Just months after its launch local TV station London Live has applied to Ofcom to scale back the amount of local content broadcast.
The station, which uses valuable Freeview capacity, wants to reduce the amount of peaktime local programming per day from three hours to one hour. It would also reduce the total amount of local content per day from ten hours to eight hours. The commitment to repeated local programming would also be dropped.
“Having considered the effect of the changes ESTV [London Live] has proposed, Ofcom has decided that the changes would result in a departure from the character of the service,” said Ofcom.
The regulatory has published a statutory notice and is seeking comments by August 26.
London Live launched in March 2014. The 24-hour network is backed by the London Evening Standard and Independent owners Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny.
