Written evidence submitted by Latest TV Ltd, Brighton INTRODUCTION EVERYWHERE IS LOCAL and LATEST TV IS BRIGHTON It is as much Brighton as Brighton Palace Pier or Brighton Rock. We’ve been here for decades and it shows! If there’s one thing this extraordinary spring has shown, it’s LOCAL is all important. You get treated in a LOCAL hospital, get cared for by your LOCAL community your neighbours look out for you and your LOCAL media are the people who tell you the news on the ground and the situation in your city on LOCAL TV. As a guest for years on BBC radio’s weekly Sarah Gorrell’s show, I count colleagues there as friends. I was shocked when BBC regional TV (for Brighton it’s Tunbridge Wells) cut their morning bulletins and Sunday Politics Show. By contrast Latest TV upped coverage safely. MPs, council leaders, public health leaders and hundreds of ordinary Brightonians, like us, have been on Latest TV Brighton. We saw the closure of both main newspaper offices in Brighton... The Argus (Newsquest) and The Indy (Johnston Press) while Latest TV’s newsroom remains open. It has always been like this - I was reminded by Lord Grade that when tasked with extending the news from London to the South East, he asked his team for titles and the most popular with his team was Sod Off Kent! On another occasion, when we tipped off BBC about a great story which we covered they sent a truck from Tunbridge Wells to cover the story at the cost of.... well you can guess! Latest TV has the only TV studios in Brighton which are world class. We are a success story with large committed audiences independently audited and our news concentrates on LOCAL. What is often overlooked - most national stories are LOCAL. We were the only broadcasters at the Shoreham Airshow disaster, the first to report Uber flaunting regulations, have covered Pride since 1992 (we were told by the BBC in 2014 when we offered to cover Brighton Pride like Glastonbury, that it was not mainstream. They said, that’s fine for Brighton, but not Tunbridge Wells!) Since then, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears and other huge stars have played Brighton Pride. We are the only broadcasters to film Disability Pride since it began, the only broadcasters to cover the build of the biggest Mosque in Europe supported by Dr Tim Winter and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens). We covered equally the oldest synagogue in England! We don’t talk diversity; we ARE diversity and have won national diversity awards. We were first to report on Professor Roy Taylor’s revolutionary Newcastle diet to reverse diabetes in 2016. We started filming Covering Covid-19 in March with 13 other local TV channels. A programme much copied since! In case that sounds like worthy but non-commercial, think again. Our documentary on Harry and Meghan - Love and Home (link enclosed) received huge audiences and is LOCAL. He’s the Duke Of Sussex, we have the Royal Pavilion, built by the Prince Regent, brother of the first Duke of Sussex and we have exclusive footage of Harry and Meghan with a brilliant presenter Yael Breuer. Our audiences on Facebook and YouTube are huge with three films having over 100,000 viewers on YouTube! And we are modern, streaming for years and gained Arts Council support to have streaming studios. We sent a plan to the DCMS how the UK could compete with USA based streamers and are progressing this. It’s ridiculous the UK has no household names for streaming to compete with Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and many USA based others! TV is all about programmes, not talking about programmes, so we enclose links of programmes showing when LOCAL comes together it is most powerful TV! I am hopeful you will enjoy them as people in Brighton do. With colleagues in Belfast, Sheffield, Notts, Kent and the 8 Local TV Ltd stations, we already have Channel 7 as the powerhouse of UK local news. Not just news, LOCAL is football, films, music, culture, all of which we do. We have upped our coverage, covering Women’s Football, in Brighton, starting FilmPride, filming Brighton Festival and Fringe (why are these not national like The Proms?) My point is simple. We are 24/7 LOCAL TV on Channel 7. RESPONSE TO CALLS FOR EVIDENCE Regulations: Local must be seen as important – see above. We are the only LOCAL channels and should receive funding. Ofcom should be consulted on our services. We are confident they will recommend. It’s ridiculous that the BBC have monopoly on local TV – BBC TV not here in Brighton and never seen until Latest TV opened. We have 10x as much local coverage, but they get ALL the money. Representation: TV should be properly representative. The quota system means London broadcasters move to Sheffield, Leeds, Brighton or Belfast and open offices. Have faith in cities to make great TV. We do. When was last time you saw a Belfast story as the main story on 06.00pm to 08.00pm news on main PSB channels? Can you name any? Level Up! Accessibility: Latest TV have both streaming and terrestrial. Wholly internet does not work for older people – tempted to say for everyone after the debacle of BBC3. LOCAL people need their local TV station just like local newspaper. We streamed to 178,000 people from Brighton Palace Pier this month, terrestrial gets less numbers, but a regular audience interested in local democracy. BBC does not put their Local Democracy reporter on TV and when we requested, they said ‘no’! What sort of local democracy is that? Impact: PSBs until recently were London based. LOCAL is important and not covered. In South East it’s 1/2 hour weekly on BBC for all South East plus possibly another 20/30 mins on news. We cover… LOCAL news, LOCAL theatre, LOCAL grassroots football, LOCAL politics, LOCAL music, LOCAL diversity, LOCAL… the list continues. We need to take LOCAL seriously, not ‘Sod off Kent’ Looking Ahead: PSBs should be modern, covering UK and bringing news from ALL UK to audiences. LOCAL is as important particularly when local stations have demonstrated their value and loved by LOCALS! For the first time I heard C4 say they have news from ‘YOUR area’. Last year they moved to Leeds, under some protest. We as LOCAL TV like living in Leeds , Belfast or Brighton and love providing TV to OUR areas. PSBs need modern approach – Below is plan for Streamland, a streaming platform covering UK culture and arts – Buxton Opera House or Garsington Opera, as important as The Royal Opera House. We have Arts Council support. Level Up! Levelling up on the magnificent C7 C7 is great already for local TV with millions watching -16 million viewers for channels combined – figures in Ofcom annual report. The future should be developing C7, the UK-wide local channel concentrating on all the news from everywhere in the UK from the ground up but also all the other things which are LOCAL and still get practically no coverage apart from our channels. It is local platforms that enable people to get on TV and develop their careers – many examples - and it helps grassroots. In short it must be the gateway and it must level up! Below - an example average day schedule: 8 am C7 News 9am Brighton News or Birmingham News or Bristol News depending on location 10am Film UK with Talking Pictures/ BFI/ FilmPride/ UK Filmmakers Example films: 10 am...Brighton Rock – great UK local film 11.30...My Accomplice – brilliant new film 1pm C7 News 2pm Brighton News 3pm Grassroots Football Whitehawk v Hastings – local non-league football at its best 5pm Walks Around Britain – one of the most popular shows on TV – full stop! 6 pm Documenting UK Harry and Meghan Love and Home or Streamland UK with performances from all great LOCAL venues, art centres etc across UK 7pm Leo Rowsome King Of The Pipers or Streamland UK – as above 8pm C7 News 9pm Brighton News 10 pm Streamland UK.... as above with grassroots music throughout the night giving local artists and venues a platform at last! WOMEN’S and GRASSROOTS FOOTBALL In Brighton we covered Women’s Football, two great LOCAL teams in Brighton and Lewes. A year or two later BBC got exclusive contract to cover.. Should our national broadcaster be a rival or a friend? We should have been allowed to continue particularly as local BBC did not cover. What’s wrong with collaboration? We started Non-League Football Show featuring all best grassroots football teams. BT came in and covered it. Our footage is still LOCALLY extensive. FILMMAKERS Filmmakers are largely excluded from national television - I am one - and LGBT filmmakers even more! Hundreds of films are made across UK by brilliant local filmmakers which will attract audiences. I enclose one as evidence - My Accomplice - with main star now a huge international star. Enjoy C4 and BBC do show films but very few new releases. Can you name any? When starting Latest TV Brighton I contracted with the fledgling Talking Pictures channel to show many of their films. These films are LOCAL. Jigsaw/Brighton Rock/Quadrophenia all about Brighton and as many about Glasgow, Belfast, Sheffield or Bristol. Post Brexit, a TV channel, C7 showcasing the best culture from the UK with own streamland.uk to stream to the world is a must. We are proud of UK, not just London. Let’s level that playing field! As I write this, Tony Hall is on The Andrew Marr Show saying he should work with the Arts Council, but still talking about big institutions.