Partner Article

North East to pilot local news service

The North East business community has welcomed the government’s decision to select the region as the pilot location for a replacement to ITV’s regional news service.

Ben Bradshaw, the Culture Secretary, announced the decision last week, inviting bids from independent news consortiums to provide regional news bulletins for the area along with other pilots in Scotland and Wales.

Mark Adamson, Commercial Creative Senior Specialist at One North East, said: “Clearly, this is great news for the region. We hope this pilot scheme will help in the delivery of high quality local news to thousands of people who tune in each day to the network.

“We also look forward to the outcome of the commissioning process and what it could mean to people and businesses here in North East England.”

Interested parties for the pilots have until 11 December to offer their interest and until 30 December to submit their final pre-qualification questionnaire for assessment.

The three pilot schemes are expected to be up and running by the end of next year rolling out to the rest of the UK in 2013.

Tom Harvey, Chief Executive of Northern Film and Media, added: “This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for the North East to lead the way on the future of local news coverage. Strong Journalism is vital to a healthy region.

“The BBC and ITV have done a fine historical job of providing regional news, but we’ve never found the best fit for truly localised news coverage.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .