Regional news is focus of meeting

Three companies are bidding to run the Welsh news pilot

A public meeting has been held in Cardiff Bay to discuss the future of regional news.

Wales is one of three pilot areas where new publicly-funded organisations will take over producing news for ITV.

Three companies have put forward bids and the Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNC) selection panel is holding the Millennium Centre meeting.

Chair Richard Hooper said beforehand that it would give people the chance to have a say on Wales' "news deficit".

Around 150 people attended the meeting, in which the three bidding teams were present.

The former controller of BBC Wales and a former assistant controller of programmes at HTV, Geraint Talfan Davies said he welcomed the discussion at Wednesday's meeting.

"The BBC desperately needs competition," he told BBC Radio Wales.

"It is not enough in a place like Wales, particularly with the existence of something like the National Assembly, for us to have one dominant news source - there has to be very, very strong competition.

"What I think this afternoon's meeting demonstrated is really what the benefits of competition are."

Earlier, speaking on BBC Radio Wales, Mr Hooper, said they wanted a feel for local views "on what is a very important issue in Wales, the news deficit in Wales is a very big issue."

We don't want just business as usual, let's just do what we did yesterday and do it again today Richard Hooper, chair of the selection panel

Mr Hooper said the seven-member panel were meeting the three bidders for the Wales pilot ahead of the meeting to discuss what they want.

"What we're looking for is first of all quality news reporting with a mixture of what we call national, in the case of Wales, regional, local and indeed hyper-local news," he said.

"We're looking for genuine innovation. We don't want just business as usual, let's just do what we did yesterday and do it again today. We want this working across the platforms as I mentioned.

"And also perhaps look at whether there's a way of gaining new revenues so that the amount of state funding, of public funding could reduce."

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has said: "It is vital that we continue to have diversity and plurality in Wales which includes quality news broadcasting on channel 3 and a buoyant and sustainable Welsh print/multi-media sector."

Opposition

However, the Conservative's shadow culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt has told BBC Wales that he views the current plans for pilot news projects as "unimaginative".

"I think it's the wrong approach," he said.

"We're already asking people to pay for one regional news through the licence fee and now the government's approach to the financial problems at ITV is that we should subsidise a second provider of regional or local news.

"If we win the election we won't be behind this so whether it keeps going for a few day, a few months or a few years, in the end if the Conservatives are in power we have a much more ambitious model."

The groups bidding to run the pilot are: ITN with Newsquest, Northcliffe Media, Tindle, Boomerang and ITV Wales news staff; Tinopolis; and UTV with NWN Media Ltd.

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