What's next for local TV? Hopefully some new thinking and some entrepreneurs

So what's next in the local TV debate? I find it rather amusing that those caught in the current flurry of activity - conferences, press statements and the like - behave as if local TV on a digital Freeview platform is a brand new idea. Ofcom was looking at the potential use of spare post digital switchover (DSO) spectrum for local TV back in 2005.

It was then that some erstwhile colleagues and I started to sit up and pay attention. Ofcom had commissioned a major piece of business modelling for a multi-platform Local TV Loading... companies local-tv operation to include Sky, cable, broadband and Freeview. The findings, published early in 2006, concluded that the major metropolitan areas in the UK could sustain a standalone local TV station. Although, for them and any smaller scale operations, a degree of networking and/or programme sharing would make sense and provide a more secure financial base.

So five years on those most recently engaged in masterminding this new tier of local broadcasting have come to the same conclusion. But far from being another vastly detailed interrogation by a regulatory body that slips out unnoticed by the great and the good, the latest pronouncements are heralded as if Moses just came forth with tablets of stone.

So we are all agreed that some form of network is the answer. Personally I'm closer to Richard Horwood's Channel 6 vision than the Roger Parry's local cross media production companies or Nicholas Shott's opted-out local news services run by the local newspapers.

But we do have to be wary of the network idea

Having a core operation that serves the local operations at a national level is crucial. But network programming and national advertising are only two, albeit important, elements of this function. We need to be mindful that we don't lose sight of the uniqueness of these services and the viewing patterns of the audience.

I fear that in the quest to find a solution to the minister's ambition to have an alternative to ITV Loading... companies itv regional news we end up creating ITV1 all over again. But this time with micro-regional opt-outs and nothing like the production budgets required to compete for network audiences.

I always believed the local television news debate was about plurality - that ITV news offered an alternative to the BBC Loading... companies BBC . One scenario says ITV stops producing regional news, local operators produce local content and then sell it back to the BBC who have put up the money to kickstart the service the first place. Is it me or am I missing something here?

ITV are past masters at playing what Stuart Purvis calls a "polite game of poker". Are they really likely to roll over and make space for another network competitor? The stakes may just be too high.

Local TV can flourish in the UK

It has an incredibly important community role to play. Its fortune does not need to be tied to the vagaries of national advertisers. Local media sales folk are becoming more and more adept at squeezing the local advertisers. Mark Dodson Loading... people mark-dodson says that under his stewardship, Guardian Media Group Loading... companies guardian-media-group 's Manchester-based Channel M took 4 million in annual revenue and created a substantial audience.

This was despite the fact that they had no decent signal and no BARB audience measurement. So it can be done. The reality is that a network of sorts will exist but hopefully not one that creates a straitjacket for the entrepreneurs. Some stations may only consist of a couple of hours local news a day. Others will offer much more. There needs to be a flexible structure which allows the new entrants to find their way. Otherwise those convinced of the viability of fully fledged local TV stations will just go their own separate ways.

Lin Glover has been an independent media consultant for more than 20 years, advising leading commercial radio operators on new licences and for the last three years she has been exploring the potential for Local TV in the UK.