Battle lines drawn for independent TV news contracts

Published on Thursday 26 November 2009 20:54

THE Tyne Tees and Borders television region was yesterday chosen as the English pilot for a new approach to providing regional and local news.

Tyne Tees, in addition to pilot regions in Scotland and Wales, will trial independently-funded news consortia (IFNCs), which will replace the current channel three news on TV and websites.

IFNCs were a recommendation of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's digital Britain white paper.

The successful consortia in each region will be announced in March.

Tyne Tees takes in an estimated 250,000 Scottish viewers and the pilot provides a chance to "redraw" the broadcasting map and bring the Scottish Borders into the Scotland region.

Incumbent news provider STV has outlined firm plans to bid for the Scottish region. It has proposed a service that includes six sub-regions: Aberdeen; Dundee; Glasgow; Edinburgh; Inverness and the Borders.

An alliance of newspaper publishers – DC Thomson, Johnston Press and the Newsquest-owned Herald and Times group – is also keen to bid for the Scottish news contract.

&#149 The publisher of the Daily Mail reported a 23 per cent plunge in annual profits, but said its flagship title had the second-best year in its history. Daily Mail & General Trust posted underlying profits of 201 million for the year to 4 October – down from 262m after it was hit by the steep slump in advertising revenues amid the recession.