I thought it might be sensible to have one thread for news about Local TV stations.

In which respect the news for Local TV just keeps getting worse...

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...third-of-staff

Also, as reported on the That's Oxford thread their must launch date, already extended from 5 November to today, has now been pushed back again by Ofcom to 26 March 2015.

Plus YourTV Manchester has a current "must launch" date of next week 4 February but no L-DTPS licence granted as yet to enable it to start broadcasting. Anyone know what is going on there?

Big Centre TV in Birmingham confirms its launch date - Sat 28 Feb at 6pm

http://www.bigcentre.tv/

YourTV Manchester "must launch" date is today but no sign of an L-DTPS licence having yet been granted to it or to its sister station for Preston and Blackpool ("must launch" date 25 Feb).

Anyone seen signs of activity in those areas or got any idea as to what, if anything, is going on?

Look a reasonably well put together, if geeky, trailer. Showing you the comux control room wasn't something I would have expected

Looking at a516 today it doesn't look promising.

I suppose as it's in Birmingham it's not that difficult to send a camera along.

Although it's not the most impressive control room I've seen

Indeed

http://www.a516digital.com/2015/02/w...osed.html#more

The Bristol local mux is off air. Anyone know more?

Another thing is that these local muxes are never on all of the time.

Can we assume it'll be transmitted from Sutton at low power?

Is there any logic in putting the local mux on low power?
We receive Sutton Coldfield but not the local channel, seems illogical.

This low power scheme seems to be on all the transmitters, is it to do with programming rights issues?

Local TV uses interleaved spectrum - small gaps where there is an available frequency. If they turned the signal up, it would interfere with other services.
Notably at Sutton Coldfield, if the local multiplex was broadcast from the top of the mast at the same power as the national multiplexes, in effect causing the local mux to become a regional mux, then it would interfere with transmitters in Derby and Nottingham, and potentially others around the edges of transmission area.

Perfectly logical explanation.

Can you explain that if a frequency is seperated (as not all of the national multiplexs are broadcast on consecutive frequencies in a block) then why wouldn't the separate national multiplex frequency cause interference with a neighbouring transmitter?

There is a frequency plan. The PSB multiplexes from main transmitters use frequencies that aren't used by any neighbouring main transmitter and are less likely to be affected by interference. This is important because the main PSBs have to reach 98.5% of the population.

The COM multiplexes may in some instances use frequencies used by neighbouring or almost neighbouring transmitters where there is a shortage of frequencies. In some cases the COM muxes operate on slightly less power than the PSB multiplexes.

COM7 reuses the same few frequencies across the UK, so there would have to be a restriction if that mux wasn't on lower power anyway.

Finally, the local muxes have to fit around what frequencies are left. In some areas there's none, so no local TV service possible. In others, a frequency is available, but the signal can only be beamed in a certain direction from the mast so as not to cause interference. Only in a few places will the local mux beam in all directions from the mast, but even then with restrictions in some directions.

These reported troubles are just as many talked about when the idea was pushed for Freeview to make room for a local channels.

The only good news is that they gave space to bring two new channels for those that can pick up the low powered mux.

Shame that £ Millions from our BBC have gone to give private groups / TV companies support for few years and get them on air.

These channels were never going to make a difference to bring more local news on our TV as the few times I have looked or looked at the EPG listings the channel has been showing repeated shows that were on other channels before.

I had always felt that these channels were a get out for OFCOM to not have push ITV, C4 & C5 to bring more local items to air .... we all see that local news time is filled with repeat of national news these days on BBC & ITV.

viewership is going to be hard for these local channels if they can not have the same full footprint area that the transmitter does for the other muxes and that means advert money is going to be lower as companies are not going to pay the money as for other channels.

So in the long time three things can happen for these channels.
1) They go off air.
2) More public money is given to them and or companies join together .
3) New full power mux given, so they can sell space to other channels.

Thank you a516 and tvmad-alan.

Has anyone got any information as to when the Grenoside (Sheffield) tx is likely to be operational for the local Sheffield station?
I get my signal from the Crosspool tx at the moment but am too far away to get the low power local MUX.

I saw a tweet on the matter from Made in Bristol earlier this evening. Has it been off all weekend?

A revamp coming for STV Glasgow and STV Edinburgh

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...-west-31535825

http://news.stv.tv/west-central/3109...mission-hours/

Thanks to Clusterbombed on the Broadcasting forum for alerting me to this.

No doubt they will be hopeful of picking up further Scottish local tv licences soon to complement this.

More potential bad news for London Live:-

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...al-programming

The Broadcast report referred to focuses on London Live's commitment to provide 8 hours of "first run local programming" a day, 3 of which must be between 6pm and 10.30pm. Broadcast's analysis suggested that it was failing to meet this target. London Live, Broadcast reports, argues that acquired programmes count under the definition "first run local programming" if they refer to London and are airing on London Live for the first time. So, an acquired episode of 10 Years Younger is claimed to count as "first run local programming" on London Live even though it first aired on Channel 4 years ago and has subsequently been repeated elsewhere.

Comux ,seem to be dragging thieir feet on this .
Shefield local TV coverage doesn't need these delays.
Ed Hall has jumped ship from Comux with a comment "Job Done " hmmm ,and also some other key engineering personnel it seems.
This needs sorting as the transmission system for local TV needs skillful planning and managment .
Ofcoms judgment of Canis Media for the so called MuxCO has now to be questioned.
Ofcom/ Goverment ,were warned about the wisdom of creating a MuxCO ,seems the warnings had some merit.

Your TV Preston & Blackpool has now passed its must launch date without doing so or even obtaining the grant of its formal licence, joining Your TV Manchester which is in the same boat.

It will be interesting to hear if any explanation is forthcoming for the failure of these stations to launch, or if Ofcom are going to readvertise the licences for those areas as is their right.

I get the impression that, with the possible exception of STV backed Scottish stations, local TV is dead in the water. Most posts on these forums are about signal quality not programme content.

I am afraid poor coverage has been the problem of local TV for the last years or so.
This is down to very poor engineering.
To resolve this somebody else needs to take control of the planning and design of local TV coverage.
The very poor coverage of ch M in Manchester was a example of this.
Not hard to fix!

I meant 10 years.