Swansea Bay success means opportunities

Well, some of the dust has settled on a fabulous ITV news victory for Swansea Sound, The Wave and their associates.
The big question for everyone in the Swansea Bay media now is: "How will our successful local bidders in the Wales Live alliance embrace this glorious chance?"
Will jobs be created for journalists?
Will strategic new business alliances be created with complementary professional information providers?
Can Swansea Bay really look forward to a genuinely credible alternative to BBC Wales news and sport?
I hope the answers are positive.
Job creation will be studied with a keen eye.
The winning UTV/NWN Media IFNC proposal is strong on its citizen journalism element. That's good because technology rightly makes everyone an information provider these days.
But any such contributed material must be subject to UTV moderation at the very least and, most preferably, to professional editing and packaging.
That should mean more job security and career prospects for those at our local radio stations ... and, hopefully, more opportunities for recruitment.
Strategic new professional hook-ups across Swansea Bay will be equally interesting.
Imagine what a force the South Wales Evening Post and Swansea Sound could be together.
But are the Post's Northcliffe Media bosses liberal enough - and sufficiently forward thinking - to consider such an arrangement?
The Post's low-key announcement of the Swansea Sound success yesterday suggests not. Indeed the two local radio stations weren't even name-checked in their hour of glory.
I understand why but it came across as needlessly petty ... it's a big, evolving world out there now and there's more to the local media than the local paper.
Everyone knows that and it's a fact that should be acknowledged a little more readily by Northcliffe's big guns.
Perhaps the Wales Live editorial chiefs will look to grassroots news and information professionals. They are, after all, a growing force.
BBC Wales has, of course, had the Wales-wide TV and radio field to itself for too long. ITV resources have been stretched too thinly and local radio has been increasingly careful with its journalistic spend.
So it'll be good to see an extended local and community reach of the new all-Wales media service. Inevitably, this will mean multi-skilling for journalists. That brings excitement for all - training opportunities and new ways of seeing work published.
Plenty more on this subject to come ...

Swansea Bay celebrations for successful media bidders

There's a big new name on the Swansea Bay media landscape ... and it's one the good folk at Swansea Sound and The Wave can be very excited about.
The Government has today named Wales Live as the winning bid to run an independently funded news consortium (IFNC) pilot projects in Wales. The Wales Live bid featured the two local stations under the banner of parent company UTV.

Meanwhile, Llanelli-based independent TV production company Tinopolis is part of a similar success story for Scotland.
Wales Live is a collaboration between Swansea Sound/The Wave owners UTV and North Walian publisher NWN Media.
Michael Wilson, managing director of UTV Television , said: “What a fantastic achievement for the Wales Live team!.
"We put our hearts and souls into winning this bid. With our partners NWN Media, we look forward to delivering a fresh and authoritative news service to the whole of Wales across TV, online and radio with the current ITV Wales News Team.
"The process is still on-going and we remain fully committed to moving forward on contracts."

The IFNCs will receive a total of £47m in Government funding over two years to provide local news content across the web, mobile and other new platforms, along with the TV slot currently occupied by ITV regional news. Funding comes from a £130m under-spend in the licence fee.
Wales Live will take over the ITV Wales news service - although a Tory Government could spell trouble for the whole IFNC scheme.
Government decision-makers said the winning bidders "understood the implications of convergence, demonstrating how television, local newspapers, the internet, local radio could work together in new and interesting ways."
They said UTV had a "clear vision for an innovative community-based approach in conjunction with citizen journalists and its newspaper partner, NWN Media."
Reserve bidder for Wales was Tinopolis, with a consortium featuring Swansea University, Bay Radio, the South Wales Evening Post, the South Wales Guardian, ITV journalists and others being left out in the cold.