Local TV: Final Shott Report Published

Nicholas Shott’s final report on Local TV was published this week. He told Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt that “in the long term, local TV can be commercially viable, as and when IPTV gains sufficient market penetration.” He said that in the short to medium term, no more than 10 or 12 local TV services would be sustainable via digital terrestrial television and only then if certain minimum conditions were met.

The cost of the 10 services based on a network of major conurbations is estimated at £25 million per annum, which could be covered by around £15 million from national advertising revenues, £5 million from the BBC’s commitment to buy locally generated news content for three years, (but see story: BBC Trust BBC Strategy) and the rest made up from local advertising revenues.

Public service broadcasters could promote local TV services on screen red-button prompts or insertion of local programming into a national channel’s regional schedule, the report said. A single channel number common to all local TV services and in a prominent position on the EPG would be very important.

“The task of building and maintaining an audience should not be underestimated: although research points to consumer demand for local content, it is substantially for news or new-type programming, implying that maintaining audiences at viable levels for lengthy periods will be challenging, to say the least,” said Mr Shott.

“To help to meet those challenges local TV services will have to co-operate with one another to form a national ‘backbone’. The purpose of this backbone will be to provide programming to augment the schedules of the local TV services; to eliminate duplication of local TV services’ costs wherever possible, by sharing; to promote the generic concept of local TV services; and, crucially, to maximise national advertising revenues, either by means of an in-house sales team or, perhaps more desirably, inconjuntion with a sales agent…”

The report, which was commissioned by Jeremy Hunt in June, said 10 to 12 conurbations should be chosen to host trial local TV services, providing at least two hours of high-quality local content per day. Click here for the full report.

In early 2011, the DCMS says it will publish proposals setting out the steps it will take to support the emergence of commercially viable local TV in the UK within a strong, independent and vibrant local media industry.