Local TV Limited (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 eight stations serving the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city i ...

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

Leeds Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the thi ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

, North Wales, Teesside and

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcast ...

areas. The stations air localised news, sport and feature output, alongside networked and acquired programming, including daily simulcasts from factual entertainment channel

CBS Reality CBS Reality is a European television channel broadcast in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. History CBS Reality was launched as Reality TV on 1 December 1999 as a joint-venture between UPCtv and Zone Vision. In 2005, Liberty Global, owner of U ...

Overview

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, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

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 *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

and Gateshead 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 ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

and

Teesside Teesside () is a built-up area around the River Tees in the north of England, split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name was initially used as a county borough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Historically a hub for heavy manu ...

areas.

Made in Bristol Local TV Bristol (typeset as LOCAL TV Bristol) is a local television station 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. Overview In ...

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

Made in Leeds Local TV Leeds (typeset as LOCAL TV Leeds and formerly known by the names of Leeds TV and Made in Leeds) is a local television station serving Leeds and West Yorkshire. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and forms par ...

began broadcasting on Thursday 6 November 2014 and

Made in Tyne & Wear TalkTyne & Wear (formerly Tyne & Wear TV, Made in Tyne & Wear and LOCAL TV Tyne & Wear) is a local television station serving Tyne & Wear and parts of Northumberland and County Durham. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Lim ...

launched six days later. The stations 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 stations:

Bay TV Liverpool Local TV Liverpool (typeset as LOCAL TV Liverpool) is a local television station serving Liverpool City Region and surrounding areas. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and forms part of a group of nine LOCAL TV stat ...

, shortly after it went into administration in August, followed by Walsall-based

Big Centre TV Local TV Birmingham (typeset as LOCAL TV Birmingham) is a British local television station, serving Birmingham, the Black Country, Wolverhampton and Solihull in the West Midlands of England. The station is owned and operated by Local Television ...

in October. Bay TV was reopened and relaunched as 'Made in Liverpool' at 6pm on Wednesday 19 October 2016, followed by the relaunch of Big Centre as 'Made in Birmingham' on Tuesday 8 November 2016. Two further stations launched during the spring of 2017 – Made in Teesside for the Middlesbrough area on Thursday 30 March 2017 followed by Made in North Wales 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 channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts comedy, docusoaps and reality shows. The channel was originally launched in 1991 as Court TV, a network that f ...

as part of a supply agreement with

Sony Pictures Television Sony Pictures Television Inc. (abbreviated as SPT) is an American television production and distribution studio. Based at the Sony Pictures Studios complex in Culver City, it is a division of Sony Entertainment's unit Sony Pictures Enterta ...

. The stations simulcast TruTV in two daily blocks from 1pm to 5pm and 9pm to 1am (8pm to midnight on Tuesdays to accommodate ''

America's Got Talent ''America's Got Talent'' (often abbreviated as ''AGT'') is a televised 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 distribu ...

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

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 stations. 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 (typeset as LOCAL TV Cardiff and formally known as 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 ...

ceased broadcasting on all platforms and was replaced by the generic network feed. In January 2021, Local TV Limited began broadcasting a service targeting viewers in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

. Unlike the group's other channels, Manchester TV is not the official local-TV service provider; That's Manchester 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, serving Greater Manchester. The station, originally known as ''Manchester Student Television'', was owned and operated by the GMG Regional Media division of Guardian Media Group. Coverage Original ...

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.

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-speaking ...

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.

Programming

All Local TV Ltd stations produce a rolling block of pre-recorded local news, sport and features airing each weeknight. Each station's block airs each weekday for up to three or four hours. For example, ''Bristol Live'' airs each weekday from 5pm to 9pm while ''North Wales Live'' airs from 6pm to 9pm. ''Cardiff Live'', a half-hour block for Cardiff, airs at 5pm on weekdays on the ''Made Television'' networked feed. The networked feed also carries a half-hour version of the rolling blocks for Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Tyne and Wear. As of September 2022, the service acts as a simulcast of

for most of the day, with local programming from 6-9am, 1–2pm and from 6-8pm. Repeats of local programming also air overnight from 2-6am. There was also a TalkTV block from 7 or 8-9am. On Sunday nights, Local TV gets the first airing of ''The Heritage Chart Show with Mike Read'', a pop music countdown of videos and live performances from veteran acts, presetented by the former Radio 1 disc jockey

Mike Read Michael David Kenneth Read (born 1 March 1947) is an English radio disc jockey, writer, journalist and television presenter. Read has been a broadcaster since 1976, best known for having been a DJ with BBC Radio 1, and television host for musi ...

. The programme gets broadcast on Local TV's network of channels at 7pm before getting a late-night repeat on Talking Pictures TV.

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 ( cy, Canol Dinas Caerdydd) 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 sta ...

, the Toxteth TV studios in the

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

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-stations 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. The company was founded as JPIMedia Publishing Ltd in November 2018 following the acquisition of Johnston Press assets by its creditors. JPIMedia was purchased by National World PLC for £10.2 mill ...

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

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish 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 August 2004. Its pa ...

'' and ''

The Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in 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