Ofcom and Digital Britain – local news provision…

This post is another attempt to illuminate some of the issues surrounding the question of whether the BBC licence fee should be top-sliced to support the competitive (pluralistic) provision of local and regional news.  I’m generally against top-slicing the BBC licence fee.  I actually think the commercial sector can support advertiser funded local news.  I just think that — before they take the drastic step of top-slicing the BBC licence fee — Ofcom and the government should more fully explore why local news is so unprofitable in the UK.

So, sitting here in Atlanta, I thought I would analyse one local newscast to help make my point.  I watched the hour long local news for WSB TV here in Atlanta.  Here’s what I found out:

– For details of the newscast you can download this PDF file with a minute-by-minute review of the news content and advertising.  Click here: wsb-tv (only 5 pages long).  Folks, that took me about 2 hours to compile and analyse.  I’d like to see Ofcom conduct more research of this nature.

– The U.S. has no advertising limits during non children’s television programming.  So the amount and type of adverts is up to the broadcaster’s business judgment.  For an hour of very robust local news in Atlanta, you need to be prepared to sit through about 18 minutes of adverts.  I counted 17 minutes and 50 seconds, but I could be off somewhat — it was all so fast.

– 18 minutes per hour.  Now that’s about double the advertising that Ofcom would allow during the same time period.  Ofcom allows between 7-9 minutes per hour.  I think the EU maximum is 12 minutes per hour.  Trust me, 18 minutes is a considerable amount of advertising for one hour, but the alternative is probably a very diminished offering or stations dropping local news altogether.  Trust me, the U.S. government will not fund local television news under any scenario.  Not gonna happen…

– It’s surprising to me that the EU regulates this area more lightly than Ofcom.  If Ofcom were to just de-regulate up to the European 12 minute maximum, that already would pump much more private investment into broadcasting.  In any case I think it shows a trade-off that Ofcom and the government are really reluctant to explore.  Bottom line:  There probably is enough money in the UK system to support local news provision if (i) more advertising per hour were allowed and (ii) certain types of banned adverts could be aired (the latter being covered elsewhere).  Ofcom addressed the issue of advertising minutage limits issue in its 26 May 09 advertising statement, but I thought it was overly paternalistic.  It’s odd that Ofcom never really draws a link between its restrictions on advertising and the lack of local news provision in the UK.  If commercial television is mostly advertiser funded, there must be a strong link.

– The news budget available at WSB-TV Atlanta — even during these harsh economic times — really shows itself off during the programme.  Multiple live shots with on-the-scene reporting, the news and traffic chopper, loads of taped footage and interviews from news scenes.  The weather forecast is also very professional.  It is fast paced and many items are presented very quickly, but then again the same station runs another full-hour newscast at 6pm and another half-hour at 11pm.  I suppose they also need to appeal to the ipod /twitter generation.  Some of the coverage is too shallow because of the pace — but let’s face it — it is impressive to see that many reporters and that much on-the-scene reporting in your local city.

– Keep in mind that today in Atlanta between 5pm and 7pm I had available to me four different television sources for local only (Atlanta) news.  The total amount of local news available during that two hour time period was five hours total.  That doesn’t count national networks or cable networks such as CNN or MSNBC.  Or local radio.

– WSB is fairly typical for a larger market television station.  It is owned by a group owner.  There is also some overlap with other media interests.  In this case, it’s a newspaper and some radio stations.  Finally, it is affiliated with Disney-owned ABC so it can draw on larger resources from time to time.  The 5pm news cast also had a great lead in programme:  The Oprah Winfrey show.

More later, stay tuned…