Atholl Duncan on Jeremy Hunt’s fixation with local TV
Atholl Duncan, former senior BBC executive, has recently come on board as a blogger for The Drum, giving insight into the media and news. Here he takes a look at culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s aim to deliver local TV.
Is Local TV A Fairy Story?
Two media stories catch my eye. The success of the Gruffalo – its author made children’s laureate – and the continuing Jeremy Hunt to solve the mysteries of Local TV.
One of these is, of course, a fairy story for the innocent and the naive. The other is a carefully thought through, sustainable business.
One knows its audience well; knows its commercial model; knows its market; knows how to make money. The other is local TV.
Jeremy Hunt has a childlike fixation in delivering local TV even when all the adults round about him tell him “That’s a silly idea. Now go to bed”.
Nicholas Shott, the investment banker asked by the Government to investigate Local TV, said the economics would be “challenging”. Shorthand for not commercially viable.
The BBC only agreed to chuck in £25 million in the last minute bartering over the licence fee and not because anyone in the bowels of BH thinks this solution is a good solution.
First, it was a national channel carrying local output. Then it became local stations.
Now the Culture Secretary has the begging bowl out asking ITV, STV and Channel 4 to dig deep and offer millions as a hand out. The response was, well, extremely Gruffalo.
According to one of my sources in commercial TV “We thought he was having a laugh”.
On the generous side, one should perhaps commend Mr Hunt for refusing to give up in the fight to provide important local content in an increasingly globalised media landscape.
Others would say he should stop flogging a dead Gruffalo.
The FT quotes Mr Hunt as saying he wants a “bottom up approach”.
This isn’t the same as admitting it’s a bum idea but does show he’s still frantically searching for a creative solution to make his local TV fantasy come true.
For more from Atholl see his blog at thedrum.co.uk/blogs/newsjustin