London Live

As a proponent of local TV I really do despair. Useless.

As they don't do the playout, how easy is it to get the studio on air for unscheduled news coverage? (Assuming they have enough people around at the studio end to be able to put a broadcast together)

Dou t it has ever been tested on the local network. BTW who is paying for the playout now - does that come from the licence fee?

Playout is provided by Comux, paid for by the local television stations.
The license fee money came to the stations by forcing the BBC to buy raw footage/news packages from the locals.

Red Bee does the playout for London Live, but it's not set up to be a particularly reactive channel.

Comux doesn't playout all the local channels ISTR - but I think it does handle distribution (coding and mux etc.) for all of them, including those it does't play out.

https://www.live-production.tv/news/products/london-live-selects-ericsson-broadcast-services-london-dedicated-tv-channel.html

Ericsson, now rebranded back to Red Bee in the UK, handle London Live's Playout. (The same company handles BBC, ITV, C4, UKTV etc. channels)

http://www.comux.co.uk has a list of the channels they handle. I don't know if STV outsourced STV2 to Comux, or if they have only recently assumed responsibility for the Scottish services since they moved to be 'That's' channels.

Probably a less than smart set-up....not factoring in the ability to go live when needed. That is, as we've all said, if they had the staff the do so. SMH

I mean... as awful as it is amazi... no, just awful...

London Live: Probably a less than smart set-up

AIUI there was also some initial licence fee funding to set-up Comux?

Channel One was a good London local channel but couldn't raise any money despite having a good journalistic background to it.

How can London Skive expect to get money? A bit like with Kelvin's Lovesport radio station, you may as well chuck the investment down the toilet.

London Live have once again reduced news hours. The channel will now provide five hours per week of news on weekdays only between 6-7pm.