Regional sales house TMH has been hired to sell advertising for the
first local terrestrial TV stations in Scotland and Ireland as well as
the UK’s first Christian digital platform.
The Scottish station which now comes under the TMH umbrella is
Lanarkshire Television. It will have a potential audience of 650,000 in
an area stretching from rural Clydesdale to the towns of East Kilbride,
Hamilton and Motherwell. The station will air from 7.30pm to midnight
and feature locally produced shows.
Channel 9 in Londonderry will broadcast to 200,000 people in north-west
Ireland.
TMH also handles two of the other three stations that have so far been
awarded local franchises. These are TV12 - which serves the Isle of
Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton - and the Oxford Channel. The fourth,
MATV - an Asian TV channel based in Leicester - is handled by AH
Media.
Of the 50 or so applications for local TV licences received by the
Independent Television Commission, three are from Trinity Mirror’s local
newspapers in Liverpool, Chester and Huddersfield.
TMH, which also represents regional newspapers, is optimistic about the
future of local TV. Managing director Stuart Freeman said: ’TV is
available to 98 per cent of homes and one in five have three or more
sets. Local terrestrial TV will become the biggest thing since local
radio.’
He is convinced local television offers great opportunities to national
advertisers and sees the future of national sales houses as cross-media
local specialists. ’We have appointed three sales executives with
regional experience of both press and radio. Those sales houses who
don’t move down the cross-media path will not be able to meet the needs
of ad agencies,’ Freeman warned.
TMH recently sold B&Q into TV12 and is currently targeting Ford and
Vauxhall. Freeman also sees a future for classified ads on television.
’All the local stations will have teletext which is perfect for
classified categories such as personals, recruitment and motoring,’ he
said.
TMH has also won the sales contract for the Dream Family Network, a
digital platform of four pay-per-view channels featuring Christian
programming on the Sirius satellite.
