Tories to ‘kill’ IFNCs – claim
Wales Business — By Duncan Higgitt on February 9, 2010 3:54 pmTHE Conservatives will bring a final halt to the much debated Independently-Funded News Consortia, the shadow culture secretary has told the FT today.
Jeremy Hunt said his party would never allow through the Digital Economy Bill unless Government proposals for an ITV replacement were dropped.
Hunt has said this kind of thing before, but this is the first time he has suggested stopping the entire bill, as opposed to merely halting any contracts or not making use of the new law. Although the pilots schemes do not require the legislation, Hunt’s announcement is bound to make the bidders think again.
Here in Wales, there are three bids going for the Wales pilot: Taliesin – ITN with Newsquest, Northcliffe Media, Tindle, Boomerang and ITV Wales news staff; Tinopolis; and UTV and North Wales Newspapers. Only last week, all three were in Cardiff to answer public questions about the service they would be delivering.
There are aspects of the Digital Economy Bill that the Tories have said they support, such as measures to bring a halt to peer-to-peer file sharing, which has led to rocketing rates of music piracy. But now Hunt has once and for all reportedly brought speculation over the IFNCs to an end, the question remains: what will come in their place?
After all, the problems besetting ITV still exist, as do other issues around local news delivery that the Government was seeking to address in the bill. The Conservatives have made vague suggestions about a network of ultra-local television stations, but it remains unclear how these would be initiated and funded.
In other words, back to square one.
Tags: journalism
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4 Comments
Jeremy Hunt made the Conservative position clear at the Oxford Media Convention last week.
He also said that there were better ways of delivering the same and he wants to work with ITV to meet their franchise obligations and to maintain their Public Service Broadcaster status.
Conservatives also recognise that Wales is at the forefront of new technology, being one of only two areas in the Uk able to deliver local TV, through the Interleaved licence. Wales can play a leading role in this new development.
Alun Cairns
The current model has failed. There’s no use propping it up with public money. Let’s have some new models please.
Wales can’t sustain local TV stations Alun – what a silly idea!
I’m sure “Machynlleth TV”
Wales can’t sustain local TV stations Alun – what a silly idea!
If Manchester (Channel M) can’t manage it how are the rural areas of Wales going to? I’m sure Machynlleth TV would be riveting watch – “oh look another cat caught up a tree”. We’re a small nation and local stories are often of importance to the whole Country – the fight to stop Tesco expansion in Machynlleth is a story of local interest but also a story that’s news worthy to the rest of Wales because there are similar issues in Pembroke, Wrexham and Cardiff.
What Wales needs is a truly National service that gives Wales the proper coverage it deserves, that actually scrutinises people like Alun so that when they support silly ideas like this they are questioned on it. Post devolution and with a growing Welsh jurisdiction Wales needs news provision that doesn’t treat it like an English region – but gives it the specialised coverage it needs desperately – outside the Beeb Wales has barely any news coverage at all, and that’s just not fair or democratic.
Hyper local TV stations work in large countries like U.S.A – but Wales is in no position to support such a model – just look at what happened with Pembrokeshire TV.