City TV wins Birmingham digital licence

CITY TV, the company headed by Birmingham City Council’s former communications chief, has won the race to host Birmingham’s new digital terrestrial television station.

Confirmation of the licence award was made by watchdog Ofcom today.The new channel could be on-air before the end of next year.

City TV had pledged to create up to 60 jobs in the city if it won the licence. The company is jointly owned by former city council director of communications Debra Davis, who left the role in 2009. Fellow directors include TV producer Alan Grindley and broadcaster Des Tong. Former BT chief Derek Inman is also a board member.

Ms Davis has previously said the station’s intention is to provide up to six hours per day of live programming in Birmingham and a comparable number of hours in other mid-sized UK markets.

She said the plan was to build from the bottom-up, based on what people wanted in local markets and based on the economics of local advertisers. She said the model had worked in other areas and was confident it could in Birmingham as well.

The award follows new legislation enabling Ofcom to issue local TV licences. City TV will now be allowed to broadcast on what Ofcom terms “a specific ‘multiplex’ – a discrete amount of spectrum reserved for local TV broadcasting on DTT”.
 
Together with Birmingham, Ofcom has also awarded a licence to That’s Oxford to provide a service for city there.

The licences are awarded for a period of up to 12 years and Ofcom said it hoped that some channels may be on air before the end of 2013.
 
In May 2012, Ofcom invited applications to run local TV services in 21 local areas. In total, it said it received 57 applications.