According to the BBC (so it must be true!), the BBC Trust has rejected a £68 million scheme to launch a network of 65 local news websites.
This comes in the same month that local newspaper bosses lobbied the Government, that local papers, which are already struggling, would be further damaged by an “out-of-control” BBC.
Sir Michael Lyons, the Chair of the BBC Trust – the body which replaced the BBC Board of Governors after the Hutton fiasco, jumped on this stance, seeing it as an opportunity to give the newspapers what they want. He told BBC news: “Our decision to refuse permission for local video means that local newspapers and other commercial media can invest in their online services in the knowledge that the BBC does not intend to make this new intervention in the market.”
Now, I hate to point out the obvious, but the Local Newspapers and the BBC Governors, masquerading in ‘trust’ have forgotten that:
- By the way they are formed and report on the news, newspapers are biased.
- Newspapers have had long enough to build a decent local news service.
If newspapers can’t fill the void, who will?
Example – the Sunderland Echo today has video online – but NONE of it is actually news. How is that providing a good local service? It’s not like they haven’t had a chance to invest.
The BBC ‘Trust’ needs to re-evaluate whether it sees itself as the champion of the audience, or the champion of the newspaper barrons. At the moment it’s the latter, and that’s not a good bed to lie in.
Update: Sir Michael Lyons has just proved the point in his statement at a BBC Press Conference:
“For the foreseeable future BBC management must drop its plans to expand its online services as outlined in this application. Instead, the Trust has requested management to increase the quality of its existing television and radio services and – without an increase in budgets – its existing online services. Local newspapers and other commercial media have the assurance they need that the BBC does not intend to make this new intervention in the market. They can therefore sustain and improve their offering to the public secure in this knowledge and I hope they will do just that.“
Okay, so we lose a very much improved local news service, in the hope that someone else will provide it.
What a pile of crap.
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