Local Television Network - local TV bidder

Former BBC Director General has a proposal for a network of 80 local stations.

^{Published on 6th March 2011 at 08:39 by Brian Butterworth on UK Free TV}
The Local Televison Network is a proposal for a fast roll-out of 80 local television stations, with the focus on under-served cities from York to Aberdeen, revenue from local and regional advertisers to supply most funds, evolved from  unitedforlocaltv.com.

Key people:Greg Dyke, Peter Williams, Mike Southgate (former ITV), Pat Loughery (former BBC nations and regions), Lis Howell (former Sky News, GMTV, Border TV), Mark Oliver (Oliver & Ohlbaum), Daniel Cass -   Greg Dyke heads group bidding for national TV network - Media - guardian.co.uk

Dyke, speaking in York said: "If local television is to come - and I think it will - there is a real danger that cities like York will miss out.

"Instead local television will be concentrated in the dozen or so cities which are already well served by regional television - the likes of Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle and London rather than those that aren't well served like Sheffield, Coventry, Sunderland, Exeter and of course York."

"We believe local television can be made to be viable in cities like these because we believe that local television can be cheaper to run than Shott believes, that it could attract more local advertising than Shott believes, and that, arguably, the interest in local news and local features is greater in smaller cities and towns.

"If we are right we believe many more areas should have the opportunity to launch local television services. You could argue that people are willing to accept reduced quality if the content is more local.

"It could be argued that regional news has never been as good as national news in terms of quality because much less money is spent on it, but this hasn't impacted the ratings. The same would apply to local versus regional."

"We could establish a York local station in a matter of months, broadcast either from wonderful facilities like these at the university or, if we couldn't afford them, from a shop front currently used as a charity shop in the centre of York," he said.

"Cheap doesn't mean worse, it means different."

"The journalist who works on the local paper and the paper's website today should also be supplying material to the local radio station and the local television service"

"If we care about local journalism we have to find more ways of paying trained journalists' wages and encouraging them to get out there finding stories not just copying out the latest PR handout."  Dyke outlines plan for 80 local TV stations in UK - Press Gazette