Bay TV Liverpool sees the new local franchise as a great opportunity to cover local stories in a depth which is not possible for regional services like the BBC and ITV.
Where the regional services have perhaps 25 minutes a day to cover stories in the whole of the North West, we would have 24 hours a day to dedicate to news and events in the Liverpool City Region.
So our programmes will cover the whole range of life here just as we do on our website: news, politics, sport, the arts, the environment, health issues, education, community news and so on.
But we want to introduce a new approach to programming. Historically television has been very much a top-down affair where broadcasters decided what the public should watch and when. The television channels of tomorrow will have to develop a much more open and flexible attitude to their viewers.
We see the audience as producers as much as consumers and we want to open up our schedule to local bodies and communities. We will offer them airtime, either for their own home-grown content or, if they prefer it, for programmes made collaboratively.
The Liverpool city region has a wealth of talented and experienced independent producers with whom we shall work closely to identify areas of life which would benefit from new programmes and new thinking about programme styles and formats.
But, in addition, our teams would be available to work alongside viewers who may have great ideas but lack the technical knowhow and equipment to make television programmes to help them develop their story.
We would like to build this station into something truly collaborative where, while we would maintain the responsibility for news production, admin, technical facilities, compliance, advertising and scheduling, an increasing number of the programmes themselves could be made by viewers.
In this way Bay TV Liverpool could be not just the go-to place to find out what’s going on, where politicians can speak directly to a wide and representative constituency, but become in itself a real voice for Liverpool.
