Digital Britain Report - why ITV regional news?
Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV I just can't get my head around the ITV news slot idea.
Why not just dump the regional bits from ITV, and put the money into a full-time channel (on multiplex 1, part of ITV's half it gets for being a PSB) and have local rolling news channels with a mandatory half-hour evening news programme?
Whoever runs it gets, say 20 minutes an hour of adverts and gets the multiplex space (and distribution and resources of 3&4 Ltd) gratis.
And why not just get the funding for local TV from the council tax, just like the police do?
Still don't get it.
Why not just "return" the BBC licence fee money to the public and then have aslightly larger tax on the phone lines to pay for regional news.
You could even distribute the money on a regional basis and devolve it Scotland, Wales, NI and London.
Or collect money via the Council Tax? Why tax copper and not glass?
Heard Peter "don't mention Big Brother" Baselgette on the radio and he said that the BBC Trust should "manage" the ITV regional news money.
Seems fair enough, having the "BBC Trust" brand on the ITV news.
Would the UK public be not better served by pumping 120m a year into a better BBC regional news service with a programme for each county and major city, than supporting a LESS local competing service with the programmes looped on a 24-hour Freeview channel and on the iPlayer?
Why not aim high and expect a network of 24-hour local news channels? One each for London, Birmingham, Manchester ... and so on and then a network of "rural" stations say "Yorkshire" or "Devon"?
If the BBC "lose control of the licence fee", it might still be better to have 95% of something, rather than 100% of nothing, so to speak.