Out With A Bang

There are many, many reasons why this caught my eye this week. 

www.MyCornwall.TV 

First things first. It only actually caught my eye courtesy of Mr Will Perrin; who tweeted it out with due reference to ‘#ifnc’ on whose ‘beauty panel’ he sat and the news of whose demise came as no great shock to anyone last Tuesday.  

As in the demise of the ‘Independently Financed News Consortia’ as opposed to Mr Perrin; he, last time I looked, was alive and kicking and still talking about local.  

We, of course, had our own reasons to follow the fate of the IFNCs with particular interest; with due thanks to Nico Fell and Michael Wilson at UTV, we were part of their ’successful’ bid for the WalesLive model; only for that to meet its maker as Jeremy Hunt stayed true to his pre-election word, canned the IFNCs and ear-marked the money top-sliced off the BBC to further the cause of rural broadband connectivity.  

The kind of connectivity, you suspect, that will be sorely needed around Cornwall if mycornwall.tv is ever to fly.  

In such far-flung nether regions of the United Kingdon, such debates flourish. Callum at HighlandWifi is a new pal of ours after his success at Smarta100; we have also been walking this kind of walk in Norfolk; one of the reasons why I tucked the domain name www.yourNorwich.tv up my sleeve last summer. Just in case talks with You-Know-Who ever came to fruition.  

The fact that Addiply now runs an MPU unit to host video – be they news, info-mmercial or straight commercial – also floats our boat; it was why I was up at the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital last week talking about local video we could drop onto www.southnorwichnews.co.uk Sure enough, a short info-mmercial about the merits of the ‘Park & Ride’ ahead of fighting over the last free verge at the car park will be winging it’s way across to our Claire.  

Simple join the dots stuff; there’s a highly-relevant 4,000-strong digital audience; there’s a highly-relevant digital message for that same 4,000-strong audience… how do we join the two… and reward Claire’s hyper-local publishing efforts into the bargain.  

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2010/05/29/dmgt-appear-curiously-at-ease-with-central-government-ad-spend-going-down-the-proverbial-toilet-fine-in-which-case-give-those-last-pennies-to-every-josh-we-can-find/  

But what makes the emergence of – I presume EU, RDA or ‘public’ funded MyCornwall.TV soooo interesting is how, exactly, it might fit in the ‘Parry Model’ now – apparently championed by HM Government. A model that, according to one informed estimate doing the rounds on Tuesday night, could take up to five years to properly gestate. 

First, of course, an investment banker from Lazards how has to nod and approve; we can all only hope that the fabled Nick Shott doesn’t take his investment cue from the clowns at RBS who swallowed every word that the old Irish chancer Brian P Tierney had to say with regard to Philly Media Holdings…  

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/12/26/an-open-letter-to-the-media-acquisition-dept-royal-bank-of-scotland-case-of-bonus-first-brain-second-people/  

We digress. The Parry Plan, of course, is for 81 ‘Local Media Companies’ to populate the local ‘TV’ news space suddenly to be left as and when ITV vacates the scene of the 6.30 revenue crime.  

Why it was 81 and not 63 or 96 no-one was wholly sure when it came to the panel discussion at The Frontline Club on Tuesday night. For me, it was Marc Reeves who made one of the night’s most telling points when he tried to get people to see beyond this notion that ‘TV’ – going forward – was going to involve a studio desk, two presenters, a gaffer, a boom-boy and all else that comes with our traditional notion of ‘TV’ news.  

In its stead would come something altogether more radical and ill-defined; something that an emasculated OfCom will clearly struggle to define and regulate if this idea of ‘TV’ proves to be no more than Claire from www.southnorwichnews.co.uk armed with a video enhanced iPhone – and a 4,000-strong audience to match.  

The answer as to ‘Why 81?’ comes in the form of OfCom’s part in Parry’s original report to the Tory party; written in summer 09, it was still championning ‘Channel M’ as the way forward; the same bastard child of GMG/MEN that TrinityMirror wouldn’t touch with a barge-pole when it came to the MEN’s recent sale.  

Anyway, here we go…

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/920601/Tories-unveil-plans-81-new-local-TV-stations/

It’s 81 cos that was the number of spectrum ’sales’ people figured you could auction off; those in turn would give rough audience numbers – per LMC – of 500,000.

‘The Tories would also auction spectrum to create local television licences that would form a key part of these LMCs. The party statement said Ofcom had identified 81 different locations where such licences could be created, covering populations of about 500,000.’

At which point, presumeably, Parry, Shott, Hunt et al figure that even what was left of a Johnston Press sales team could find enough ads to support a ’studio’ in the bowels of the Sheffield Star. Job done.  

Now Sheffield, Yorkshire, has its own TV station; still seven short of Birmingham, Alabama, but done. 6.30 ’slot’ filled. Everyone’s a winner.  

OK. Go back to www.mycornwall.tv – or, indeed, imagine our Claire with a camera and a video platform on www.southnorwichnews.co.uk – and, for my money, we’re getting far, far close to the likely reality – particularly if you then empower both with a wifi cloud slung above their heads.  

Cos – smartly – MyCornwall don’t see their world through the eyes of neat, 500,000 ‘viewer’ chunks of spectrum. They seem themselves split into another 12 sub-domains… from Lizard to Bodmin Moor; neither gives a toss about what happens in the other; both care deeply what happens beneath their own connectivity cloud. 

The future of local ‘TV’ ? I suspect it starts at the door of The Jamaica Inn, deep in the heart of Bodmin Moor… 

http://www.mycornwall.tv/region/bodmin 

It starts with a ‘bottom up’ solution… it doesn’t start by splitting spectrums into 81, 500,000-strong chunks in the vain hope that a ‘top down’ imposition from the former chairman of Johnston Press and an investment banker from Lazards will work wonders. 

It won’t. 

The answer is – as we speak – bubbling up from below.