Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Why Kent TV is a failure


Kent TV has been a regularly item on the Bignews Margate, since it represents all that is bad in local government.

Once again, Kent TV crops up in the news, Kent on Sunday newspaper, draws our attention to the fact that visitor numbers to the broadband TV Service, have virtually halved since January and advertising revenues are only at 10 per cent of original predictions for the year.

Surprisingly Alex King deputy leader of the Kent Council, believes that the TV station will become self financing at some point, and is suggesting that printed publications will be reduced to make this possible. Unfortunately we are not told what publications may cease to be printed, although I personally hope " Around Kent" which features Paul Carter in various photo opportunities is one of the first go.

Ten Alps the production company behind Kent TV issued this comment through one of their spokesperson " Kent TV is for everyone who works, lives, visits or orstudies in the county and we hope it reflects the diversity of interests of real people or studies in the county and we hope it reflects the diversity of interests of real people.

A fine statement indeed, which suggests some sort of diversity, however it is not reflected in the makeup of Kent TV board of governors who appear to be either local authority workers, employees of Kent , quangos or media companies, you will not find amongst their number any laborers, agency workers, builders, shop workers, warehouse staff, sales reps, cleaners, or even businessman (unless they happen to be councilors or media bods).

Anyway at the last board meeting, it was agreed to advertise for a member of the public to join the board of governors for this organization, however unlike many KCC appointments, it will not be subject of a massive display advert in the local papers costing hundreds as is Kent's usual recruitment method but hidden somewhere on the Kent TV website.

Being a keen media watcher, I rang Kent TV this afternoon, to ask whether this advert has appeared yet, they seemed to know nothing about this decision. I have since sent an e-mail to Peter Gilroy, Kent council's chief executive, as I believe he chaired the last meeting of Kent TV, I hope that he may elucidate when this post is actually advertised. Just to make things easy I gave my own address, so that I might be first in the queue for an application form.

I have not received a reply at this point, other than an automatically generated email, telling me that Peter Gilroy is out of the office till Monday, no doubt on some vital mission for the benefit of the people of Kent.

At this point in time Kent TV maybe broadband but its governance is narrowband, that's why its failing.

1 comment:

  1. KentTV, YourKentTV, etc, etc. I really can't be bothered with them.

    It's all very bland and I'd rather visit many of the local blogs that bring out the stories first and have an opinion on the subjects.

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