Television
RSLs were also issued to television stations and other organisations which wished to cover a very small area. These licences (also known as Restricted Television Service Licences or RTS licences) restrict power, and hence range, but not operating hours. These licences are valid for four years, and must be competed for on renewal.
The first Local TV station to go on the air in the UK with an analogue RSL licence was TV12 on the Isle of Wight. It commenced broadcasting in October 1998 from the main ITV/BBC transmitter at Rowridge. TV12's studios were initially at the Medina Centre in Newport - later moving to retail premises in the town centre and finally a factory unit on the outskirts of the town. Initially a staff of more than 25 made hundreds of hours of local programmes - most of which were filmed on location in and around the island.
Later local TV licences were awarded for stations in Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Carlisle, Coleraine, Derry, Dundee, Edinburgh, Fawley, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Leicester, Limavady, Londonderry, Manchester, Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Portsmouth, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Taunton, Teeside and York.
In light of the national switch-over from analogue to digital TV the television regulator, Ofcom, extended several analogue Local TV licences until local digital switchover became due in each respective area. This process was complete in October 2012. Meanwhile in February 2009 bids were invited for auctions for the first local digital multiplex licences to be offered in the UK - the first two of which were awarded shortly thereafter. However the awarding of additional licenses was halted in favour of a network of local broadcasters.
Read more about this topic: Restricted Service Licence
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)
“The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labour in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour.”
—Frederic Raphael (b. 1931)