Local Media

Debate between Mike Weatherley and Joe Benton

Thursday 24th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Benton, for giving me an opportunity to speak today. This is not my maiden speech; it is actually my second speech, so I shall not be constrained by the 10 minutes one gets for a maiden speech. I have one hour and 20 minutes to complete my speech, so thank you for that.

I thank you, Minister, for helping me to win the seat of Hove, which I hope will soon be called “Hove and Portslade”, as I am campaigning for use of the full constituency name. We had an enjoyable ice-cream on the beach, I recall, and you had a lot of green paint on your jacket that day after sitting on a painting. We sat on theatre seats on the beach, which was appropriate, given the Department for Culture, Media and Sport role that you hold.

You spoke to local businesses at the Brighton and Hove business show, which included many media companies. As you said, advertising revenues are in decline, but there are many opportunities out there for specific, targeted advertising, which is more effective. Advertising revenues may be down, but opportunities are up through the many outlets that you are creating in local media.

Of course, local democracy is important, so I shall take up your advice to include some of the names of my local media outlets. Our wonderful daily newspaper, The Argus, is not always helpful but is always informative, like your own local paper, I believe. It is a wonderful example of a regional newspaper.

We also have a free weekly magazine called Latest Homes. It is an example of a magazine whose readership is in ascendancy rather than decline. As you said earlier, many comments have been made about changing the media. I believe you mentioned that the London Evening Standard is now in profit. I am sure that that will be one of the ways forward for many papers.

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Order. May I in the nicest way possible put it to the hon. Gentleman that he should not use personal pronouns when addressing other Members? I point out that it should be “honourable Member”.

[Mike Weatherley]

Thank you, Mr Benton, for pointing that out. I appreciate it.

We also have several good, strong local radio stations. One is Juice FM, and there is a community radio station called Radio Reverb, on which I was fortunate to host a programme called “House of Rock”. I mention Radio Reverb because it is a good, local community radio station which does not have any advertising revenues. That has its own problems, but the station is an example of how the community can get involved. The ongoing point is that it goes out on the internet as well, and a programme that I presented with the Iron Maiden manager had a spike of listenership because it was taken up around the globe.

That brings me to local television. Like other hon. Members who mentioned this, I am a little concerned about propaganda masquerading as entertainment programming. We need to be careful of that.

I know that various consortiums in my constituency are looking closely at local TV, and one of my hopes, as someone who wants to expand the creativity of the city, especially Hove and Portslade, is that we take up all the opportunities for media. And, while considering local TV, we must consider whether super-fast broadband, whatever that may be, has implications—whether there is actually a local aspect, and whether we have enough listenership and enough people in the locality viewing the programmes rather than taking information from elsewhere.