“SOUTHWARK.TV”

In late 2002 Community TV Trust launched its flagship project “Southwark.TV” which is PSB-nouveau … media by the people of the people for the people.

In late 2002 Community TV Trust launched its flagship project “Southwark.TV” which is PSB-nouveau … media by the people of the people for the people. Public service media par excellence. It is a web-based venture and has so far drawn together over 50 community organisations and schools across the Borough of Southwark in a focussed project to provide training and project support that may also turn consumers into producers. This is what technology has made possible and what efforts at empowering the disadvantaged desire.

New media must be involved in any consideration of PSB. Ofcom thinking has opened out – ‘national’ debate now includes ‘local’, broadcasting sits side by side with the internet and broadband. And mobile telephony too.

The public are involved, we are all media producers now. From what I see, communication is multiple, multi-faceted and multimedia. Media is, after all, the content offered in a communication, whether to broadband, a telephone or the post office, for delivery as a service …

I think we are on the edge of integrated PSB operating across traditional and new media platforms to serve in a focussed and educational way those who we know are ‘hard to reach’. What is better for PSB than to work side by side with PSM ?

Broadband And Internet

CTVT sought to launch a meaningful attempt at ‘TV by the people for the people’ but made no progress in conventional areas such as cable for delivering content.

Media debate must include broadband and the internet. CTVT sought to launch a meaningful attempt at ‘TV by the people for the people’ but made no progress in conventional areas such as cable for delivering content.

Only when the internet fully arrived did the answer reveal itself, wrapped up in the internet’s local-global conundrum. For me, from then on local TV was dotTV, free from regulation and at bewilderingly low cost.

Not Just PSB (Public Service Broadcasting) But Also PSM (Public Service Media).

– time to shift the debate

I set up Community TV Trust [CTVT] in 1997 (it was incorporated in 1999, registered as a charity 2000) in order to pursue social and community aims and personal empowerment for people on a local basis.

My career in broadcasting stood me in good stead as a facilitator and trainer, I saw I could deal with anything.

I had worked on early access TV programmes at LWT and Granada TV. Once the power and potential of community media became clear to me, the direction was obvious.

DDR – Digital Dividend Review Reviewed

Ofcom’s determination to auction off spectrum released by Digital Switchover has been evident for a long time.

media001The local TV lobby has pushed and pushed and frankly got nowhere. Ofcom’s determination to auction off spectrum released by Digital Switchover has been evident for a long time.

ofcom-logo-lgIn recent times the CMA, Community Media Association, has engaged energetically with the world of community and TV; Community TV Trust has lined up with the CMA lobby on behalf of those promoting local TV (in the broadcast model) despite its own clear preference for the broadband option of delivery; even Parliament has started to pipe up with a growing understanding of what community media can offer to the individual … yet to no avail.

At a meeting held at Ofcom’s riverside offices in Southwark on 14th January 2008 it was clear that local TV while supported in statistics as a clear preference of the surveyed public was not to be favoured by the regulator or Government.

Whether spectrum is considered as an asset to sell for money or as a resource to treasure, share and ensure, local TV will not be supported in real terms by Ofcom.