Time for Birmingham to get its own TV station
Jan 25 2009 By Dave Harte
Not that I want to start yet another tedious Manchester versus Birmingham debate but hidden amongst the news regarding media regulator Ofcom’s Public Service Review last week was the shocking revelation that only London and Manchester can sustain sufficient audiences for city-based, ultra-local television services.
Is this the same Manchester that has about half the population of Birmingham? Is this the same Birmingham that sits within an urban population of two and a half million people?
There’s some poor maths going on there. Of course Manchester already has a city-based TV channel, Channel M. If you live up that way, you can get it on analogue or digital platforms as well as see highlights on the web.
And you know what, it’s not half bad.
It has specialist sports programmes for rugby league and county cricket, fashion and food programmes, a daily GMTV-style breakfast show and perhaps best of all – the “I Love Manchester” show.
Steph, the presenter, does little more than point at nice Manchester buildings, at length. But in doing so reinforces Mancunians’ already strong sense of civic pride.
Of course we have had city TV in Birmingham before with the ill-fated L!VE TV which used to broadcast from the old Post & Mail building in the centre of Birmingham.
That was a rather cheap-looking affiliate to the national version of L!VE with little distinctively Brummie about it (other than Tony Butler doing a phone-in) whereas the Manchester channel is wholly sub-regional with a decent bit of professional polish.
Channel M is owned by the Guardian Media Group which is one of the ways Ofcom sees the future of local news developing – through partnerships with the newspaper industry.
This illustrious journal you’re holding may well have its own plans in that direction and of course it’s easy to sneer and suggest that the internet now does what TV used to do – if you want hyper-local news why not create a blog and write it yourself?
That’s true of course but the internet won’t give me uninterrupted live coverage of next month’s Birmingham & District Cross Country League’s vital division two clash or put together a “I Love Birmingham” show fronted by Rustie Lee with a weekly interview with Carl Chinn.
Given how important it is for us to have pride in the place we live I even think Brum TV should be publicly funded – it’d be worth a few pence on my council tax to sit down to “Breakfast with Whitby” every morning.
* Dave Harte is Economic Development Manager at Digital Birmingham
