Douglas Carswell's Blog

Jeremy Hunt makes local TV happen

"It won't happen" they scoffed. "Local TV can't be done - not without using buckets of public money"

Six months ago Jeremy Hunt's vision for a genuinely local TV network, serving different cities and counties, was dismissed as pre-election hyperbole. The London-based media elite were especially scathing.

Yet today at least half a dozen different bidders are tripping over one another to make it happen.

Critics of Jeremy's vision for local TV should perhaps read Chris Anderson's The Longtail - one of the most thought-provoking books for the Cameroons. It shows how the digital age allows vastly greater, niche choice.

Digital doesn't only give us niche choices when it comes to what music we listen to, or when we shop. Hunt has clocked that digital could give us niche choice over what we watch on TV. And one way of being more niche is being more local.

Why are we localists so passionate about local telly? Who do you think we want to hold to account all those locally elected police chiefs and mayors, town hall planner and independent academies?

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