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TV:UK
A NEW MODEL FOR LOCAL
TELEVISION IN THE UK
TV:UK
1
S T
March 2011
OUR VISION
TV:UK will provide the broadcasting and content foundation for a UK wide local
television network.
We aim to own the national content supplier, or the national spine as it is
sometimes known, together with up to three local television stations centred in large
metropolitan geographies.
We intend to change the face of British broadcasting, recalibrating the cost of
network television by centralising production in a content factory environment which
will reduce the unit cost of programmes without compromising volume or quality.
We have no interest in following the tried and tested formula at work in today’s
television market which is unnecessarily expensive, elitist and self serving . Local
television is the perfect opportunity to give the medium back to the people who pay
for it and use it.
We see our future as redefining Public Service Broadcasting for the 21st century.
We will take programme making back to the regions by building a production factory
and creating hundreds of new jobs.
We will give the UK its first genuinely local voice. TV:UK will create local drop in
news centres across Britain, open to the public, with direct and free news access in
every local community with the opportunity to connect with decision makers that
matter.
We will develop a methodology that builds on the lessons we have already learned
from our unique experience of local television and ally that knowledge to technology,
open access and the vast commercial acumen of partners who have a direct,
everyday relationship with local people across the nations and regions.
We will build a Digital Bridge that moves people from television they know and
understand to an internet future to which they can adapt. Our online provision will
become a powerful local tool that empowers communities and also fills the yawning
gap left by the collapse of the local newspaper business model.
We will provide technical support and off the shelf programme formats to local
stations allowing them to deliver content from day one.
Essentially we will be a responsible and creative company reinventing Public Service
Broadcasting for generations to come.
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The National Local Television Network
The Government has offered interested parties the opportunity to operate a national
Freeview channel which will form the core of the UK’s local television network. The
offer includes access to the digital multiplex along with a guaranteed prominent
position on the EPG.
TV:UK will be responsible for the broadcasting architecture, production and
commissioning of content for up to 21 hours per day of a national programming
schedule that will become the spine of the network.
We envisage that up to 10 local TV stations will join the network for up to 3 hours of
local programming per day. It is intended that this will grow over time.
The Business Opportunity
This initiative offers a unique chance to develop and operate a national channel on
the Freeview television network.
It is vital that the spectrum comes with front page EPG prominence and must-carry
obligations from all digital platform providers.
Revenue will come from a variety of sources. Initially national advertising will be the
primary driver of revenue though this will be supplemented by online income that
will contribute strongly as the business matures. Local revenue from traditional sales
and online income streams will become a significant part of the network turnover as
the 10 Big City channels come to air.
TV:UK will offer advertisers a wealth of advertising options at price points that will
prove extremely competitive. In line with our overall approach we will be provide
unique solutions to the problems associated with reaching local markets.
As part of the process of making local television a reality the government needs to
put in place a research framework that allows local stations to register on the
national BARB survey. The current system is too blunt an instrument to allow local
TV to be sold at an agency or major client level. Our experience at Channel M
demonstrated that even though agencies wanted to buy local spots on the local
channel they could not justify the outlay and decision to clients because the industry
has no mechanism to compare the reach and value of local TV advertising with its
terrestrial, cable or satellite competitors. Government needs to address this problem
as part of the licensing process.
The transmission set up costs will partially covered by the BBC, which will provide
£25m from their recent licence fee settlement to cover the infrastructure build of the
network.
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We see the costs of the business falling into five broad categories:1. Transmission, up-linking and local station connectivity costs of
running the network. Pictures and data will need to be transmitted to the
Freeview Mux, the Virgin Head Ends and the Sky satellite up linking facilities
as well as the 10 individual station network points that will feed and return
data to the local channels.
It has been impossible for an independent consortium to gather reliable
quotes and information to properly gauge the cost of this area of the
enterprise. Arqiva declined to offer any information in writing stating that they
would need much more discussion with the DCMS before they could talk to
potential bidders about spectrum planning and costs. As a result and
following discussion with the DCMS we believe it to be misleading at this
stage to provide a definitive business plan to accompany this document.
We will provide a robust and professionally costed business plan as part of
our submission to the Formal Tender document.
2. We intend to reduce the unit cost of television production by
making programmes in a new and revolutionary manner. It is clear
that for the network to be commercially viable we will need to utilise studio
time, outside broadcast facilities and live transmission in a way that has not
been previously developed. We intend to build our own National Programme
Factory in Manchester that will act as the primary provider of network
programming for the spine of our local television service. These programmes
will be of equal quality to the daytime programming currently available to the
public on the existing network channels, though they will be made at a
fraction of the cost.
Our schedule will be composed of high quality content commissioned from a
central facility working with the best talent in the regions from a cost base
that will change the face of British broadcasting. We also intend to offer
templated programme formats and technical support to the local stations free
of charge. Our organic programming will be supplemented by the acquisition
of content from the market.
3. Newsgathering. We have finalised robust and flexible plans which include
a link with a national and international news provider and we will also invest
in a significant news presence in each major conurbation. This will involve
experienced investigative reporters with a focus on local and regional news
that existing television news networks are patently unwilling to match.
National and international news will be drawn from our selected provider; we
will concentrate on creating our own local news agenda through our own
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resources including newsgathering centres based in partner centres across
Britain. Our news operation will be geographically flexible, but will also have
a clear remit to tackle local government and public service issues.
Additionally, we plan to develop strong 24 hour weather and travel
information strands.
4. Online. We are planning considerable investment in the network’s online
resources. The growth and richness of our site will determine the precise cost,
but we believe that the development of a strong web presence will help the
eventual shift from linear television to an IPTV future. We also plan to
establish a significant mobile resource to ensure that a full multi-media
offering is provided at the national and local level.
5. Marketing. We are developing a year-long marketing plan which will
establish UK-wide awareness of the significant addition to the UK’s multi
media choices we plan to deliver at both national and local levels.
The Social Opportunity
One of our primary aims is to enable the new network and its local stations to
revitalise communities across the UK.
We will deliver a consortium of progressive companies which will revitalise the UK
television space and which will, for the first time, widen the media stakeholder
ecology in a revolutionary way.
Current television players are very reluctant to develop new avenues to market.
They are paralysed by the reach and power of the BBC, ITV and Sky and by their
failure to gain traction in digital markets.
Government wants to change the face of broadcasting in the UK. It believes that this
new television network can have a huge social impact as it empowers communities
and brings people together. We will bring together successful businesses from
outside the media world to join key players from the advertising and broadcasting
sectors with well-funded national businesses with resources and skill-sets that
compliment existing media players but go very much deeper into the community.
We can provide further details in confidence if required at this stage.
We have an opportunity to allow communities across the UK to come together to
improve their lives. We will give them the chance to interact with each other either
individually or through community initiatives, clubs, societies, schools and local
government institutions and give all of them a genuine democratic voice.
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We want to empower people by giving them a stake in our national media,
amplifying their voice locally and enabling it to resonate nationally.
Our impartial service will help citizens by adding value to their communities through
their awareness of local issues and initiatives enabling them to take positive steps to
improve their own lives and those of their neighbours. Our consortium will be
committed to the principle of meaningful Corporate Social Responsibility.
The Online Opportunity
TV:UK will create a substantial online presence that will reflect the point where
media meets social networking. Hyper local websites will flow from the main national
online function. We expect to generate thousands of stories and features that can
form the basis of local television bulletins but will be made available to local
newspapers, radio stations and websites. This will add value to other local media
which will be able to redirect resource towards the proper reporting of courts and
council meetings thereby offsetting the current local democratic deficit. We will
encourage communities to speak to and cooperate with each other.
Local Media has in general failed to take advantage of the digital revolution at work
in its sector. Their focus has generally been defensive and only turned to an
aggressive pursuit of new users once their classified revenues had crumbled.
There is a huge space in local online provision that is currently not being
filled at present.
This online digital strength can be reinforced at national and local level through our
television stations. We are determined to become the “go to “local website.
While the depth and quality of our data will be unmatched by other local players it is
our intention to open our resource to others. Instead of cutting other media outlets
out of the process we would make all our content available as soon as it has
appeared on our platforms. This way we hope to inspire and support parts of the
local media infrastructure that are struggling to come to terms with the digital
future. As good citizens we want to see all media thrive and offer choice and variety.
The Digital Bridge
Although we see the provision of local television eventually being served through
IPTV we don’t see broadband take-up being strong enough in the short term to
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develop the audience and advertising revenue required. Therefore the service needs
to be delivered via linear television between its launch in 2012 and the point at
which enough internet-enabled TV’s sit in UK households. This is the digital
bridge that needs to be in place to establish local television in Britain.
Many smaller local stations will thrive using IPTV as its distribution platform.
However, we firmly believe that the larger local stations will need to bridge the gap
between 2012 and the point at which IPTV becomes a truly commercially sustainable
platform through the use of traditional linear methods of distribution to generate
audience numbers and advertising revenue of sufficient size to guarantee viability.
This digital bridge is a critical component of our plan and is the only way we can see
the overall enterprise becoming commercially viable. It will be opposed by those who
naturally see IPTV as a low-cost and democratic avenue to the public. This group
fails to acknowledge that however democratic and organic this avenue to market
may be, it singularly lacks the audience clout and brand cut-through that the
network will need to be truly successful.
LOCAL STATION GEOGRAPHIES
We envisage 10 local TV stations to launch as part of the first wave of establishing
local broadcast partners. Many more can follow but for the purposes of this
document it is sensible to concentrate on the Big City 10.
We have selected geographies loosely based on the Metropolitan Districts
established in the mid 1980’s:Greater Manchester (Manchester)
Merseyside (Liverpool)
West Midlands (Birmingham)
Strathclyde (Glasgow)
Tyneside (Newcastle)
West Yorkshire (Leeds)
Lothian (Edinburgh)
East Midlands (Nottingham, Derby, Leicester)
Avon and Severn (Bristol and Cardiff)
East Anglia (Norwich and Ipswich)
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It is our view that the owner/operators of these Big City stations should be obligated
to help and support smaller broadcasters who want to serve more local towns and
cities. Each broadcaster should be required to help new players smaller than
themselves. The support should then cascade down the broadcast pyramid offering
help to the tiniest broadband company to the larger more established businesses.
The audience share that the local stations can expect will be driven by the quality of
programmes they produce and the amount of time they intend to be on air. We
expect each local broadcaster to have an individual model. We intend to help the
local stations with support and formatted programming yet we do not want to be too
prescriptive about their output as it will restrict the individuality of their proposition
and potentially undermine the richness of the network.
Initially we see the local stations broadcasting for a minimum of three hours per day
seven days a week though they will have a 24 hour online and mobile presence.
The devolved nations are in many ways already better served than the English
regions yet it is clear to us that a market exists in both Scotland and Wales for local
television. The case for Northern Ireland can also be made and this should form the
early part of a second wave of community station development.
REQUIREMENTS FROM GOVERNMENT
Given that there are over 525 television channels available in Britain today, why do
we need another one? We believe the reason is clear. There is still a fundamental
gap in local television provision. The UK is still uncomfortably London centric. The
capital’s agenda and prejudices dominate our working and cultural life. A number of
metropolitan influences may also seek to dominate the development of local
television. It is time for new thinking and new people to take a lead in the most
important initiative in British media for decades.
Local traditions, voices and desires are being lost. This channel will be the first step
to redress this imbalance.
But there are a number of key priorities:
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We need free spectrum.
We need must-carry obligations attached to the channel to ensure platform
neutrality.
We need a front page EPG position on all platforms.
Finally we will need Government to continue to be radical in its thinking and its
implementation of the legislation required to make local TV reality in the UK.
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SUMMARY
TV:UK will bring together partners from outside the media world to ensure that our
network brings fresh ideas and capital to UK broadcasting.
We will deliver local television to the people of Britain. We intend that our
programmes will only be the beginning, the tip of a community communications
revolution that will have a profound and positive impact on the everyday lives of
individuals in cities towns and villages across the nation.
TV:UK will be pioneering a new way to make and broadcast television.
We know more about local television than anyone else in the country and we do not
say this lightly. We have taken the best elements of our seven years in the
marketplace and allied them to what we know we will need to make local television
work in Britain today.
We now have a network, an enthusiastic and committed government and a blueprint
to revolutionise the industry.
We intend to make a winning submission when the Formal Tender Process is
announced.
Mark Dodson
March 1st 2011
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