Local TV

It's a bit baffling that Bay TV Liverpool have still yet to get round to updating their website, surely the main way people should be able to find out more information about the channel and what it's supposed to do.

http://www.baytvliverpool.com/

(Meanwhile I can honestly say I haven't watched it since the launch)

I can say with confidence that you haven't missed much. At all.

Really an associated up to date website should be a condition of these licences now - a channel cannot exist as a channel alone.

Are we prepared to put a date yet on when we think these channels will begin to fold? They aren't even getting negative publicity like London Live initially did. It's bad news when your product is so rubbish that people can't even be bothered criticising it! I tuned in to the MADE channels on Sky and was frankly horrified at the 'news' programmes. Hello Cardiff's set was basically a burly chap's desk with the logo on his PC monitor. I also wish that somebody would chat to these VJs about making sure the manual focus is on. It's becoming boring watching out of focus people with something behind them in sharp HD!

It'll be the same in York. The vast majority of people in the city get TV from Emley Moor, although the local TV service will be broadcast from Bilsdale. According to a recent poll on Minster FM's website, only 14% received BBC NE&C / ITV Tyne Tees (Bilsdale).

The only local channels that appear to even come near to making any sort of commercial sense are the ones tied in with an existing broadcaster - ie STV and STV Glasgow/Edinburgh/Ayr (latter coming soon). It makes sense for STV to take them as it means there is no new competitor for advertising and they can be used to promote the station's apps and brand in a positive way. They're run as a very tight ship with one live show a night, one football phone-in shared with a few radio stations, a few peak-time recorded shows, STV News using current resources and a whole lotta repeats of shows STV own the rights to otherwise. Shows can also be shared between the stations.

In theory London has a huge population - twice the size of Scotland - so you would assume could have been commercially viable. But I gather - and correct me if I'm wrong - part of the problem is that people in one part of London wouldn't give a toss about people in the direct opposite area, so treating it as one big region simply doesn't work.

Part of the problem with the news content on London Live, which even the BBC and ITV are guilty of is being too central London focused.

LL should be able to focus on news within the Greater London boundary more as they don't have to cover the home counties, yet London is still too big for this minnow broadcaster (despite being part of the Standard) to cover adequately. Part of the award of the licence was to provide IPTV hyperlocal content across the boroughs, yet in reality, they were never going to be able to provide this,.

[quote="London Lite" pid="944797"]
So if these services were not so "Central London-focused", I would imagine there are plenty of unreported and under-reported stories across a metro area of 13 million. As some have stated London Live is too tiny to actually report such a large area. For context New York Metro is 19 million people the metro area has 8 (24hr) news channels. This in addition to the affiliates that operate in the area.
NY1- Manhattan (citywide) defacto city wide news channel
News12-The Bronx
News12-Brooklyn
News12-Connecticut
News12-New Jersey
News12-Long Island
News12-Hudson Valley
News12-Westchester
I wonder if because LL are so small if they are missing some important local stories. Maybe those might not be of interest to people in other parts of the country or other parts of the city, but if you are experiencing it in your local area it might of great interest to you.

Forgot these....
News12-El Bronx en Espanol
News12-New Jersey en Espanol
NY1-Noticias en Espanol
NY1- Rail & Road (Traffic channel)

http://player.stv.tv/live/edinburgh/

Apparently, i got STV Edinburgh instead of Glasgow! I thought I was closest to Glasgow...oh well...

It seems you need a very poweful arieal to get the local channels...

Which town are you in? The maps suggest everything East of Motherwell may be in STV Edinburghs footprint.