larryni.me.uk

I’d been wondering what was going on with Channel 9, Derry’s local TV station. All you get to see when you switch it on is Sky News, bad non-stop music video shows, and bad home-made short clips which are usually made with mobile phone cameras. They don’t even have that annoying ‘reporter’ going around town anymore interviewing shop owners and staff and plugging whatever they had on sale. There’s no local content left whatsoever.

Now they are being found in serious breach of the terms and conditions of their broadcast licence by Ofcom:

Ofcom’s latest Broadcast Bulletin, published yesterday, said that Channel 9 was in “serious breach” of the terms and conditions of its broadcasting licence after it failed to provide regulators with a requested sample of its content.

Television broadcasters must retain recordings of their output for 60 days after transmission, and must provide Ofcom with any material on request.

Ofcom said that six viewers had complained that the channel had stopped broadcasting local content, as required by its licence. Ofcom asked Channel 9 to provide a sample of content from a 24 hour period chosen at random, and asked for the channel’s comments in regard to the licence clause which requires it to provide local content.

“Channel 9 said it was unable to provide Ofcom with a copy of the requested broadcast as it had experienced problems with its logging system.

Problems with its logging system?! Could that have anything to do with the fact that they’ve had nothing to log for the past months in the first place? Maybe Ofcom could ask Sky as they are providing the majority of the ‘content’ nowadays.

“The channel explained that once new editorial staff had been recruited, it would begin broadcasting local original content again,” the Bulletin said.

“In addition, a planned expansion of technical facilities would enable the broadcast of novel and enhanced local content. In later correspondence with Ofcom, the channel stated that the expansion work had been delayed and staff problems had continued. It provided Ofcom with details of its future schedule plans, indicating the inclusion of new local content.”

Let’s wait and see.