Local Digital Television Programme Services (Amendment) Order 2024
Baroness Twycross
That the draft Order laid before the House on 5 November be approved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, over a decade since the first service launched, local TV continues to complement our national public service broadcasters by providing local content, including news and current affairs, to audiences across the UK. From London Live, which broadcasts just a few miles up the road in Kensington, to Notts TV in Nottingham and NVTV in Belfast, there are now 34 local TV services broadcasting all over the UK.
These services bring social and economic benefits to the areas that they serve, not only through making and showing programmes that meet the interests of their local audiences but by providing training opportunities, often giving people their first experience of working in the television sector. For example, one local TV service, KMTV, has developed a partnership with the University of Kent and provides training opportunities for journalism students. In a TV sector that is all too often London-centric, local TV services provide a way into the industry for those based in all parts of the UK, as 11 are based in the north of England, five in Scotland, three in Wales, and one in Northern Ireland.
All these services are carried on the local TV multiplex, which enables their broadcast on digital terrestrial television, known as Freeview. The multiplex is operated by Comux UK, which is co-owned by the local TV services themselves. The multiplex plays a central role in the local TV ecosystem by providing subsidised carriage for all the local services and is funded by using the profits generated from the carriage of a small number of national services.
However, the climate for local TV has been challenging. Services have struggled to maintain consistent audience numbers and develop sustainable revenues from advertising. Last year, the TV advertising market in the UK experienced its biggest decline since the 2008-09 financial crisis. While this has impacted all commercially funded broadcasters, it has been particularly acute for local TV services, which operate with a smaller audience base than their national counterparts. The previous Government committed to change the local TV licensing regime to enable the extension of the local TV multiplex until 2034, and to consult on the options for the renewal or relicensing of the 34 individual local services. That consultation ran from June to September last year and received responses from current licence holders, media and telecoms companies, and members of the public.
In the consultation, the then Government set out their proposals for a light-touch renewal process for the multiplex licence, led by Ofcom, and the conditional renewal of all 34 local TV services, subject to Ofcom’s assessment of their performance to date and their plans for the next licence period. Respondents to the consultation were broadly supportive of this approach. Some respondents, particularly the incumbent licence holders, raised concerns regarding the disproportionate burden that renewal might place on licensees. They also emphasised the importance of the renewal process being concluded in a timely fashion to deliver the certainty that the sector and its commercial partners require.
My department has taken these responses into account in drafting this order and worked closely with the independent regulator, Ofcom, which will administer the renewals process, to refine its provisions. A previous version of the order was laid in draft before Parliament earlier this year on 7 May, but it was subsequently withdrawn. This was because the delay to the order coming into force caused by the general election meant that Ofcom would not have had time to complete the renewal process and still be able to run a competitive relicensing process in the event that any licences were not renewed.
In light of this, the updated order includes additional powers for Ofcom, with the consent of the current licence holders, to extend the local TV licences by a period of 12 months. This will ensure that Ofcom will be able to conclude the renewal process at least 12 months before the extended licences would otherwise expire. The order has been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Neither committee raised any concerns about the legislation.
The Government believe that the renewal process provided for by this order is in the best interests of the sector’s long-term health and sustainability by providing stability over the next licence period, while ensuring a proportionate degree of regulatory oversight. We want local media, including local TV, to thrive and, importantly, keep communities informed about local issues and decision-making. Enabling the renewal of the local TV licences is an important part of these plans. I beg to move.
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to Daniel Cass, chief executive of That’s TV, for his views and queries on the order. The local TV sector welcomes the power granted to Ofcom to renew the UK’s current 34 local TV services on Freeview. It is important that the renewal process implemented by Ofcom does not become unduly onerous. The draft order requires Ofcom to assess both programming and business plans for the new licence period from 2026 onwards. However, Freeview is diminishing. This makes business planning for the new licence period highly challenging.
The DCMS should seek to ensure that Ofcom focuses on what is most important. In particular, the aim should be for Ofcom to protect core local news delivery on local TV services in the new licence period. For most local TV services, their news bulletins are funded by the commercial advertising secured around their non-news entertainment programming. If this model is to remain viable in the coming years, it is unlikely to be a realistic option for Ofcom to be puritanical about non-news programming and how it is delivered. If Ofcom asks local TV services to deliver more local programming than the market can realistically support, this will have the opposite of the desired effect, with services closing.
The costs and benefits of holding licences needs to remain at the forefront of Ofcom’s assessment process, or it risks becoming a fantasy exercise. On Freeview, local TV services benefit from electronic programme guide prominence regulated by Ofcom. However, there is no guarantee of either carriage or prominence for the digital apps now being planned by local TV operators. I suggest to the Minister that the Government need to work with the industry to secure a pathway for local TV operators to launch their apps on internet-connected TV platforms.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, this was Jeremy Hunt’s big idea 10 years ago, when he said that Birmingham in the USA had several local TV stations and Birmingham in the UK had none. BBC licence fee money was used—I think it was £25 million—to establish local television, and there was an ongoing budget of £5 million a year. Jeremy Hunt’s idea of 34 local TV stations, from Manchester to Maidstone and Bristol to Belfast, was given a prime spot on Freeview TV, but, of course, the stations soon struggled financially, not least because of Covid, as all media outlets did.
Now we see a sector which is not local television; there is no way in the world that having repeats of old films and travelogues is local television. Yes, there is some local news—10 minutes on weekdays—but, in fact, on many occasions, they run next to each other so that they have more time to put on repeats of old films.
I welcome the fact that we are going to extend the current licence for 12 months to give Ofcom the time to set this all up, but, during that period, I hope that we look and make a proper, realistic and honest appraisal of what local television should be. To me, local television is not a syndicated 10-minute news bulletin with hardly any, if any, local television programming.
The only thing I think is true is the point that the Minister makes that it gives people an opportunity to develop skills in that particular media field, but I would like some research on this. For example, I wonder how many local people are involved in Local TV Liverpool. I think it is no longer called that—what is it called now? I think it is called That’s TV, because the same programme is syndicated across different cities of the UK.
If we are serious about Jeremy Hunt’s original idea of local television, then let us explore whether that model works financially. If it does not, then the money—if there is any still going—would be better spent on extending other local provision, whether in local newspapers or radio.
Over the years, we have seen a sort of pretence that we need to support local news. We have seen local commercial radio stations syndicated in London, with all the skills and the same programmes being developed in London. We have seen local journalism decline and decline, and we have seen the BBC’s local radio stations have their budgets cut as well. It has always seemed bizarre to me that, on the one hand, the BBC and the licence payers are paying for local democratic reporters, which are given to national newspapers, for example, yet at the same time we are seeing local radio cut to the bone. The time has come now to be really honest about this, and this extension will give us time to properly explore that.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, local television services currently reach up to 15 million households. These services are provided by 34 local TV services, which are licensed by Ofcom. The provision of local television brings news, current affairs and creative arts programmes directly to communities in a way that national broadcasters cannot.
Under the current legislative regime, the licences for these services would expire, meaning that Ofcom would be required to launch a whole new round of licensing negotiations, creating disruption to those who consume these services and potentially damaging the broadcasting stations involved.
Under our watch, in 2023 we launched a public consultation on how to deal with the relicensing of the local television services. The responses to that consultation informed the drafting of this statutory instrument, which was laid before Parliament on 7 May this year but was, naturally, held up by the general election.
His Majesty’s Official Opposition therefore welcome the Government’s action in bringing forward this order once again. Without it, these crucial local television services would be thrown into disarray. By allowing the automatic extension of the current licences, we are providing greater certainty to the industry while also allowing Ofcom to run the renewal process for the future. Once Ofcom has assessed the state of the current providers, it will be able to renew the licences up to 2034, thereby allowing for the ongoing continuation of the local television services.
However, this order raises a few questions. First, the Explanatory Memorandum highlights that there are a number of barriers to entry for the local television market. What steps are the Government taking to reduce those barriers and ensure open competition in future licensing rounds? Secondly, the Minister will be aware that the previous Government published a White Paper in 2022, titled Up Next. Does His Majesty’s Government have any plans to take forward the recommendations from that policy document? If not, do they have their own proposals for ensuring that the local regulatory regime is up to date? We look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to what has been quite a brief debate on an important issue. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, about the significance of the potential of the local TV sector. We want to see the local TV sector survive and thrive long into the future and provide genuinely local content, particularly local news and current affairs.
A number of points raised today explore issues that arose through the consultation and renewal process, and they have been considered by the Government in taking forward this policy. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised concerns about the extent of local content. I think there are potential issues around the ability of some local TV services to make genuinely local content that meets the needs of local audiences. We recognise that the climate for sustainably funding local content can be a challenging one. However, this requirement remains at the heart of the local TV system, and therefore it is right that it is considered through the renewal process. I am happy to write to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, with the details he requested, but I can confirm that although licence fee money was used in the set-up of this service, no government funding is currently used for the local TV system.
Before renewing a licence, Ofcom will need to be satisfied that an applicant can comply with the conditions in its licence as renewed, which in the case of the local TV services will include specific local programming commitments. Ofcom published a statement earlier this year setting out further detail about how it will assess whether a service is meeting its programming commitments, and licence holders will need to consider those as part of their renewal applications.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, raised local TV services not receiving prominence on apps, as part of the new online prominence regime established in the Media Act 2024. Local TV services do not currently have an on-demand app, and it is therefore difficult to have confidence that such an app would provide significant quantities of public service content and put that content front and centre, which are two key requirements of the new prominence regime. However, we are aware of concerns raised by the sector that any apps it might develop in the future would not have the potential to benefit from the online prominence regime, so we will keep this matter under review. As I said earlier, Ofcom, as the independent broadcasting regulator, will lead the process to extend and then renew the licences for the local TV multiplex and all 34 individual local TV services. The Government look forward to Ofcom commencing that process promptly after this order comes into effect.
We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, that the process should be proportionate. Last month, Ofcom published a statement setting out how it will approach the process in accordance with the legislation and the steps that applicants will need to take to have their licences renewed. This has ensured that licence holders have advanced sight of the requirements associated with the renewal process before the application deadline at the end of March next year, and it enables them to start preparing their applications before the legislation comes into force. Enabling the renewal of the local TV licences will ensure that services continue to receive the same regulatory benefits they have enjoyed since 2013. This includes not only access to and prominence on Freeview but prominence on regulated electronic programme guides for simulcast satellite, cable and internet-delivered television services.
The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, raised a number of questions; if my response so far has not covered them, I will address them. The local media strategy will be central to addressing some of the points he raised. The Secretary of State has announced plans to develop a local media strategy in recognition of the importance of that vital sector, and we will work across government to develop it.
The order will ensure that local TV continues to complement the national public service broadcasters and contribute to the plurality of our wider broadcasting ecosystem over the next licensing period. We want local TV services to continue their important contribution to the training and development of the next generation of journalists and broadcasters, and to bolstering democracy and scrutiny of decision-making at the local level. This order is an important step in enabling that to happen. I am grateful to noble Lords who contributed to the debate. I beg to move.
Lord Storey (LD)
Will the Government give Ofcom a steer on how local news will be provided—the amount of time it will be provided for, providing it on the weekend, not just weekdays, and whether any local programmes will be included? Will the local television have a presence in the city it covers, and will that city’s name be included in the title of the station?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I will write to the noble Lord on those points, rather than answering on the hoof.