Switch on for UK’s new local TV network
COMUX switched on its TV Network Operations Centre today, ahead of the launch of 18 new local TV channels this year and a further 28 next year.
“Local businesses will also have access, in many locations for the first time, to an attractively-priced local TV advertising network,” said Local TV Network chair Nigel Dacre.
Comux, a charity, was awarded the licence to operate the UK’s local TV infrastructure by Ofcom. Its chief executive Ed Hall described the network as “a commercially sustainable and robust solution, we have also now created the potential to provide an attractive return to the licence holders and to the local TV industry as a whole.”
Comux’s network will eventually deliver local TV channels to over 12m UK homes, starting in Grimsby this week with the launch of Estuary TV.
The Evening Standard’s London Live channel which will launch across London in 2014.
Local channels in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool are all set to launch next year. Up to 60 local UK TV licences are expected to be awarded by the regulator Ofcom to run on the network.