Local television
Up to fairly recently if you wanted to see news of
what is going on in your local area you usually had to
watch the regional news programmes on either the BBC or
your local ITV contractor. These programmes may cover
regional events but they usually have to be highly notable
even to gain a few minutes of airtime - even if cameras
were present at a local village carnival the event may
receive minimal coverage or be neglected altogether if
displaced by a more important news item arising in another
part of the region. The introduction of the new local
television services were intended to remove this inherent
limitation - these stations will provide truly local
programming for a town/city or island.
It may surprise some people to learn that local
television services have been around for some time in the
UK - at least for viewers who are connected to cable
television networks. Ever since the first cable television
experiments took place in the late 1960s there have been
attempts at providing truly local television; for example
the "Swindon Viewpoint" channel gave Swindon its own
service in the early 1970s. With the rapid expansion of
cable services, local services have proliferated but you
have to be connected to a cable network and often have to
subscribe to more than the basic channel provision in order
to receive them (and not many people do).
The new generation of local TV stations remove the
limitation of the cable services - all you have to do is
own a television, a TV licence, and live within the
transmission area; the station is received in the same way
as the BBC. Local stations by their very nature typically
cover only a small area, so their transmitter output is
usually much smaller than national or regional services
(typically 1kw compared with 1000kw for a main service such
as Channel 4) meaning that only people living within a
radius of (say) 12 miles or less will be able to receive
the service, though this may vary depending on the terrain
and the transmitter location.
TV12, which serves the Isle of Wight (just off the
south coast of England) was the first of the new local
stations to commence transmission; it had originally hoped
to launch its service during the summer of 1998 but delays
with transmitter provision and frequency allocation meant
that the service was postponed until the start of test
transmissions on the 26 October with the service launching
on 31 October 1998. The delay however gave the opportunity
for more programmes to be made and 'stockpiled' as well as
for more advertising and sponsorship to be gained before
the service started. The transmission licence for this type
of TV station is known as an RSL (restricted station
licence) and only lasts for two years.
These services not only provide a local news service
but they also provide many of the other types of
programming that exist on national or regional TV networks
such as current affairs, sport, music, drama, etc., but on
a local level. Some programme types such as feature films
are obviously excluded on financial grounds, but in any
case that would be going against what local television is
all about which is providing a uniquely local service for
the community.
Recent technological advances in the equipment used
in television production means that the smallest of TV
stations are now capable of producing programmes of
technical quality not far removed from the major
broadcasters; the only constraints being the humans that
operate the equipment and the production budget. A complete
non-linear digital video editing system can now be
purchased for under £10000, which makes an ideal partner
for the cheap lightweight digital video camcorders that are
now readily available.
TV12 was the first of several stations: soon
afterwards MATV (Leicester), The Oxford Channel (now Six TV
Oxford), Channel M (Manchester) and several others were
launched, along with the expansion of the coverage area of
existing stations such as TV12. However these RSL stations
have often proved to be unprofitable, with TV12 losing its
franchise in 2002 and being replaced by the not-for-profit
community station Solent TV (which plans to launch on
SkyDigital in the near future). Portsmouth and Southampton
had local TV stations of their own (with Bournemouth TV
promised), but the company behind them (MyTV Network)
failed to make a profit and the Southampton and Portsmouth
areas are now served by Six TV.
