[comtv-l] Media Guardian 28.02.11: Jeremy Hunt stakes his reputation on local television

[CMA-L]

Maggie Brown, The Guardian, Monday 28.02.11

It was a mantra that followers of Jeremy Hunt had become bored of
hearing in the run-up to the general election. But then it was pretty
much the culture secretary's only firm pre-election policy – a plan to
introduce local television stations so that Birmingham in the UK
(population 1.03 million, no local TV stations) could come closer to
Birmingham, Alabama – which has a population of 229,000 and eight TV
stations.

Except what it has become is something rather different, in effect a
Channel 6 – a new ITV1-style free-to-air service in an era when many
thought network television was for the birds. Bids are due tomorrow –
and a small but respectable queue is forming for what a mixture of
optimists and businessmen see as the chance of a lifetime. Though
whether this actually meets the aspirations of creating a genuine set
of city-based local TV services remains to be seen.

Hunt's approach on this journey has been distinctive. The culture
secretary has ignored the naysayers, ridden roughshod over the
equivocal advice he has received from Lazard banker Nicholas Shott,
and is relying on the bidders to make the idea work. Judging by the
initial levels of interest, Hunt is doing well, although it is still
early days. Tomorrow's call for expressions of interest is limited to
bidders providing a 10-page business plan – little more, critics say,
than a beauty parade of half-baked ideas.

Richard Horwood is the man who has made the early running with his
easy to remember Channel 6 proposal. Horwood, a former Mirror Group
chief executive, right-hand man to the controversial David Montgomery
during the 1990s, has an appetite for the project that appears to
match Hunt's, which seems in turn to have helped get the competition
going.

Horwood has emerged as the man to beat, thanks to a powerful City PR
machine, assistance from experts at ITN Consulting, confident talk of
backing from venture capitalists, the blessing of Pact, the producers'
trade body, for his plans to outspend Channel 5 on new national
programmes, and a beady conviction Channel 6 can fly.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/28/jeremy-hunt-local-television

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