BTW, if anyone is interested in seeing how BFM Paris covers the French capital, you can watch a live stream here (it may take a few seconds for the stream to start):
These licenses are a privilege, so they must be fulfilling something for that. I also think this sort of thing should be judged on a license by license basis and clearly London Live which serves a BBC/ITV region should be offering something more than those broadcasters in terms of local content to make it worthwhile, whilst in Estuary where a news programme specifically for it's locally is not being offered by anyone else should be allowed to do less than London Live.
While some viewers outside Greater London can receive London Live on Freeview and universally via Sky, the editorial area is London's 32 boroughs and the City of London which is reflected by the power allocation of their two transmitters.
BFM Paris not only covers the city of Paris, but the whole of the Île-de-France region, which is otherwise only covered by the regional bulletin on PSB France 3.
Typically France has France 3 and a regional channel as an alternative.
I think if they adopted this kind of service, you'd start to see bars, offices and banks etc leaving it on in the background building a real sense of momentum and then people will have it on in the morning for the important info just as they go to work.
I don't think I have ever watched London Live for news, and I have lived in London all my life. We have BBC/ITV London for that. I guess this sort of local channel will never work in the UK, we are too small.
In addition to various smaller American and Canadian cities that have successful news channels (and have been mentioned here before), BFM Paris, a 24-hour news channel for the French capital, also seems to be doing just fine. And Paris is a smaller city than London.
I guess we are big enough then, London Live has never seemed like a news channel to me, it seems very slow and in terms of on screen stuff etc, it's like it was launched in 2005. There is not much information being provided, the time, the tube lines, roads etc, they should be on screen constantly. But for that they would need to be running news all of the time.
Be interesting to see how much it cost compared to LL, much faster pace and much more like a news channel. All the road info and trains on the screen, seems like a professional outfit, they should just "copy" them. Although I am not sure why they did not do that to start with.
I fully get why London Live would read this page and think people are dreaming. I'm not sure I'd throw money at a plan that involved spending tons of money on local news when there's no clear demand for any provision beyond what's already available.
However, on that basis I then fully understand why people feel Ofcom shouldn't be giving them chance after chance. They applied for the licence, they knew the requirements, and if London Live closed tomorrow I don't think the London public in general would sense a devastating loss of choice.
It also helps that BFM Paris is part of a much larger media group and can utilise the resources of BFMTV, France's leading rolling news channel.
London Live on the other hand, despite being part of the same company as the Evening Standard and owned by a Russian oligarch is disconnected from the revenue earning newspaper and is short of resources with recent staff cuts and is in debt, this despite being True Entertainment in all but name except for the news.
LL's debts are what may put off the likes of Made Television from making an offer.
I'm not sure I'd throw money at a plan that involved spending tons of money on local news when there's no clear demand for any provision beyond what's already available.
Throughout the history of the mass media, successful companies and entrepreneurs have
created
demand. Was there really preexisting public demand for "radio with pictures"? For 24-hour news channels? For 24-hour pop radio (before the pirates came along)? For an "alternative" channel in the style of Channel 4?
Before you launch something new -- and do it well -- you can't really say that there is no demand for XYZ. Even Reith himself said that "few people know what they want." Yes, he was speaking in a different context, but the point still stands. The people of London have never had a real news channel, so we can't say that they don't want it. Launching such a service would be a huge financial gamble, but a gamble that could very well pay off.
The people of London have never had a real news channel, so we can't say that they don't want it.
Channel One was a decent effort, but was only on cable. However, I don't think there is a need or a demand for a London only news channel. The NC and Sky News are already heavily Londoncentric and are quick to deploy resources to anywhere in the capital.
ESTV's accounts for 2016 should be published soon - it's managed to burn through £19m so far (2013: £1.2m, 2014: £11.5m, 2015: £6.3m). And for what?
As mentioned upthread (and no doubt several other times) news is always a difficult one in London because of its size and fractured governance, so people in Herne Hill will feel little affinity with Highgate, for example. Maybe many of us are of an age where we remember LBC in its pomp and The Way It Is on Capital, or The London Programme on LWT and Thames News, but they were all the products of stricter regulatory regimes and it's hard to see those days coming back, especially as recent events have highlighted the lack of even the most basic local journalism in many parts of the capital which would ordinarily spark off interest from London-wide networks.
But there are themes that will unite different groups of Londoners, even if those themes aren't exclusive to Londoners - commuting, housing, going out, shopping, kids, sport, the environment, health, eating, drinking, dancing, history, fitness, faith, music, art, even the weather. And it's London Live's failure to even bother addressing these communities of interest that really grates. Madness.