Manchester local TV licence won by YourTV group

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/08/manchester-local-tv-your-tv

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Ofcom has awarded the local TV licence for Manchester to the YourTV group, the first win for the consortium backed by former BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons.

YourTV beat four other bidders to win the licence which is considered one of the three most important of the 19 cities and towns that have now so far been chosen to have local TV services.

The Manchester channel is expected to cover about 1m homes and the YourTV says it hopes to be up and running broadcasting by October.

Ofcom received five bids for the Manchester licence and the regulator said that the choice came down to two bids – from YourTV and made In Manchester.

Ofcom said that YourTV won because the licensing committee believed "YourTV Manchester put forward a more ambitious proposal, backed by a strong advisory board which would help ensure the needs of the locality were taken into account.

"Compared to Made In Manchester, it included a higher number of first-run local hours, a higher proportion of local programming and greater quantity of local programming throughout the day, all of which gave the BLC [broadcast licensing committee] confidence it would be more likely to broaden the range of programming made in and about the area, and more likely to meet the specific needs of an area this size."

YourTV is also bidding to run the services in Leeds, Liverpool and Preston, the three remaining local TV services across the country that have not yet been decided. The Made In consortium has already won the licences for Cardiff, Bristol, and Newcastle.

This week, Ofcom awarded the franchise for London, considered the most lucrative, to the bid from the Lebedevs' London Evening Standard.

All the local TV services in England will be broadcast on channel 8 on Freeview and channel 17 on Sky. The BBC is providing £25m for infrastructure and £5m annually over three years towards content costs for all local TV services.

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