Ron Green: Kent TV was a costly error from birth
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by Ron Green, freelance journalist and former
Kent Messenger editor
As someone who felt that Kent TV was a gross waste of public
money I couldn't help but see a delicious irony
in one of the controversial site's latest films.
Just a few days after the county council announced the TV
"experiment" would disappear down the pan the business section
began showing a new film. It was about Thomas Crapper, the inventor
of the flush toilet!
I almost laughed out loud. But only almost. About £1.8 million
has been spent by the county council on this luxurious piece of
unnecessary self-indulgence and that's no laughing matter.
On the scale of a £1 billion plus budget it may be that our
elected members regard it as small change. But what a public
relations disaster it was to persist with the project when the
public rightly expect every last penny to be poured into frontline
services.
As it is, I suspect most readers of Kent Business will
have missed the fascinating Crapper film (and the one about how to
draw a picture of Rupert Bear, also on the business section!). For
one of several failings of Kent TV was that, despite having
some polished content, it didn't find a niche in people's busy
lives.
I was outraged at so much public money being used to
ice the council's communications cake at a time of spending
scrutiny. But the concept, launched by the Tory-dominated
council, seemed to be out of step with thinking at Conservative
HQ.
If the Tories win the general election they will
toughen the rules governing the money that town halls
(and county halls) can spend on their expensive publicity machines.
At the same time they will be warned off competing with local
media, which is going through its own difficult times.
A recent commission into the future of community news was told
by Caroline Spelman, the Shadow Secretary for Local Government and
Communities, that some local media was being driven out
of business because they couldn't compete with council
publications.
She inadvertently touched another Kent TV issue by
saying local papers deserve to compete on equal terms as
we are in an age "where the appetite for independent political
scrutiny is greater than ever".
It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell fact from fiction
on the internet, where website conjecture and blog gossip can be
presented as fact.
Readers need to know that a publisher is independent and that
the content - in newspapers, on websites, radio stations or local
TV - is relevant, accurate and reliable.
Advertisers and sponsors, before they invest their money,
rightly demand properly validated data on audiences - things like
readership figures, unique visitor numbers and circulation
statistics.
Local government's expensive flirtation with media fails on
these - and other - counts and was doomed a long time before
councillors decided to pull the plug.
Friday, March 05 2010
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