather than simply competition though, which is not the
essence of people's enjoyment of music, beyond some friendly local
or inter-local rivalry, identity with and appreciation of home grown
talent is far more likely to be the attraction. The same could apply
to local theatre, comedy, poetry slams and the like. There is also
considerable potential for screening and supporting local film
production and other digital media, particularly in a media-rich
city like Bristol.
Local
does not have to be only geographically local. There are communities
of interest as well as communities of place. Here, there is definite
potential for collaboration with other local channels around the
country or even the world. Also, issues and interests which are
experienced as geographically local, often share close parallels in
other localities and it can be enlightening to compare how they are
approached elsewhere. This form of collaboration implies joint
productions and syndication of programming. Successfully run, this
co-production approach can do a lot to create high-quality
programming whilst mitigating high production costs.
For
this reason there is real scope for a co-ordinated approach where
back-end services and expertise could be provided by a more central
body serving several stations in different localities. The important
issue here will be to retain a genuinely local service with a sense
of local ownership, local editorial control and regulatory vigilance
against monopolism. Further benefits of co-ordinated production
include broader advertising sic revenue stream, skills and knowledge
sharing, centralized finance and purchasing power. All of these can
help ensure sustainability without detracting from commitment to the
local. To those who instinctively fear a loss of local control from
this approach, it is worth recognising that a local service might be
just as easily isolated and dominated by a local economic caucus
acting in its own interests as it is to achieve a genuinely
representative position.
The
chance to experiment and develop. Local television will be
attractive to audiences because there are different expectations.
Budgets will be lower, potential operating profits will be lower and
content is likely to dominate over style. In fact this is where the
charm and major Unique Selling Point of local television lies.
Audiences are likely to overlook deficiencies in slick production
values and enjoy the authentic approach on offer. This means far
lower barriers to entry for low cost productions which are based on
great ideas, genuine enthusiasm and belief. Bristol, as well as many
other places, already has some charming examples of home-spun but
highly entertaining internet-based shows. These may easily be
enhanced to meet the production values required for public service
broadcast.
Localism.
Specifically local geographic programming works over networked
television because people are able to easily go out and experience
first-hand local facilities which they may have discovered on the
local channel. This is a clear motivator for staying tuned into the
local service.
Padding
out. Local television will need to be padded out late at night with
low cost programming which is in all likelihood bought in. This will
include for example, movies and music videos. There is no reason
however though why imaginative very low-cost programming ideas
cannot also occupy and gradually replace these spaces, as long as
they ensure the same kinds of audiences. Local and inter-local
low-budget films and shorts (sometimes quite quirky) may well
attract local audiences, particularly in a town like Bristol, over
other networked programming. The probably low viewing numbers at
night leave a lot of room for test-running programme streams and a
strategically-place lack of predictability may well engage curious
late night channel hoppers.
The
local channel should also have a counterpart in other digital media
to provide an interactive and comprehensive local service. This is
particularly relevant with the speed of change in digital services
and innovations such as IPTV. In the case of Bristol, local
information is currently provided by the local newspapers, but
fondly remembered perhaps, is the heyday of Venue Magazine in its
original form, a successful listings-based magazine which has not
yet come near to being digitally improved upon and which provides a
useful print-based metaphor for much of how the new local channel
should look and feel.
There
are many other reasons local television can win audience over
networked television. A final thought is for people who are not
living locally, but have some stake locally; perhaps they are living
abroad, have family locally, once lived here, are considering moving
to or visiting the area, or are covering or interested in a local
story of wider interest. The local channel and its related digital
service should become the natural place for this diaspora to
congregate.
Local
TV's time has come. Let it be entertaining, exciting and innovate
service and communication across the whole spectrum of our
localities.