Another nail in the coffin of Oxford’s media?April saw the end of Oxford’s first local news channel, Six TV, which started life as the Oxford Channel almost 10 years ago. April saw the end of Oxford’s first local news channel, Six TV, which started life as the Oxford Channel almost 10 years ago. The channel, which gained a certain niche following in its early days, had long suffered from extreme under-resourcing. It finally switched itself off, unannounced, after failing to secure a digital broadcasting licence.
Its demise is part of a wider story that has seen the great opportunities offered by the opening up of the digital airwaves and the development of affordable media technologies harnessed for the benefit of the big commercial corporations at the expense of local communities. It includes the scrapping of Thames Valley News two months ago – justified on the grounds that broadcasters cannot compete in the digital era unless they are relieved of their obligations to provide a public service to their viewers – and the rejection last summer of plans for the BBC to expand its local news provision with a network of 65 websites providing local on-demand video news. The latter was widely seen as the result of heavy pressure from the big provincial press press players, who don’t want their own local websites to face competition.
Now it seems that the provincial press barons may be on course for another free gift – the relaxation of rules on cross media ownership, which would open the way for Newsquest et al to get their hands on local radio. This is something the industry has been lobbying on for some time, and it is now repackaging its demands as the only way to protect local papers from going under in the credit crunch.
David Cameron has already given the policy his full support. Past history shows, however, that it will be local communities, yet again, who are the losers, as the dwindling band of journalists in the Mail and Times newsroom find themselves having to provide material for radio in addition to writing for the printed titles and the supplying online news pages, blogs etc. It will add nothing to Oxford’s overall news gathering capacity,
while diminishing yet further the
time local journalists can spend doing journalism.
The NUJ nationally is arguing that rules on media ownership have to put the interests of journalism and newsgathering first – something that the Conservative Party’s Norman Fowler himself has concluded in his House of Lords report on media ownership.
In the coming month the branch will be reaching out to newsrooms at every local radio and newspaper to in the area to talk through these issues and try to put together a united front in defence of local news. AW 2009-05-04
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