Kent County Council have hit the off button on their controversial internet TV service Kent TV.Kent TV launched in 2007 for an initial investment of £1.4m and had annual running costs of £600,000. KCC's ruddy-faced Tory leader Paul Carter said the channel was no longer a priority in 'different and difficult economic times', adding 'Kent TV has proved itself to be a brave and bold innovation and we have learned a great deal from it. It has provided a source of practical, useful information for residents'.
The channel was run for KCC by Sir Bob Geldof's company Ten Alps, who will no doubt be, er, sad to be pushed away from their previously solid grasp on the public tit. Still, look on the bright side. The experience they've gained running this sorry soap at our £2m+ expense has no doubt done them no harm in their bid to run ITV's north east regional news, or their recent award of a two year contract to run a, um, internet TV channel for the North East Development Agency!
Click here to read about Kent TV on BBC News website
Click here to read about Ten Alps and the north east
9 comments:
No doubt Bob's crew will try to suggest that this is the best way to run such stations. Despite the fact that any fool (myself included) could run the whole thing for about £2,500 a year plus something for staff costs. If only KCC had asked me to run it...
Bob is a Gatekeeper and completely brought and paid for by the powers that be !
You might also ponder, Matt, on how Thanet's Champions TV managed to bludge £100K out of the public purse recently when they're run by volunteers and all they seem to be doing is re-posting old videos off of YouTube!
ECR you have to give credit where credit is due and Tony Flaig should take some praise as he highlighted everyone to the ludricious cost of it all, sorry to say but KCC gone down big time since Paul Carter succeeded Sandy Bruce Lockhart as leader. Socialist principles - wasting money on t.v. over-inflated salaries to staff ,money lost to Icelandic banks, extra days off for staff because of good govt performance targets, it's all a joke !doesnt ode well for a Tory run government does it?
Give Tony Flaig credit? Er... no!
I ran the Kent TV story way ahead of him. I admit, though, he was more dog-with-a-bone about it.
And I agree that running TV stations with public money would give most Thatchersauruses apoplexy!
I have just looked at Champions TV, what a joke, when you read the home page guff all i can hear is the voice of "award winning DJ Gary Bellamy" ringing in my ears! 100K who on earth gave them that for as you rightly point out, re posting you tube videos, another arts gravy train scandal...
Once again we have a council in Kent that tried to fool the public. Don't they know this is the age of the blogger. KCC always seemed reluctant to publish the viewing figures and we had cabinet members making exagerated claims for Kent TV. KCC even commissioned a report at a cost of £8,000 that only surveyed KCC friendly organisations. The board of Kent TV was a farce led by Mr Giroy and many of the members never turned up to meetings. The true costs were never revealed, KCC staff and councillors spending loads of time promoting Kent TV. To top it all we had Mr Giroy claiming that Kent TV was saving KCC loads of money in reduced publishing costs. Big Tony even got an email out of one of his highly paid execs detailing the £1 million savings. If that was true then why scrap it?. Maybe it was a big exaggeration of the truth? That's KCC for you and another load of dosh that Carter and Giroy have cost us tax payers.
Independent Kent TV
“Television made by the people of Kent for the people of Kent”
www.independentkenttv.com
Independent Kent TV has been formed by a consortium of businessmen with a proven track record in the television industry.
Historically the transmission of programme has been controlled by a select few media moguls. Today the internet provides an alternative platform for the delivery of programme material and we predict that with the development of faster connections such as fiber optics we will see the delivery of television as we know it entirely over the internet within the next decade.
We are currently running test transmissions on the Livestream platform at our web site www.independentkenttv.co.uk and independentkenttv.co.uk.
We recognise that television and film production is one of the hardest industries for fresh new talent to break into. The idea is to providing a platform for ideas that would otherwise probably never see the light of day. Independent Kent TV aims to tap into that talent and produce “Television by the People of Kent for the People of Kent. Whether you are a media student, independent programme maker or private individual, you too can contribute to the output of Independent Kent TV. You will have to meet certain technical and editorial standards but the door is wide open to anyone.
By their nature view on demand web sites provide an insular experience for the audience and do not provide the sense of shared experience that scheduled programming offer. Such sites with the exception of You tube fail to maintain a large audience share and hence are not attractive to advertisers
Our intention is to supply locally produced scheduled programs with commercials breaks not dissimilar to main stream commercial television. The station will work to the same criteria as laid down by the Advertising Standards Authority. However, the production of our advertisements will be affordable to local businesses and our rates highly competitive with those of newspapers.
Our output will focus not only on alternative entertainment but will cover local issues and politics. The station aims to get its funding from advertising, sponsored programming and local government.
We would welcome the teaming up with local news paper such as the KM group and have their web based local news service running in our schedules. The technology also exist for reporters to inject live into the program from the field using G3 telephone technology .
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Where's our money? Sack people!
Appalling lack of judgement.
etc.etc.
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