SE
Square Eyes
Founding member
That Bay TV theme tune into the news is really jarring though. Too jolly to lead into news.
Yes these operations should be looking to really exploit their content online to help them grow an audience. Sheffield Live actually have a better online presence than they do on screen, thanks in part to their established radio station.
Made in Bristol / Leeds etc. still just have a holding page. London Live though is the best of the lot, regularly updated, and easy to navigate, helped though of course by the Evening Standard's established online presence.
Seems to be a trend with these local sites, being a bit negligent with the online content. (with a few exceptions of LL and Mustard)
Yes these operations should be looking to really exploit their content online to help them grow an audience. Sheffield Live actually have a better online presence than they do on screen, thanks in part to their established radio station.
Made in Bristol / Leeds etc. still just have a holding page. London Live though is the best of the lot, regularly updated, and easy to navigate, helped though of course by the Evening Standard's established online presence.
LL
London Lite
Founding member
It says a lot that London Live is now considered to be one of the better channels these days. Still not as good as Notts, Mustard or STV Glasgow personally, but getting there slowly.
MO
The problem is they keep trying to emulate (network) things they dont have budget to do and it ends up looking cheap. Thats said MustardTv and Estruarytv are good examples of how to do it right generally. Though they need to stop trying to emulate BBC News. The dancey-heart monitor beebing theme music should be the domain of the Beeb. (But thats my personal opionion) I think Mustardtv site is quite good and updated and their news product is quite good. Estruarytv uploads their news videos to Youtube, which is fine but they dont have links on their site, which is a mistake.
Not impressed with Baytv Liverpool. Not a postive development for the other soon to launch Baytv Stations .
Woulda been nice if Comux also ran these stations websites in addition to the MasterControl operations. Many US stations contract the backoffice operations of their sites to other companies. The stations simply upload portions of things to the site. These companies are also responsible for the mobile sites and apps. Would have been nice if a mobile strategy was part of Comux remit. I think a single strategy to monetize the sites would have bought in more money to run the operation and it would resulted in saving for each individual station as they may have been able to sell ads across all the stations websites. Oh Well.
Not impressed with Baytv Liverpool. Not a postive development for the other soon to launch Baytv Stations .
Woulda been nice if Comux also ran these stations websites in addition to the MasterControl operations. Many US stations contract the backoffice operations of their sites to other companies. The stations simply upload portions of things to the site. These companies are also responsible for the mobile sites and apps. Would have been nice if a mobile strategy was part of Comux remit. I think a single strategy to monetize the sites would have bought in more money to run the operation and it would resulted in saving for each individual station as they may have been able to sell ads across all the stations websites. Oh Well.
GL
The quality is simply not there. This is the TV equivalent of Ofcom licensing community radio. 99% will be bust within 2 years. STV will make its local channels work - simply by being able to absorb costs and maintain high standards using existing equipment. London Live will continue (although I reckon it will go through numerous changes) because it's such a major market that it needs to work. The rest are all facing a very uncertain future. I'm particularly surprised at how awful the MADE channels are. This is genuinely some of the worst local TV output I have witnessed in the world. They can forget about even considering trying to emulate US TV. It isn't even at Uzbeki TV levels of quality! I had hoped for channels that would be similar to TV Brussel in Belgium. It operates like a news, info and entertainment channel with broadcast standard output and a great website.
http://www.brusselnieuws.be
http://www.brusselnieuws.be
:-(
A former member
Does anyone have a status update on the Manchester local TV licence? I've never yet got a reply from them. However, I did notice an up-tick in the re-posting of news articles from BBC North West and the M.E.N. on Your TV's Facebook page lately so somebody is doing *something*.
SP
Made in Leeds seem to have something that looks like a studio now, albeit without much of a set, it just looks like a white box - but a definite improvement on that previous effort in front of some windows. I wonder if they launched before their facilities were fully ready?
One highlight amongst their in house productions is Talk a Good Game, their sports programme. The presenter is Derm Tanner, ex Sports Editor at Radio Leeds and occasional Look North sports reporter - a very safe pair of hands - and there are some well produced, if basic, packages.
It's not all perfect, the studio shot framing could be better, I'm not convinced one of the shots is quite in focus (although it could be an encoding artefact making it look soft, I guess), and sound levels are all over the place between studio and VT. The limitations of the set having presenter and guest on a standard living room style sofa means Derm is sitting at an awkward angle which looks strange.
But they've got the important things right - editorially it's solid, even if the look and feel is a bit rough.
One highlight amongst their in house productions is Talk a Good Game, their sports programme. The presenter is Derm Tanner, ex Sports Editor at Radio Leeds and occasional Look North sports reporter - a very safe pair of hands - and there are some well produced, if basic, packages.
It's not all perfect, the studio shot framing could be better, I'm not convinced one of the shots is quite in focus (although it could be an encoding artefact making it look soft, I guess), and sound levels are all over the place between studio and VT. The limitations of the set having presenter and guest on a standard living room style sofa means Derm is sitting at an awkward angle which looks strange.
But they've got the important things right - editorially it's solid, even if the look and feel is a bit rough.
CL
Agree with Steve that 'Talk a Good Game' is the in-house show that's closest to being right. Derm's a confident host, he was lucky in having one of the more eloquent ex-footballers as tonight's pundit, and having something resembling a set, rather than having linkman and guest stood up by a brick wall, makes a big difference.
So, plenty of promise in the format but tonight's show ran out of steam in the second part, I felt. They ran a nine-day old piece on Phillip Hughes' death, sourced from the news programme 'On the Aire' - complete with 'On the Aire' outcue, and references to 'shock on Twitter this morning'. There was also a lengthy chunk of a forthcoming 'Life after United' on Norman Hunter - fair enough to plug it, but not big on news value.
Indeed, the reuse of material between different strands is one of the hallmarks of the channel. Makes sense economically, but they need to make sure the material hasn't dated in the interim.
'The Book-it List' doesn't seem to have settled on a format - sometimes it's Leeanne Megson and Mark O'Brien together in studio, sometimes it's just a solo host - other times they'll contribute separate location pieces.Tonight we had Leeanne talking for no obvious reason to the owner of a new-ish cafe in Headingley, and later to a concert promoter who recently won an award, which is a little more on-point. She's certainly telegenic, not super-smooth but maybe more screen time will help. There were also a couple of odd sequences of Leeanne and Mark decorating the station Christmas tree while singing a duet, which seemed there purely to soak up time.
To end on a couple of positives - they've revoiced the weather sequence, and ditched the bored sounding man of the first few weeks for a bubblier woman (think it might be Leeanne again). This might seem a minor thing, but if it's on twice an hour, you might as well get it right! And I saw some very good coverage of a boxing match from the north-east on Monday night. Not sure if it was a Made in Tyne and Wear in house effort, or an outside production, but it was up to main channel standard visually, even if the commentary was a little shaky.
So, plenty of promise in the format but tonight's show ran out of steam in the second part, I felt. They ran a nine-day old piece on Phillip Hughes' death, sourced from the news programme 'On the Aire' - complete with 'On the Aire' outcue, and references to 'shock on Twitter this morning'. There was also a lengthy chunk of a forthcoming 'Life after United' on Norman Hunter - fair enough to plug it, but not big on news value.
Indeed, the reuse of material between different strands is one of the hallmarks of the channel. Makes sense economically, but they need to make sure the material hasn't dated in the interim.
'The Book-it List' doesn't seem to have settled on a format - sometimes it's Leeanne Megson and Mark O'Brien together in studio, sometimes it's just a solo host - other times they'll contribute separate location pieces.Tonight we had Leeanne talking for no obvious reason to the owner of a new-ish cafe in Headingley, and later to a concert promoter who recently won an award, which is a little more on-point. She's certainly telegenic, not super-smooth but maybe more screen time will help. There were also a couple of odd sequences of Leeanne and Mark decorating the station Christmas tree while singing a duet, which seemed there purely to soak up time.
To end on a couple of positives - they've revoiced the weather sequence, and ditched the bored sounding man of the first few weeks for a bubblier woman (think it might be Leeanne again). This might seem a minor thing, but if it's on twice an hour, you might as well get it right! And I saw some very good coverage of a boxing match from the north-east on Monday night. Not sure if it was a Made in Tyne and Wear in house effort, or an outside production, but it was up to main channel standard visually, even if the commentary was a little shaky.
SP
I hadn't spotted that the cricket piece was old, but I thought it was a nice little package, I learned something interesting from it about the changes to the design of cricket helmets - whether that's an angle that's been well covered elsewhere I don't know.
Good point about the reuse though - is not as though this week's events at Leeds United couldn't fill half an hour on their own.
Incidentally I noticed a "furniture supplied by" in the credits for one of their advertisers, maybe that explains the not entirely suitable sofa.
Good point about the reuse though - is not as though this week's events at Leeds United couldn't fill half an hour on their own.
Incidentally I noticed a "furniture supplied by" in the credits for one of their advertisers, maybe that explains the not entirely suitable sofa.
MK
Whilst I feel a bit harsh passing judgement on it so early, I just can't watch Bay TV Liverpool, I'm afraid. Like I said yesterday, the picture's pretty choppy and I live in inner Liverpool. Secondly, it feels like something run by sixth form media students. The voice-overs on the reports seem sort of artificial. It's hard to describe; kind of like they're reading a script without emotion. It's shown up because they then cut to a normal member of the public who talks normally. The worst thing is the news anchor who seems to have worms. He can't sit still and it's just distracting.
I know the budget's lower than normal TV stations but Channel One Liverpool was in a similar situation and whilst clearly lower budget than Granada Reports, the news anchors were okay, as was the studio and the reports in the main part.
I hope it's just growing pains but realistically, whilst there's demand for local news and programming, it's not high enough for a dedicated standalone channel competing with tens of nationwide channels; which is why network TV (ITV and American networks) works better. A shame because Liverpool is one area which this could and should work, as a lot of people feel the Manchester-based arrangement hasn't served them very well over the years, rightly or wrongly.
I know the budget's lower than normal TV stations but Channel One Liverpool was in a similar situation and whilst clearly lower budget than Granada Reports, the news anchors were okay, as was the studio and the reports in the main part.
I hope it's just growing pains but realistically, whilst there's demand for local news and programming, it's not high enough for a dedicated standalone channel competing with tens of nationwide channels; which is why network TV (ITV and American networks) works better. A shame because Liverpool is one area which this could and should work, as a lot of people feel the Manchester-based arrangement hasn't served them very well over the years, rightly or wrongly.
Last edited by Mr Kite on 7 December 2014 3:17pm