As you may have seen, Ofcom published the first part of its new ‘Review of Local Media in the UK’ this week. Given that local and community media has been one of our main focuses over the past couple of years, I thought it would be useful to provide a few highlights and observations from the Review. Bold text indicates notable observations about/from the Review, italics indicate my commentary.
- The evidence base for the review consists mostly of two pieces of research commissioned by Ofcom (one quantitative from 2023 and one qualitative from 2024), and an unspecified number of ‘stakeholder consultations’.
As with previous Ofcom reports, there is a clear concern that the regulator is not commissioning enough original evidence or consulting widely enough with the public when producing these kind of reviews. I have heard through contacts at the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) that one of these ‘stakeholder consultation’ sessions was coordinated by them and put Ofcom in touch with a select group of independent local news providers, but it is reasonable to assume that a large proportion of the other sessions were held with the larger corporate players in the local news space. The views of those players are fairly transparently presented in the review’s findings, although not without challenge and balance. - It seems that Ofcom are not planning to seek very much more evidence before producing the second part of this review, due in November.
At the end of this part of the Review, Ofcom commits to ‘continuing to monitor’ certain areas, particularly trends in online news viewing, but they make no mention of plans to commission further research or engage in further direct stakeholder consultation. They do invite stakeholders with more to see to respond by email by 6th September, but this request seems a bit of an afterthought. - Ofcom recognise that tech platforms (Facebook and Google) ‘play a significant role’ in the local media ecosystem, mostly focusing on their control of ad revenue.
In my view the report understates the control these platforms exert over smaller local news providers’ ability to reach audiences, and give undue credit to the Google News Showcase initiative, which has been reducing its contributions in UK markets for a while now. - Ofcom recognises the risks of the consolidation of local news under a few large corporate providers, but positions these in the future, as if it is not already clear that this is having detrimental impacts.
The Review highlights “the potential to dilute the local relevance of content” but doesn’t spend any serious effort on establishing whether this is already happening. There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence of this - a clear-eyed review of what content consolidated corporate news outlets are actually providing in different localities would be very welcome. - Ofcom reiterates the criticisms levelled at the BBC’s online local reporting by Reach and other corporate local news providers late last year - but also allows space for other perspectives on this issue.
The Review repeats the claim levelled by members of the News Media Association that “the BBC is duplicating their commercial output, putting them in direct competition for audiences”. However, it does provide a counterpoint that other stakeholders, particularly academics, are still keen to emphasise the importance of the BBC’s role in filling gaps in local coverage that are being left by consolidation. - Ofcom highlights the difficulties that smaller independent local news providers have in accessing public funding.
It is welcome to see Ofcom starting to take seriously the longstanding concern from the independent sector that the processes for awarding public funding, primarily through public notice contracts and government advertising arrangements, are deeply flawed and that this funding is often not being delivered to the publications who actually reach audiences in a given locality. This is the first item in a list of ‘areas for improvement’ that the Review identifies, which is encouraging.
We will be making plans to reach out to Ofcom with feedback ahead of the second part of the Review, so keep an eye out for our communications on that and do get in touch if you’re keen to contribute.