Plymouth has been advertised twice now with no applicants, and Ofcom have stated that it will not be advertised again.

Luton was merged with Bedford and advertised. It attracted one applicant, Bedfordshire Television, which was bizarrely subsequently removed from the applicants page with no explanation. The public version of the application and indicative schedule is still available on Ofcom's website, although you have to find it via Google.

Dates for Phase 2a mux launches: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...&postcount=339

Today's Birmingham Post has reported that Esther Rantzen who is involved in That's TV could bid for the licence if City 8 misses it's deadline.

If true it be very interesting seeing Made TV would most likely bid.

There was a article in Broadcast last week, saying everybody who previously bid is still interested should it be re-advertised.

Links to the two most recent pieces - today and Monday

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/busi...ingham-7575182

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/busi...ity-tv-7544950

City TV now reported to be in administration, according to this (link thanks to mike65 in Broadcasting forum):


http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...?commentpage=1

Sheffield Live launches 23rd September 2014.

That's Solent: expected launch 22/10/2014.
That's Oxford: expected launch 05/11/2014.

The licences granted by Ofcom only allow them to launch on those dates. They can't launch earlier and if they launch later, the licence will be revoked (unless there's a good reason).

Think Made TV will be like ITV at this rate owning most of local TV. They probably do a better job of it then so called Channel 3 ITV.

Hardly inspires confidence does it? I've also noted how little information appears on the websites of some of the licensees, and which appear to have barely changed since the original licence award nearly two years ago. Similarly as regards the lack of any news stories about some of the forthcoming stations (City TV in Birmingham being the prime exception). You would expect more of a buzz.

Anyone know how advanced the Southampton and Oxford stations are with regard to preparations - studios, staff recruitment, publicity etc.

Given the number of licences they have won much may depend, so far as the local TV project is concerned, on how the likes of That's TV and Made TV fare.

The Notts TV site didn't really change either - most of their "buzz" was generated on Social Media - their staff and the station itself were fairly active in the run up to launch with various articles in Left Lion (a local entertainment/culture magazine) and the Nottingham Post (the local daily newspaper). The effort expelled on the website as to make it ready for launch.

Oh, and lots and lots of Blue Ducks on billboards and buses advertising the channel!

No, however as That's TV is SixTV in all but name, you can be sure unlike some of the other startups, that they actually have some idea how to run a TV station. Some people like to work quietly behind the scenes until they have something to announce. I think Daniel Cass has been in the local TV business long enough to pull this off and I'd be very surprised if That's failed to launch (and the same with NvTv - again, old hands).

Meanwhile over at London Live, after announcing last week that it was switching its target audience to attract older viewers, it has today announced that it is axing its entertainment commissions in favour of purely news and current affairs.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ening-standard

I love LL's line about its programming and commissioning team, that the “resource will be reapportioned” into the news and current affairs team.

Sounds like an attempt to further cut costs given that some of the entertainment commissions were said to cost up to £20,000 an hour.

Other than changing its target audience and programme strategy after less than six months on air though it's all looking good apparently

Sounds like they are taking a leaf out of the smaller operations which are concentrating on the stuff people feel needs to be local (e.g. News) and other stuff that has strong local relevance but is inexpensive to produce. Local TV in the States (which Jeremey Hunt tried to copy) seems to be pretty much news and little else with the rest being syndicated national programming - IIRC when looking at the schedules of the stations in Birmingham, Alabama, there was about 18 hours of local content (ignoring commercials) a day across the seven channels all of it news and one college sports match at the weekend.


http://www.nottstv.com/news?id=22

There original Oxford application is good as they have Wesley Smith on board although that might have changed. Potentially 'That's TV' could be the better ones but I notice in their Surrey application they are teaming up the Eagle radio. I hope they are close as the two regional papers are only weekly.

That's Oxford is associated with the Oxfordshire Guardian, which is the second tier free paper in the area. Oddly the predecessor of this paper was at one time owned by the Milestone Group when it also owned Six TV. When the paper relocated its offices to Didcot last year this was said at the time to be so it shared a newsroom with That's Oxford.

Any sign of Latest TV tests/placeholder yet?

It's on air. Viewers in Brighton retune!

Time will tell if the strategy of carrying three programs at QPSK makes sense.

My opinion ,for what it is worth is the code rate should be changed ,reducing the available bandwidth in megabits and only one TV program carried in the mux, this would provide better coverage for local TV .

However others disagree with me .

But would the Local TV service be able to afford it ????

The way that UK Local Tv has come about does not look to have a strong Financial basis at the best of times ...
and I doubt if increasing coverage will add the additional income .....
To cover what the pseudo nation additional channels would provide....

And the Comux business plan (slightly) subsidises the Local TV Channels.

What happend to the dynamic duo.

Yer know ,Ed Hall and Chris whatshisnam?

What about York's local channel - oneandother TV? Last I heard the launch was supposed to be yesterday?

So you have swallowed the PR Bullshit then .

Firstly the potential revenue stream for local TV is local advertising ,any increase in coverage would mean more revenue .

The reduction in code rate depending on terrain would increase coverage by 100% .
There of course other factors such as population density and each site would provide a different set of coverage results, but nevertheless on a significant percentage of transmitter sites a increase in coverage could result.
But what has gone wrong here the whole Muxco ,Co Mux nonsense was designed in my opinion to ensure the failure of local TV ,by diverting funds that should have been used as start up capital for local TV .Instead in my opinion , it has been sucked into the pockets of a front company .
The dynamic duo abandoning ship confirms my original suspicion in my opinion , that Co Mux was a front company .

The UHF spectrum is worth billions and the recent purchase of EE by BT proves this beyond doubt .
The UHF spectrum used to provide hi speed internet to the home would have destroyed BT,s monopoly .
Of course the regulators couldn't see this and in allowing the acquisition of EE by BT helps BT retain its monopoly ,apart from Virgin in some areas .

4G makes the whole UK mast infastructure worth zillions more .
Barclay J Knapp had the vision of this ,and also with direct wired coax to the home .
But of course he lost investors about $7.5 B before it ended in the hands of its current owners .

But would it mean more revenue to pay for the remaining 2/3 or thereabout the costs that are currently Bourne by the other two channels .....
Same argument as the comm mux coverage ...


What does Comux do... A one stop shop which can back haul, playout, Code and mux and then transmit your service ... -and gives you visibility if what is going on even down to a sniff of what is going up the mast- accessible from a web interface anywhere in the world.

For a small company to,do this each on thier own would be expensive and may not have had the reliability due to the staff that they would need.... And the lack of spare kit you would need ....
And would be charged by the large monopolies you hate!

But it is a novel model.... Which did not fit what was put to be tendered....
And had a lot of audit over it as it was using the BBCs money ..

The mux isn't due to come on-air until the 11th of October, so it won't launch before then. The April date was probably their indicative launch date from the application.

btw, it's known as "Hello York" now.