Local TV (formerly Made Television) is a

local television The terms local programme, local programming, local content or local television refers to a television program made by a television station or independent television producer for broadcast only within the station's transmission area or television ...

network in the United Kingdom, operating nine channels serving the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

, North Wales, Teesside and

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England. It borders Northumberland to the north and County Durham to the south, and the largest settlement is the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. The county is ...

areas.

Overview

2012-2019

In September 2012, the broadcast regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

awarded two licences to Made Television to broadcast local TV services in the Bristol and Cardiff areas. Three months later, the company was granted a third licence to serve the

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

and

Gateshead Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...

areas, followed in February 2013 by a licence for the Leeds area. In November 2013, the company gained a fifth local TV licence to serve the

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...

and

Teesside Teesside () is an urban area around the River Tees in North East England. Straddling the border between County Durham and North Yorkshire, it spans the boroughs of Borough of Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Stockton ...

areas.

Made in Bristol Local TV Bristol is a British local television channel serving Bristol and surrounding areas. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and forms part of a group of eight local TV stations, now known under the Talk TV brand ...

was the first of the company's channels to launch, at 8 p.m. on Wednesday 8 October 2014, followed a week later by its sister station in

Made in Leeds Local TV Leeds (formerly known by the names of TalkLeeds, Leeds TV and Made in Leeds) is a Local television in the United Kingdom, local television station serving Leeds and West Yorkshire. The station is owned and operated by Local Television L ...

began broadcasting on Thursday 6 November 2014 and Made in Tyne & Wear launched six days later. The channels launched an on-demand service, ''OnView'', in March 2015 followed in August by live streaming. In 2016, the company bought two independently run local TV channels: Bay TV Liverpool, shortly after it went into administration in August, followed by Walsall-based Big Centre TV in October. Bay TV was reopened and relaunched as 'Made in Liverpool' at 6 p.m. on Wednesday 19 October 2016, followed by the relaunch of Big Centre as 'Made in Birmingham' on Tuesday 8 November 2016. Two further channels launched during the spring of 2017 – Made in Teesside for the Middlesbrough area on Thursday 30 March 2017 followed by

Made in North Wales LOCAL TV North Wales (formerly North Wales TV, Made in North Wales and TalkNorth Wales) is a British local television station serving Mold, Denbigh, Ruthin and surrounding areas. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and ...

for Mold and surrounding areas on Wednesday 26 April 2017. On Thursday 25 May 2017, all Made channels began carrying acquired programming from the UK and Ireland version of factual entertainment channel

TruTV TruTV (stylized as truTV) is an American basic cable Television channel, channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts reruns of Television comedy, comedy, Reality television, docusoaps and reality shows, with a rec ...

as part of a supply agreement with

Sony Pictures Television Sony Pictures Television Inc. (abbreviated as SPT) is an American television production company, production and broadcast syndication, distribution studio. Based at the Sony Pictures Studios complex in Culver City, California, it is a division o ...

. The channels simulcast TruTV in two daily blocks from 13:00 to 17:00 and 21:00 to 01:00 (20:00 to 00:00 on Tuesdays to accommodate ''

America's Got Talent ''America's Got Talent'' (often abbreviated as ''AGT'') is an American talent show competition, and is part of the global ''Got Talent'' franchise created by Simon Cowell. The program is produced by Fremantle (as well as distributed by) and ...

''). From November 2017, the Made channels began simulcasting

CBS Reality CBS Reality is a European pay television channel specializing in reality-based programming, including true crime documentaries and factual entertainment. It is operated by AMC Networks International in partnership with Paramount Networks EME ...

for 11 hours a day. In November 2017, following a restructuring of the Made network's operations, local programming was cut and studio production of daily news and magazine programmes was centralised at Made's Leeds and Birmingham channels. Around forty staff across the network were reportedly made redundant. Following the cutbacks, the network began producing two weekday programmes - ''Made TV News'' (broadcast from Leeds) and ''The Big Daily'' (initially produced from Birmingham), both including local and networked content. Both programmes were axed in February 2018 and replaced by separate rolling blocks of pre-recorded local news, sport and features On 2 January 2018, Made Television ceased broadcasting its localised services in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool and Tyne & Wear on digital satellite. They were replaced by a single, generic ''Made Television'' feed featuring a daily three-hour block of local news programming.

Made in Cardiff LOCAL TV Cardiff (formerly known as TalkCardiff, Cardiff TV and Made in Cardiff) is a local television station serving Cardiff and surrounding areas. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and formed part of a group of ...

ceased broadcasting on all platforms and was replaced by the generic network feed. The channels aired a block of localised news and sport alongside networked simulcasted programming from factual entertainment channel

2020 onwards

In January 2021, Local TV Limited began broadcasting a service targeting viewers in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. Unlike the group's other channels, Manchester TV is not the official local-TV service provider;

That's Manchester That's Manchester is a local television station serving Greater Manchester. It is owned and operated by That's TV and broadcasts on Freeview channel 7 from studios at The Flint Glass Works in the Ancoats suburb of Manchester. Overview Before ...

occupies the Comux local multiplex slot and LCN 7, with LTV's Manchester TV occupying a lower berth (LCN 99 at launch) and transmitting on the legacy Greater Manchester multiplex originally set up for the defunct

Channel M Channel M was a regional television station in England which broadcast to the Greater Manchester area between 2000 and 2012. The station, originally Manchester Student Television, was owned and operated by the GMG Regional Media division of G ...

service. When transmissions began, the channel relayed the network Local TV service as provided on satellite. On 15 December 2021, Local TV Manchester abruptly closed on Freeview with the released space given to a Greater Manchester channel from On Demand 365. In 2023, the channels started simulcasting TalkTV's news programmes during the day, with hour long local news bulletins at 13:00, 18:00 and 21:00 (which were also looped overnight) and it was later decided to rebrand all eight channels under the TalkTV name, a move which took place on 18 October 2023. In 2024, the channels were rebranded back to their previous branding following the closure of TalkTV on broadcast television.

London TV

In January 2025, Local TV acquired the licence of London Live that broadcast to London and surrounding areas.Montgomery-backed Local TV swoops on Lebedev's London Live licence
/ref> London Live closed at 23:59 on 19 January where the final programme "Bottoms Up" ended early by 20 minutes and the broadcast switched to Local TV's simulcast of

True Crime True crime is a genre of non-fiction work in which an author examines a crime, including detailing the actions of people associated with and affected by the crime, and investigating the perpetrator's Motive (law), motives. True crime works often ...

from 00:01 on 20 January. At 06:00, London TV broadcast their first programme with "London News".

Satellite version

On 20 October 2021, all of the 5 Local TV versions on channel 117 were removed on Sky. Local TV Cardiff was on channel 135 due to

S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speakin ...

previously occupying channel 117. Local TV Cardiff was renamed Local TV and moved to channel 195, the lowest ranked slot in the EPG's entertainment section and began broadcasting to all of the United Kingdom. All six Local TV services (not Manchester or North Wales) were merged into this new channel with various local news broadcasts over a 2 hour period instead of just one news broadcast.

Organisation

Local TV Limited's headquarters are at the Leeds Media Centre in the Chapeltown area of Leeds, with studios and offices based at Elgin House in

Cardiff city centre Cardiff city centre () is the city centre and central business district of Cardiff, Wales. The area is tightly bound by the River Taff to the west, the Civic Centre to the north and railway lines and two railway stations – Cardiff Cen ...

, the Toxteth TV studios in the

Toxteth Toxteth is an inner-city area of Liverpool in the county of Merseyside. Toxteth is located to the south of Liverpool city centre, bordered by Aigburth, Canning, Liverpool, Canning, Dingle, Liverpool, Dingle, and Edge Hill, Merseyside, Edge Hill ...

suburb of

and the David Puttnam Media Centre at the University of Sunderland. Playout and presentation for the network is run from the Leeds headquarters. On 19 August 2018, Made Television rebranded as Local TV Limited and all sub-channels were renamed according to their city. By 2021, Local TV's chairman David Montgomery (a newspaper executive, whose company National World was known for taking over

JPIMedia National World is a British multimedia company based in Leeds, England. The company was founded and listed on the London Stock Exchange in September 2019 as a media takeover vehicle. In January 2021, it acquired JPIMedia for £10.2 million. I ...

in a £10m deal which included papers such as ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

'' and ''

The Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire, although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...

'') outlined plans for a new 'Northern TV Network' which would include Local TV's channels in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. The 'NTVN' plans were later quietly dropped. In 2022, Ofcom agreed to Local TV Limited's proposal to close their production centres in Birmingham, Bristol and on Teesside, as the company decided to keep their remote Covid working practices as the company standard.

References

External links

* {{Local television channels in the United Kingdom Local television channels in the United Kingdom Television channels and stations established in 2014 Organisations based in Leeds Mass media companies of the United Kingdom