I think the most surprising thing there
is the final sentence
The BBC Trust has rejected the broadcaster's plans to set up local video news sites for different areas of the country. The £68m proposal was to improve local news sites for 60 locations and five extra Welsh language services. The plan required 400 staff and a four year budget of £68m. The sites would offer news, sport and …
I'm sort of disappointed by this. Living in Gloucestershire, 'local' means either Bristol or Birmingham as far as the BBC are concerned. But looking at the only commercial site with genuine local news (thisisgloucestershire), I wish the BBC were able to really go local.
It's no surprise to me that ad revenues are falling, given the utter rubbish the commerical local news sites are. You know things are desperate when there are links inviting you to "tell us about a story we've missed" or a 'news story' inviting readers to submit photos. For example earlier this year they were filming scenes for the new Harry Potter film in Gloucester, and thisisgloucestershire were tempting readers with 25 pounds (sorry, US keyboard!) to anyone who could get photos of the stars. The best they could come up with was the back of Alan Rickman's head taken from about 500 metres away..
No doubt the Beeb would have had at least one journalist on board in each project and not relied on user-supplied drivel as much. But one thing they would both have had in common was the dreaded have your say. Some of the comments on thisisgloucestershire just make your mind boggle!
Consider yourself lucky - local for anyone in Scotland is Glasgow or Edinburgh - we only have 1 English-language "regional" radio station (apparently there's another Gaelic one that I've never found) and the drivel that is produced by Radio Scotland has to be heard to be believed.
@Brand? - no he threw his toys out the pram because they wouldn't let him use his form of "funny" on the grown-up's show - he didn't get sacked.
It will be interesting to see if local newspapers now take up online local TV services, I suspect that they will not do much. I have seen a few locally produced videos on newspaper websites, they have all been very poor quality home-video standard and would never be considered for broadcast use.
@ Anon Coward - Nov 22 00:16
Some of the comments on this site just make my mind boggle too - including yours.
There's a word for people who criticise free speech and disapprove of people being able to influence the news agenda while using those very facilities themselves.
Mine's the one with the Press card in the pocket.