The Wardman Wire

The BBC Trust has rejected a proposal to spend £68m launching a local web-video service in 60 Cities across the country.

Good. This was a step too far, especially as Local News media is better placed to closely engage with with local people and has started using online video creatively in some places.

From the Press Gazette today:

The local video service would have cost £68m over four years and would have created 300 journalists’ jobs, according to the BBC.

The Trust carried out a public value test which found that the proposal “would not extend the BBC’s reach to those audiences it is not serving very well”.

It also concluded that the number of people who were likely to use the new service did not justify the investment at a time when the financial pressures placed on the BBC have increased.

BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said in a statement this morning: “It is clear from the evidence that, although licence fee-payers want better regional and local services from the BBC, this proposal is unlikely to achieve what they want.

“We also recognise the negative impact that the local video proposition could have on commercial media services which are valued by the public and are already under pressure.

£68m in this arena would be better spent on building up independent local media with “get them going” project funds over a period of perhaps 2-5 years to seed new media projects, with the expectation that they should then be self-supporting. Even 10% of that sum each year would make a huge difference.

There was an intelligent comment on the reasons for limiting the BBC role in Local Web-Video in the Independent yesterday.

The knock-on effects of this plan threaten existing commercial local media outlets. Local newspapers, losing advertising revenues in the downturn, are struggling to invest in internet services. This new online competition will not help. Commercial radio stations will not welcome it either, especially as they are already fending off intense BBC opposition at local and national level. As a competitor to the regional media, the BBC is all the more formidable for being free from cross-media ownership rules which restrict the commercial sector.