London (almost) Dead - the end of Jeremy Hunt's local TV dream

I hate to say “I told you so,” but I told you so. I’m only surprised that I’m telling you so soon after my last comments here (and here) about what I called Jeremy Hunt’s “crazy initiative for local television”.

Hunt's Folly

The entire audience was hushed: the play had reached its climax. Suddenly the silence was pierced by a lone shrill voice: “Daddy, I want a wee-wee”. Izzy was enjoying her first live theatre show.

Northern Stage’s slick, fun production of “Shhh…A Christmas Story” managed to hold an audience of toddlers spellbound for well over an hour. Izzy’s eyes lit up from the moment she saw the lights, moving scenery and jolly actors.

She sat transfixed, apart from one unscripted moment when, fascinated by some prop snowballs that had been flying around the stage, she ignored our pleas to sit down and strode onstage to retrieve one for herself. The actors merely paused, watched her walk round them, and then carried on. I’d love to have a video of that precious moment.

I guess that’s the sort of home video that will be the mainstay of Jeremy Hunt’s new local television plans. I can’t imagine what else we’ll be watching. Last week the Secretary of State announced that Newcastle had been chosen as one of the first “pioneer” cities to be awarded licences for local stations. Quite why he thinks there’s any demand for this in Newcastle is beyond me. None of the people who are capable of making local television work have agreed to get involved. Perhaps some wannabes have been seduced by the lure of showbusiness. They are about to get a rude awakening.

Jeremy Hunt’s plans are based on his mistaken belief that if cities like Birmingham, Alabama have their own thriving local television stations, then so should Birmingham, West Midlands. And Newcastle, Tyne and Wear. Evidently our Secretary of State doesn’t know how American television actually works. Over there all the successful local stations, which do have strong local news outputs, are owned by or affiliated to the main networks, which supply them with expensive and highly profitable primetime programming. Every big city has at least 5 local stations, carrying shows like Dancing With the Stars and the X-Factor. They transmit network daytime shows and high budget “syndicated” talk shows. They also carry local news in the morning, early evening and late night.

Sounds familiar? We’ve actually had that system in the UK since the 1950s. It’s called ITV. Until it was systematically ruined by Thatcher’s disastrous reforms, we had good local programmes through our own Tyne Tees Television, which also carried all the hits of the ITV network. Sure, it was regional, not local, but at least it gave our area a sense of identity, was independently owned, and supplied us with quality regional news.

In 2010 the Labour government tried to turn regional into local, by creating a local news pilot scheme. The concept was simple, and probably economically sound: give the ITV regional news to new local providers to create an integrated operation working on a regional, local and hyper-local level. In the North East, the licence was won by a consortium that included the daily newspaper I write a column for: The Journal. The newspaper’s newsroom would have become multi-media, enabling users to enjoy not only better regional news on ITV, but also enjoyed layers of information in print, on the web and on your mobile phone – you could even type your postcode into a computer and find information about your own community.

It was a 21st century solution that would also have been sustainable. As in America, network shows would have driven audiences to the regional output; just two commercial breaks around the regional news would have funded most of the cost and the service would have been built around a proven and profitable newsgathering operation. Good journalism requires investment, training, rigour and professionalism. You are reading the proof of this right now. Sadly, Jeremy Hunt stubbornly axed this bold experiment and replaced it with his own harebrained, old-fashioned plan for local stations.

I can’t imagine a single advertiser supporting an amateur station with cheap low-quality videos. Shots of Izzy running onstage to collect snowballs may be fun viewing for me, but it’s hardly going to compete with Strictly Come Dancing, is it? Without expertise, viewers or advertisers, Hunt’s Folly is bound to fail.

And Now The Good News

The conference in Salford, near Manchester, was about the future of regional broadcasting. An appropriately timed event, for on Wednesday our esteemed, if sometimes mispronounced, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced his proposals for local TV. A new network, with a dozen or more stations located in major cities opting out for two hours a day: not quite the vision in the Conservative election manifesto, of 80 multi-media city stations, but it’s better than no local coverage at all. Or is it?

“News 3” should have gone on air a few days ago: supplying not only ITV’s regional news here in the North East, but England’s first totally integrated local news operation. The journalists on our regional daily newspapers, The Journal and the Evening Chronicle, would have worked alongside experienced television colleagues on an integrated, layered, truly local news operation in print, radio, television and online.

Sadly we’ll never know if our Independently Financed News Consortium, of which I was proud to have been part, would have been successful. It was a groundbreaking concept but, because it was subsidised by the BBC licence fee, Mr Hunt cancelled it.

Now he’s proposing Channel Six, a network dedicated to the provision of local news and content – and subsidised by the BBC licence fee. Independent companies based in a dozen regional cities, using a central hub of network programming, with a couple of hours of local opt-outs? Sounds familiar? Of course: it’s exactly what your local ITV station was set up to be.

I remember Tyne Tees Television when it launched on Channel 8, fifty two years ago this month: the medley of local folk songs which started the broadcasting day, from Bobby Shafto to the Blaydon Races; “Wacky Jacky” Haig in the One O’Clock Show; those terrible local shopping commercials; and Tom Coyne on the well resourced local news.

The first seeds of destruction of ITV as a regional provider were sown in 1991 by the Conservative government. Now that demolition is complete, how ironic it is that a Conservative minister is trying to resurrect a similar model. Will it work? Well there’s a big difference this time: there’s no money.

The teams of professional journalists will be supplemented, or supplanted, by enthusiastic amateurs – community producers, without training in scriptwriting skills, the basic principles of libel, or even the mystic art of how to entertain mass audiences. The cost of a libel writ, or defending a referral to Ofcom, is huge, yet the stations’ budgets will be minuscule: a fraction of what the broadcasters currently spend on their regional news. And they expect us to watch, or log in, simply because it’s local? I think not.

Britain is proud of quality journalism, and this takes training, resources and commitment. Quality is derived from the skills of many lifetimes of professional experience and that doesn’t come cheap. However local Channel 6 aims to be, it will fail unless it gets the proper funding our journalists and communities deserve.

A Good Week

All in all, it’s been a pretty good week. On Monday the controller of a TV network told me he liked one of our programme ideas so much he wanted to commission a series; then on Thursday the government announced that our consortium (led by Trinity Mirror, the owners of The Newcastle Chronicle & Journal, the Press Association and Bob Geldof’s company Ten Alps) had won the contest to make the government-funded pilot for a new regional news service. Either project could help reshape our regional media landscape.

I’m sure this double helping of good news brought out the sun, which has been shining over our house ever since. I’ve remembered to put all the clocks forward, and finally the first wild daffodils are flowering in our wood. What could be finer? Well, Newcastle United convincingly beating Nottingham Forest tonight would be a bonus. And Izzy saying her first word: that would really cap it all.

They say that good things happen in threes, and I really thought that Izzy had provided the icing on the cake yesterday when I could have sworn I heard her say “cat”. But no, it was just part of her ongoing burble, for she immediately called her building blocks “cat” as well. I think she’s doing this on purpose: keeping us in suspense and ignoring our endless attempts to make her rehearse Dada, Duck, Doggie and Do Say Anything, as if to demonstrate who’s really in control in our family. She’s probably quite fluent in human speak, but just waiting for the right moment to reveal it. Izzy also refuses to walk, except when we’re not looking. Turn your back and she’s climbing the stairs – not on her knees, but walking straight backed, like a grownup. Hold your hand out to help her and she’s back on her bum in an instant. Jo says she takes after me: the stubbornness, that is. And my extraordinary ability not to be able to hear her whenever she talks to me.

It’s certainly nice to be part of a winning team for once, and I’m delighted it includes the Newcastle Journal and Chronicle. The last time we tried to win anything together was back in 1998 when we formed a consortium to bid for an FM radio licence. We wanted a new kind of youth music station – to be called Ice FM – and our plan was to locate it on board the Tuxedo Princess, moored under the Tyne Bridge. Five thousand people signed a petition to support the bid, including Tony Blair. Our station manager was the radio industry guru Gordon McNamee, who created Kiss FM. We thought we couldn’t lose.

But in those days radio licences were awarded by a secret process without open criteria or transparency. Internal politics won the day and the licence inexplicably went to a London-based group, Galaxy FM. It was a bitter blow. If I were honest, my primary motive for winning then was that I’d have an excuse to return to my childhood home. Now I’m firmly back where I belong, I’m delighted that I might have a chance to be part of a team creating something really special for the region.

If it’s allowed to go ahead, that is. There’s many a slip, as they say, and with the Conservative Party maintaining that they want to scrap the whole regional news pilot idea, who knows what Summer might bring. Even Spring doesn’t seem quite sure of herself, with more wintry weather threatening to cloud us out next week.

At least we can look to Newcastle United to keep up the warm glow. Except that our team does have an uncanny knack of letting us down at the last moment. Now, just a few victories away from promotion and the gratitude of an entire city, even they can’t blow this one, can they?

A news deal for the North

On Friday I spent the day pitching what I thought were some pretty revolutionary ideas for transforming the content of our local ITV news coverage. It’s a privilege to have been invited to join the consortium of The Journal’s owners and its partners Ten Alps and The Press Association in their bid to win the independently funded news consortium pilot for the North East. I’ve watched the local news here since the first day of Tyne Tees Television and, frankly, I don’t think much has changed in those fifty years. Now we have a chance to do something about it.

This experiment, to be paid for by an unspent part of the BBC licence fee (because what could be more relevant to public service broadcasting than improving our vitally important regional service?) is an opportunity to try out something completely new: England’s first local multi-media news.

There are three million licence payers in our region who currently receive not a single locally produced network programme, so it’s only fair that we should be given the best regional news service. And, as Sir John Hall correctly pointed out in a public meeting on Friday afternoon, over the years we’ve allowed ITV to strip us of virtually all our much-loved local programmes. Now, with the aid of a substantial newspaper resource and a layered multi-platform approach, we could begin to turn the tide.

But first we had to convince the panel, led by former Radio Authority chairman Richard Hooper. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them: they are not only extremely experienced, but are clearly committed to giving our region something special.

Certainly it’s been a more pleasant experience putting this bid together than the last time I tried for a regional television franchise. That was back in the nineties, when I put my company Mentorn up against the might of Greg Dyke’s London Weekend Television.

We didn’t win, despite fielding a team that included film producers Working Title and media giant Polygram. Greg dubbed us the Groucho Bid, because we planned the whole thing in a tiny room in the London club, toiling for two months with little sleep to produce a document hundreds of pages long. Our final task, 24 hours before the deadline, was the most important: a compulsory 8-page summary, outlining all our plans. It was the first thing the judges would read.

With addled brains, surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers verifying every word, we set about the task. At 1am, one hour before our print deadline, I typed in the last sentence. Everyone in the room applauded and a junior lawyer offered to go and make us all a cup of tea. On his way out he squeezed past the line of chairs and tripped over the cable connected to my laptop. The plug came out; the screen went blank.

We watched frozen as the machine rebooted. Not one word of the summary had been saved. It had taken 24 hours to write and needed to be at the printers within the hour or we’d be disqualified. The young lawyer burst into tears.

In desperation I rang the MD of Polygram to tell him the grim news. He was at a post-premiere party – you could hear champagne corks popping in the background. But this is where, even through an alcoholic haze, the class of a top executive really shows.

“The rules say it must be exactly 8 pages and contain a summary of our entire bid, but does it specify how many words on each page?” “Er, not exactly.”

So, over the phone, he calmly dictated a list of bullet points, each to be typed in large print across the document. It took him just ten minutes to fill 8 pages – and he listed every key fact.

When he finished he wished me goodnight, adding, “This time please don’t forget to save it.”

Television Is Dead...

On Saturday night at the Sage in Gateshead the North East’s media elite assembled for the annual Royal Television Society Awards. It wasn’t quite the Oscars, but it was still an impressive shindig, with nearly 600 guests, ranging from veteran producers and local celebrities, to hopeful media students. Every UK region holds its own television awards ceremony, but ours is by far the largest, an astonishing fact considering our producers make the least number of programmes.

Last week Northern Film & Media, our local screen agency, launched a campaign to save our local production industry. It's not a moment too soon. They showed us some pretty bleak statistics: Wales, with a population only slightly larger than ours, produces thousands of hours for the UK’s broadcasting networks, whereas we produce almost none. In this region we fork out £134 million a year in licence fees, but the BBC commissions not a single North East network programme. It’s a shameful state of affairs. This region has creative talent spilling out of every pore, but its television industry is invisible in the national marketplace.

Blame for this decline has been laid largely at the door of ITV; I’m not sure this is fair. I think I know how the rot set in. It was in 1992 when, as newly elected chair of the film and television producer’s body PACT, I decided to launch a campaign for regional production.

I guess it was mainly guilt. Having been brought up on Tyneside, and leaving to join the BBC at the age of 21, it didn’t occur to me to return to my roots to work in the region. Like so many northern professionals, ambition and family had settled me in London, but I wanted to do something for my colleagues back home, because I knew how hard it was for them to breach the walls of Television Centre to get their ideas commissioned. Here I was in London, with hundreds of hours of juicy programmes, and my regional colleagues were getting the scraps.

So almost the first thing I did as chairman was ring up John Birt, who had just become the BBC’s director-general. I’ll never forget the call, or the circumstances. I was in The Ivy (where else??), and he called me back after I'd left a message with his assistant. I'm only setting the context, because what he told me on the phone was so utterly shocking I can still picture myself reeling with disappointment against the wooden panelling. I told John that we wanted the BBC to do something to increase the commissions for producers from outside London. He replied, “It’s not the BBC’s job to protect regional production; that’s what ITV is for”. I probably ordered a very large glass of champagne to calm me down.

That simple sentence sounded the first death knell for regional producers. As if to underline his point, shortly afterwards he closed down all the thriving local BBC features departments, the source of wonderful local programmes over the years, and more importantly the training ground for budding producers, directors and cameramen who, by an unfortunate quirk of fate, found themselves born north of Watford. The features department used to have direct links to the networks; now all BBC regional programmes were to come through the news division. Basically, if it wasn't a factual documentary which fitted in with the news agenda, they weren't interested. No entertainment, no features, and certainly no drama or music programmes. It was the beginning of the end.

This response fired our regional campaign, which we won hands down: the BBC was forced to set aside 30% of all its production spend for non-London producers, and in 1998 this quota was extended to Channel Four. But despite having an obligation to commission, the BBC accepted no responsibility for maintaining the supply chain. It had already destroyed its regional infrastructure of training and support that was essential to nurture local producers into the network fold, and it didn't offer anything in exchange.

Leaving the job to ITV ultimately proved disastrous: for when Tyne Tees was bought by Yorkshire, and then both became part of Granada, it was inevitable that network production would be focused on the larger companies, rather than the remoter corners of the empire. As a network force, the home of The Tube, Highway, Supergran, and hundreds of hours of network production, including quality drama, the spirit of Tyne Tees withered away. They shut their big network studios on City Road and moved their
news operation into an office block in an industrial park.

From then on Tyne Tees could only offer our producers a meagre supply of local documentaries (produced on budgets less than 10% of network prices). A friend of mine has made 30 documentaries over the last few years for Tyne Tees at an average budget of just £12,000. Last year I made a single non-broadcast pilot for a network show which cost £600,000. And I doubt the series will ever be made. That's the chasm between us.

Local producers have worked wonders with these derisory resources, but recently the axe fell on even this small consolation. ITV is no longer commissioning local documentaries, so from now on they’re on their own.

So on Saturday night, as the final batch of regional programmes competed against each other and Wire in the Blood received its last ever nomination for Best Drama, there was anxious talk across the ham and pease pudding canapés about the future.

Yet, amazingly, it wasn’t all gloom; there was a real determination to fight on together. One well known actress from Emmerdale stood up on stage and issued a rallying cry for us to keep on going, even though by then she'd clearly had more than a couple of glasses of RTS champagne, she brought the house down. It was a theme echoed by all the award-winners throughout the evening.

Our producers now need the support of all our politicians and opinion formers. The creative industries will be the heart of what the government proudly calls Digital Britain; it’s vital that our region will be part of that future. Watch this space.

The Battle For Regional News

Today marks the 35th anniversary of my first day at the BBC. In 1973 I walked into Broadcasting House as a news trainee. Today I’ll be in Cannes, inside the enticingly named Palais des Festivals.

It’s far from palatial: a stifling conference centre set over a multi-storey car park. I’ll be in the basement with 13,000 international television executives. It’s basically a giant farmers market, except that some of the sellers have spent millions promoting their wares with extravagant advertising and lavish parties in the seafront hotels. I’ll be carrying a few DVDs of the show we’ve spent the last fortnight editing in Newcastle, and staying in a self-catering apartment behind the main drag. At least I can save the cost of drinks in the bars on the Croisette, where a tonic water can set you back ten pounds.

Television sales markets are dispiriting places for producers. The programmes that we’ve spent months or years crafting are dismissed as mere “product”, counted in hours and bundled up to be sold to broadcasters for you, the viewers. Well, not all of you, only those in the ratings charts.

I passed out of America’s “key demographic” on my 50th birthday. There the charts only count people aged between 18 and 49; three quarters of the population may as well not exist. Television isn’t about producers, or viewers; it’s about advertising revenue and demos and survival in a world where a new channel launches every day. How the industry has changed since my first day in 1973.

There were six of us trainees. We were given staff numbers and our first lecture. We were told we were destined for the top, Director-General even, and would be guaranteed senior jobs in the Corporation for life. That is, provided we didn’t commit either of two cardinal crimes: bounce a cheque at the BBC cash office, or forget to pay our licence fees. Three of the six must have toed the line, for they stayed for most of their careers. Tony Hall was runner-up when Greg Dyke became Director-General a few years back, and Chris Graham eventually left to run the Advertising Standards Authority; Bill Rogers is still there in charge of Radio News. Broadcast journalism was indeed a career for life. As secure as banking.

Last week, ITV announced that more than 400 jobs in regional news would have to go. The kind of television made locally up here in Newcastle has little connection with the television sold in Cannes. That market is about canned products produced to fill the schedules; regional programming is about what people really want to watch.

The writing’s been on the wall for our regional structure for some time. In four years our analogue transmitters will be switched off: we’ll only have digital television, so ITV will have no more command of the airwaves than Dave or Living. We viewers will be in control and by then one of the most popular parts of the schedule, our regional news, will have gone forever.

Which is why we need to join the battle to keep it now: not on ITV – its path to become a solely commercial broadcaster is already set. We need ITV to supply us with big expensive family shows like The X-Factor, so commercial sense dictates it should be relieved of the regional burden. But if you, like me, believe that local programming is important, we need to start lobbying now for an alternative to the BBC offering. If Channel Four really wants a slice of our licence fee, it should use it to axe Big Brother, stop targeting the same youth audience that every other network is courting, and instead offer a service for the rest of us. Starting with local news and regional programming made for the people who pay for it, not for the salesmen in Cannes.