The demise of local media

[py_megapixel]

That's probably worth a separate thread if it's not been done already. One of many, many instances of local broadcasting replaced by syndicated crap.

I agree it's worth a separate thread, so I've created one.

Your point applies not only to radio but also to local newspapers. I have to say it's a little disheartening to see once-valued local publications being replaced with the cookie cutter rubbish of Reach PLC, filled with syndicated stories with minor tweaks in the hope that they'll appear relevant. ("REVEALED: the 300 bank branches CLOSING FOR GOOD across the country in 2022 - including 23 in Cheshire" will become "REVEALED: the 300 bank branches CLOSING FOR GOOD across the country in 2022 - including 19 in Derbyshire")

Meanwhile local radio up and down the country has been rebranded as "Heart" and "Hits Radio" (with what? a hammer presumably) and has only the bare minimum local programming, with even the news coming from centralised studios and mostly concerning national affairs.

It seems there is no future for locally owned and run media channels in this country - presumably it's no longer economical.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think it's one of those things that would work much better were micropayments a thing online. The destruction of local media websites has resulted from "clickbait" - the need for people to click on pages to view ads and get revenue.

That said, I do pay to subscribe to the Times and use its excellent app on my iPad, I'd consider doing so to a good local newspaper too. (The Reach PLC papers, e.g. the Liverpool Echo, are still pretty decent, they are quite separate from the website).

As for local commercial radio, MK does actually have a replacement local station, MKFM, which is independent and started out as streaming only but now broadcasts on FM too. There are a few of them about like that, though they never seem to last that long, I guess advertising revenue doesn't stack up against the costs.

 

[Magdalia]

Here in the Fens we are fortunate to have the Cambridge Independent, winner of weekly newspaper of the year in 4 of the last 5 years.

I would be interested in the @Bletchleyite perspective on BBC local TV. BBC East has for a long while done separate programmes centred on Norwich and Cambridge. The latter spreads all the way to Milton Keynes and Northampton, basically anywhere receiving from the mighty Sandy Heath transmitter. But later this year BBC are proposing to kill off the Cambridge broadcast and go back to a single programme broadcast from Norwich.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would be interested in the @Bletchleyite perspective on BBC local TV. BBC Epast has for a long while done separate programmes centred on Norwich and Cambridge. The latter spreads all the way to Milton Keynes and Northampton, basically anywhere receiving from the mighty Sandy Heath transmitter. But later this year BBC are proposing to kill off the Cambridge broadcast and go back to a single programme broadcast from Norwich.

Unfortunately I don't see it at all - I watch TV via a Fire stick, and the iPlayer doesn't offer regional opt-outs, it just comes up as "sorry, we can't show you this" for the duration of the programme.

That said, I don't think Cambridge or Norwich is of any real interest to us in MK, we associate primarily with London and the South East and secondarily the West Midlands, not East Anglia (be that Cambridge or Norwich), despite us being in the East Anglia region for quite a few things e.g. water supply. So given a choice I'd rather we got London Today or whatever it's now called. I'd probably actually say MK associates more with London than it does even with Northampton. This has many reasons, e.g. it being substantially London overspill, but also because that's the way the main transport arteries go. The North has a web of railways and roads, the South East has mostly railways and roads to London.

FWIW I mostly listen to LBC on the radio these days (technically national but London-leaning), and that feels not really an awful less local than Three Counties, given that the latter has very little MK output these days. Though I do think BBC local radio serves an important purpose and shouldn't be dropped to save money.

 

[Kite159]

I agree about the clickbait news articles, when the article itself is irrelevant to the area that newspaper covers

One which springs to mind was something "Local pub closed down by police after fight" when the pub in question was in the Southampton area. Or "Wheelie Bin Thief on the Loose" when some wheelie bins got 'stolen' by some bored youngsters during lockdown in the Fareham area.

Likewise the local news on TV/radio will be mainly focused around Southampton/Portsmouth with maybe the odd bit of news from the northern end of the region.

 

[Magdalia]

That said, I don't think Cambridge or Norwich is of any real interest to us in MK, we associate primarily with London and the South East and secondarily the West Midlands, not East Anglia (be that Cambridge or Norwich), despite us being in the East Anglia region for quite a few things e.g. water supply.

Thanks. Here in the Fens I don't think of Northampton and Milton Keynes as being part of East Anglia (though they do have the headwaters of two of our major rivers, which probably explains the water supply).

Maybe it is time that the BBC regional broadcasting broke away from the constraints of transmitter coverage, now that so much TV is accessed digitally.

And, referencing another recent discussion, I mainly watch for the local weather forecast!

 

[Ridercross]

I would be interested in the @Bletchleyite perspective on BBC local TV. BBC East has for a long while done separate programmes centred on Norwich and Cambridge. The latter spreads all the way to Milton Keynes and Northampton, basically anywhere receiving from the mighty Sandy Heath transmitter. But later this year BBC are proposing to kill off the Cambridge broadcast and go back to a single programme broadcast from Norwich.

The Oxford opt outs of BBC South Today are also planned to go and the whole programme broadcast from Southampton, which is hardly relevant for parts of Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire. Even parts of Oxfordshire itself such as Banbury are far closer to Birmingham and the Midlands than the South Coast.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Oxford opt outs of BBC South Today are also planned to go and the whole programme broadcast from Southampton, which is hardly relevant for parts of Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire. Even parts of Oxfordshire itself such as Banbury are far closer to Birmingham and the Midlands than the South Coast.

Yeah, if needing to reduce the number of regions to the hinterlands of the big cities I'd put MK with London, and Oxford with either London or Birmingham (I don't know which the locals would prefer). Not sure about Northampton itself - @A0wen, which do you prefer?

 

[philjo]

In North Herts, we are almost 100 miles from Norwich. The weekend/Bank holiday local news tends to come from Norwich and seems to mostly cover Norfolk and Essex coast so isn’t really of local interest.
Most of the current BBC Cambridge bulletins concentrate on Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Northampton. Occasionally Stevenage.
I did notice when staying near Oxford a few years ago that the BBC Oxford local news also covered stories from Milton Keynes.

 

[High Dyke]

Greatest Hits radio. National programming, but local supplied news. Well certainly in Lincolnshire.

However, more and more local papers are increasingly owned by larger companies who may have little historic understanding of the areas they operate in.

 

[johncrossley]

BBC and ITV TV news has always been regional, not local. Community radio is the new local radio.

Unfortunately I don't see it at all - I watch TV via a Fire stick, and the iPlayer doesn't offer regional opt-outs, it just comes up as "sorry, we can't show you this" for the duration of the programme.

iPlayer on a normal web browser offers all regions.

Greatest Hits radio. National programming, but local supplied news. Well certainly in Lincolnshire.

Same throughout the country.

 

[dakta]

Locla rag round here was Huddersfield examiner, I recall it being quite decent and i used to glance at it a lot but it's become part of reach and is practically unusable. It's not even like they have some ads, I mean 4gb of ram on a mobile device is barely enough with all the script rubbish, it's like stop motion.

And then there's the content, frequently falls foul of fact checking (not just nit-picking on detaild but real poor research that is obviously thrown together), news that doesn't seem to relate to the area and articles that quite frankly just promote venues or products with no real obvious cause (and these aren't the adverts, well they probably are but these the the inbetween the adverts adverts).

They'll self implode eventually/hopefully as providing something people want to read, and providing a means of allowing to people read it - are quite fundamental for a rag.

It's not just the small fry either, Yahoo! is actually a good example of a much larger fish slowly swirling around the plughole, a major player when I first got the internet and a partner with ISP's such as BT once upon a time and obviously a common news, email provider and homepage/portal whose name was pretty household it now provides almost nothing of note with virtually all articles on the homepage affiliated with clickbait.

"Greatest Hits radio." -> is actually pretty decent and what I've got the car stereo tuned into at the moment.

 

[HuggyB87]

Liverpool used to be home to the fine publications The Daily Post and The Liverpool Echo, then we had many local radio stations - Radio City, Juice FM, City Talk and Radio Merseyside

Bring along sweeping national cost-cutting/profit boosting and The Daily Post no longer exists, The Liverpool Echo is now just The Echo, another Reach PLC rag 2 tabloids which used to fight for the values of the city's people, holding people to account; now its nothing more than a copy-and-paste waste of paper.

As for local radio; that's ceased to exist - Radio City being part of Bauer with their ridiculous "Cash register" and then Juice FM is now C(r)apital; so the only local radio station is now BBC Radio Merseyside.

Local media has been absolutely decimated by big corps in the search for bumper profits.

 

[Bletchleyite]

iPlayer on a normal web browser offers all regions.

Interesting - the Android app version doesn't, at least the Fire Stick one (or rather didn't the last time I tried to watch local news). Hope they fix that soon.

As for local radio; that's ceased to exist - Radio City being part of Bauer with their ridiculous "Cash register" and then Juice FM is now C(r)apital; so the only local radio station is now BBC Radio Merseyside.

If MKFM can work, it'd surprise me if a new commercial station in a city several times the size wouldn't work, even if it was initially online only. I guess it just needs someone with some money to try it. Though Bauer does keep some of the local identity - Heart completely wipes it out which drives people away.

Then I guess there's Spotify - people don't so much listen to the radio for music any more. That I guess is why LBC is doing so well - that sort of talk radio is only deliverable as linear radio, not as podcasts or similar (though they do do some podcasts). BBC R4 for instance I only consume in podcast form, though less often than I did now they are reducing the scope of their offering outside the fairly awful BBC Sounds app.

 

[HuggyB87]

Interesting - the Android app version doesn't, at least the Fire Stick one (or rather didn't the last time I tried to watch local news). Hope they fix that soon.



If MKFM can work, it'd surprise me if a new commercial station in a city several times the size wouldn't work, even if it was initially online only. I guess it just needs someone with some money to try it. Though Bauer does keep some of the local identity - Heart completely wipes it out which drives people away.

Then I guess there's Spotify - people don't so much listen to the radio for music any more. That I guess is why LBC is doing so well - that sort of talk radio is only deliverable as linear radio, not as podcasts or similar (though they do do some podcasts).

As a 30-something, I'm quite mix-and-match when it comes to music sources.

Of a morning, on my commute to work, I listen to "breakfast radio" - I need the upbeat content to engage my brain into some form of positive spin for the day, the evening commute is the same, however I am winding down/processing the thoughts of the day.

For other drives, such as long distance/pleasure drives, I will listen to Apple Music playlists, however I find myself often flicking through songs that I don't like/not presently in the mood for.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As a 30-something, I'm quite mix-and-match when it comes to music sources.

Of a morning, on my commute to work, I listen to "breakfast radio" - I need the upbeat content to engage my brain into some form of positive spin for the day, the evening commute is the same, however I am winding down/processing the thoughts of the day.

For other drives, such as long distance/pleasure drives, I will listen to Apple Music playlists, however I find myself often flicking through songs that I don't like/not presently in the mood for.

I think with regard to your Radio Citys, Rock FMs etc (and I do recall Red Rose Rock FM having a great personality, and quite different from City - being in Ormskirk we got both) one problem was that they ended up just playing about 10 songs on loop, which isn't enough variety if you have the radio on all day. A more mixed (and individual to the presenters) playlist may have worked better.

 

[johncrossley]

Interesting - the Android app version doesn't, at least the Fire Stick one (or rather didn't the last time I tried to watch local news). Hope they fix that soon.

The iPlayer app on my Android phone shows regional TV variations. On Freeview, the regional news on BBC One HD is blacked out as you described, so maybe your Fire Stick uses the HD channel. The BBC are finally getting around to regionalising BBC One HD. The latest estimate is early next year

BBC One HD regional roll-out delay > RXTV info

The rollout of BBC regions in HD won't be completed until 'early 2023', in a new delay for the introduction of BBC One HD regions in England.

rxtvinfo.com

The roll out of BBC regions in HD won't be completed until 'early 2023'

If MKFM can work, it'd surprise me if a new commercial station in a city several times the size wouldn't work, even if it was initially online only. I guess it just needs someone with some money to try it. Though Bauer does keep some of the local identity - Heart completely wipes it out which drives people away.

Strictly speaking, MKFM is community radio so is not for profit and is probably mostly staffed by volunteers. The big radio groups could make profitable proper local radio if they wanted to, but they make more money by networking. They don't even offer local radio in London. London used to have Capital, LBC, Heart, Kiss FM etc. that only broadcasted to London on FM but are now all networked across the country. There is Radio Jackie in SW London that is probably unique in Britain in being a non-community independent station that has local output from early morning until late evening. The owner refuses to sell the station to a big group. Otherwise in London, if you want proper local radio you just have ethnic stations and community radio, just like the rest of the country.

That I guess is why LBC is doing so well - that sort of talk radio is only deliverable as linear radio, not as podcasts or similar (though they do do some podcasts).

Ironically, LBC, when it was still a London only station, pioneered podcasts about 15 years ago and for a long time had a premium podcast service where you could get all shows in full for a monthly subscription, with adverts and news taken out. Nowadays stations prefer to offer automated catch up facilities (such as through the Global Player) rather than podcasts.

 

[jfollows]

Local print/online media is dire, and I include The Manchester Evening News in this.

Every article is "clickbait" in that the headline doesn't tell you anything, but if you want to find out some details you have to click on the link.

Every car accident is a "horror" crash.
Every 15-30 year old male suspect is a "thug".
Every railway station is a "train station".
No sub-editors, so the standard of writing is on a par with this forum, with many "its" and "it's" being used incorrectly (just to give one glaring example). I don't have a problem with the writing on this forum, but a newspaper ought to aspire to a higher standard.

I get local news from web sites such as http://www.wilmslow.co.uk which is also full of nonsense, but it's edited so it's not full of junk about missing dogs and noisy cars. The "local" paper is https://www.knutsfordguardian.co.uk but it's infested with national news stories which aren't of any interest in a local paper, it's just part of some media group (Newsquest) which is not local at all.

I still look at the Manchester Evening News web site from time to time because it sometimes has good stories written by good journalists, such as stories about the failings of Greater Manchester Police and their new "bespoke" IT system which was well researched and written, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

 

[nlogax]

Local print/online media is dire, and I include The Manchester Evening News in this.

The online point is especially true. Local news websites browsed via a phone are effectively unusable. Multiple layers of obtrusive ads and 'sign up for updates here' that choke the browsing experience and hide the badly written schlock-pieces that slant towards pure clickbait in a desperate attempt to retain an audience.

Actually, upon reflection that sounds ideal. Local news websites are ultimately self-defeating.

 

[takno]

Local print/online media is dire, and I include The Manchester Evening News in this.

MEN is just another Reach publication, so not exactly surprising

 

[Broucek]

Amen to the "unusable on mobile" point

I find locally (i.e. VERY local) Facebook groups quite helpful, as long as they don't get hijacked by the politically tribal

It's a trivial point but I'm also quite grumpy with the "Local Closed Railway To Reopen" stories when in reality there's £50k for feasibility (and feasibility is low-non existent...)

 

[birchesgreen]

I can't stand those identikit Reach sites. Some hyperlocal sites are interesting. For example, a car overturned around the corner from where my mum lives, i thought this article on it on the local news blog was pretty well done.

NEWS: Watch amazing public response to driver trapped in overturned car – following crash on Church Road

www.erdingtonlocal.com

On Friday 24 June, a driver flipped their car onto its side following a road traffic collision on Church Road.

Miraculously the driver was unhurt, and after being assessed by emergency services at the scene was discharged without needing hospital attention – despite the severity of the crash. The van driver involved was also unharmed.

Although West Midlands Fire Service only took two minutes to arrive at the scene after mobilisation, the general public and eyewitnesses to the crash were also heroes of the day – rushing to the lone driver’s aid and pulling them from the wreckage.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Amen to the "unusable on mobile" point

I find locally (i.e. VERY local) Facebook groups quite helpful, as long as they don't get hijacked by the politically tribal

It's a trivial point but I'm also quite grumpy with the "Local Closed Railway To Reopen" stories when in reality there's £50k for feasibility (and feasibility is low-non existent...)

The trouble is the way online advertising works - you need page-views to get paid, hence clickbaity headlines typical of the Reach Group. Television and radio advertising is different as it's based on higher level audience figures, not individual clicks, and in print it's based on circulation whether those people read it or bin it or use it for cat litter or chip wrapping.

 

[duncanp]

Meanwhile local radio up and down the country has been rebranded as "Heart" and "Hits Radio" (with what? a hammer presumably) and has only the bare minimum local programming, with even the news coming from centralised studios and mostly concerning national affairs.

It seems there is no future for locally owned and run media channels in this country - presumably it's no longer economical.

When you say Hits Radio, I think you need to get your spell checker working again, as a more apt description would be an anagram of the word "hits".

Most newspaper websites are beyond irritating, being very slow, infested with adverts and unwanted pop up videos.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

There are several enforced subsidies from taxpayers to legacy media groups such as Reach and Newsquest.

One is public notices. Local councils, and those applying for certain types of planning permission, are required to place a public notice in their nearest print newspaper. The very cheapest (in my experience) is £120 for a simple change of opening hours licence. Imagine how much this comes to every year over the whole country.

Another is "Local Democracy Reporters". These are staffers (165 of them) paid for by the BBC - i.e. you and I through the licence fee - but who are 'hosted' by local newspapers and whose stories appear in those newspapers. The BBC says that "The journalism they produce is made available for free to the BBC and more than 1,000 individual news titles or outlets across the country", whereas a more 21st century approach would simply be to publish it as open-source, under a Creative Commons licence, to make it available to everyone - including hyperlocal challenger media.

Local newspaper offices also get business rates relief. That was just introduced a few years ago.

Basically, the Government is consistently throwing (your) money at Newsquest and Reach to prop them up, presumably in the hope of favourable coverage.

 

[deltic]

Local media has been absolutely decimated by big corps in the search for bumper profits.

No local media has been decimated by the loss of property and small ad revenue to the internet as well as the massive decline in newspaper readership generally.

 

[Lost property]

Local print/online media is dire, and I include The Manchester Evening News in this.

Every article is "clickbait" in that the headline doesn't tell you anything, but if you want to find out some details you have to click on the link.

Every car accident is a "horror" crash.
Every 15-30 year old male suspect is a "thug".
Every railway station is a "train station".
No sub-editors, so the standard of writing is on a par with this forum, with many "its" and "it's" being used incorrectly (just to give one glaring example). I don't have a problem with the writing on this forum, but a newspaper ought to aspire to a higher standard.

I get local news from web sites such as http://www.wilmslow.co.uk which is also full of nonsense, but it's edited so it's not full of junk about missing dogs and noisy cars. The "local" paper is https://www.knutsfordguardian.co.uk but it's infested with national news stories which aren't of any interest in a local paper, it's just part of some media group (Newsquest) which is not local at all.

I still look at the Manchester Evening News web site from time to time because it sometimes has good stories written by good journalists, such as stories about the failings of Greater Manchester Police and their new "bespoke" IT system which was well researched and written, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

The M.E.N. along with those already mentioned in Liverpool, deteriorated from being a very prominent and quality publication to nothing more than a "celeb " / advertising / football saturated obsessed collection of pages....note, newspaper is irrelevant here.

For an even more dire local rag, the one that was local to where I used to live took some beating " Man nearly drowns in canal ! "..not really, he tripped and fell into a few inches of water in a long disused basin...and walked away... "Lock Ness visit" " 100 yd traffic jam in town ! "...amazing what road works can induce..." Deadly pedestrian crossing ! "...a non beacon crossing had the kerbs re-aligned...sadly, whilst HGV's and heavy agricultural machinery could safely pass through, it appeared several local drivers couldn't. It was actually one of the most dangerous places I've ever lived....the locals parked where they wished, simply walked across a main road without a second thought as to traffic and it was routine to go through the only set of traffic lights...on red.

But the highlight of the week was the column from a local councillor (think equivalent of Teddy Taylor, Anne Widdecome etc here )and his headline grabbing announcement about the reinstatement and electrification of the Stafford to Wellington line for a mere £220m ! bargain ! ...he had, apparently been in contact with NR and had walked on the remaining track bed...so it was a good to go.

It would have been amusing to see compulsory purchase orders for some very expensive "des res " properties where the station once was...but the ALDI store, along with the M&S mini store could have proved a shade problematic being constructed where the line once ran...

 

[Broucek]

The trouble is the way online advertising works - you need page-views to get paid, hence clickbaity headlines typical of the Reach Group. Television and radio advertising is different as it's based on higher level audience figures, not individual clicks, and in print it's based on circulation whether those people read it or bin it or use it for cat litter or chip wrapping.

Of course it's not just the locals that have this problem, the nationals do too. I was at an event recently where a senior FT journalist spoke. I asked him about the tendency for the online/legacy print media to publish stories that provoke anger, anxiety and argument because these drive clicks, comments and engagement. He confirmed that the business model now requires "impact" rather than "insight".

So, in the Telegraph, we see stories that will emotionally engage right-of-centre readers and in the Guardian the same for left-of-centre, with little in the way of nuance or the other side of the argument even when the matter in question falls squarely into the "matter of opinion" category.

One of the things I like about this place (I'm new, albeit a long-time lurker) is that people in general are willing to at least consider opposite views.t

 

[Lost property]

Of course it's not just the locals that have this problem, the nationals do too. I was at an event recently where a senior FT journalist spoke. I asked him about the tendency for the online/legacy print media to publish stories that provoke anger, anxiety and argument because these drive clicks, comments and engagement. He confirmed that the business model now requires "impact" rather than "insight".

So, in the Telegraph, we see stories that will emotionally engage right-of-centre readers and in the Guardian the same for left-of-centre, with little in the way of nuance or the other side of the argument even when the matter in question falls squarely into the "matter of opinion" category.

One of the things I like about this place (I'm new, albeit a long-time lurker) is that people in general are willing to at least consider opposite views.t

I would dispute that claim given the Guardian has long been noted for pragmatism.

I would cite Gerry Adams here, and this is not in support of the PIRA, when censorship was being applied and the right wing MSM were duly being as provocative as they usually are. The reports at the time were entirely from the perspective of the UK Gov't.

There are two sides to every argument and it's essential both parties are presented with an opportunity to state the reasons for their actions, even more in the case of N.I. at the time.

 

[Broucek]

I would dispute that claim given the Guardian has long been noted for pragmatism.

I would cite Gerry Adams here ... The reports at the time were entirely from the perspective of the UK Gov't.

There are two sides to every argument and it's essential both parties are presented with an opportunity to state the reasons for their actions, even more in the case of N.I. at the time.

Of course that was some time ago... My perception is that ALL newspapers have become less pragmatic and more partisan over the last 5 years or so, in part due to the change in their business model