Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
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The soapbox is giving way to the soap opera in Britain’s town halls. Local authorities are setting up online television channels to promote their policies at taxpayers’ expense.
Kent county council will this week launch its own Hollyoaks-style teenage drama on Kent TV, a £1.6m project it has developed with Bob Geldof and his Ten Alps media company.
Is this a case of aaaarrrghhhhh or a great initiative!
Masochists can read more at The Times.........
Kent county council will this week launch its own Hollyoaks-style teenage drama on Kent TV, a £1.6m project it has developed with Bob Geldof and his Ten Alps media company.
Is this a case of aaaarrrghhhhh or a great initiative!
Masochists can read more at The Times.........
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Before other people go into Aaarrgh! or even a rroarrgh! mode, can we actually pause for a few moments. Can I suggest people use the pause to jot down - or key in - a short list of information things which local councils should and ought to be doing online?
Of course, we all know things they shouldn't be spending our money on. Party Propaganda, obviously. And probably this includes clips of local pols looking at the camera while shaking hands with one another. Or pretending to sweep the street etc.
Originally I opposed and was sceptical about the videos of Haringey Council meetings. This seemed more about inflated egos than public information. But in fact there's real value in having a video record of what local politicians say. If only because they can't deny it later.
But I hope we'd all want to continue to spend public money on things like online Planning Alerts; and a whole range of basic information-giving services.
We all enjoyed John D's video of Harringay Festival. Would people see it as legitimate for local councils to use video to celebrate and promote local events, arts, and industries? (Keeping out the smiling pols, of course.)
I've mentioned one local Council website before but don’t apologise for repetition. If you haven't taken a look at the online library of videos from the City of Vancouver, please click here.
I think these try to achieve a lot of things HoL members care about very much. They encourage an interest in and love of a place and its history; celebrating the beauty of its landscape and buildings. The arts and community projects; local initiatives like recycling; and planning consultation. It’s a fantastic advert for Vancouver and a draw for visitors or businesses. But they are aren’t afraid to show their social problems and some of the solutions people try out: for housing shortages and homelessness; drug problems; ethnic tensions.
Vancouver has hundreds of these short videos, available both on local cable channels and online. Maybe there are similar or even better collections elsewhere. If so I'd love to know about them. And I'm happy to hear from Vancouverites with critical or even cynical comments.
But in the meantime let's welcome experiment and good ideas. And let's actually view a few episodes of Bob Geldoff's teenage drama - preferably asking the views of some teenagers as well.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for that Alan. I agree that public money certainly shouldn't be used for party propaganda, nor, I believe, should it be used for organisational propaganda and I think we'd very often be hard put to distinguish between the two. Perhaps the common thread is communication with the primary intent of portraying the organisation or group in a favourable light.
Used to educate or inform, there's clearly a role for local TV channels. I've written elsewhere about the tyranny of text. That's reason enough for offering audio or visual channels for educating and informing. But before committing significant ratepayer monies to such projects, there's clearly a great need to a. judge what appetite there is for council owned TV channels (web-based or other) and b. to pay careful attention to issues involved with state ownership of media. There's a serious debate to be had.
This should all be set against a backdrop where organisations, both public and private, are scared and confused about their loss of control over the channels of communication. This loss implies a shift in who has a say in what's broadcast about them, their services and products. One has to ask where this sort of initiative fits in to that picture.
I'd certainly not argue against the case for the channel in some form or other; what I'm throwing open for debate is the role of local authorities in that. If they have a role, should they be looking to the BBC or Channel 4 models where editorial independence is more assured?
As for the Geldoff drama, I'm not clear on what it's all about. I couldn't access it easily on Kent TV, but I did find this short of him making the case for the channel:
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Hugh, I agree entirely about the dangers in media control and the need for editorial and artistic independence. It would be appalling if the ‘promise’ of internet democratisation was snuffed out by either political or commercial domination of new media.
But we also need to be hard-headed. Some very large and wealthy companies are key ‘players’ both as infrastucture and content providers. They have the resources to hire talented people to utilise and colonise parts of the web.
So if you’re suggesting a public service broadcasting model then I’m right with you. Except that the BBC’s excellent website does tend to take the same worldview as its TV and radio channels. The few broadcast to the many - and – predominantly one way. (This is one reason I’ve suggested a U.S.-style subscription to secure the future and independence of HoL.)
But I do think local councils could and should be using their own websites, and the social media sites to reach out to – and, yes - invite dialogue from residents.
So perhaps the key question is how tackle the issue of political and commercial bias head-on. Has anyone some experience of local government – in the U.K. or abroad - where this is successfully done?
On our council website Haringey proudly states that “People have a right to reliable information, just as we have a duty to provide it.”
So I’m sure all my fellow councillors and council staff will be delighted to see a new arrangement which achieves this goal.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Hugh, thanks for posting this. I’m not entirely surprised to read it. I suspect that the propaganda aspect is one of the less-discussed or less advanced reasons for Haringey’s keenness on the most expensive digital aerial system for council blocks.
The average cost (not paid for tenants directly) would be over £1,000, but much of that cost would be come from robbing the Decent Homes budget, intended for bathroom and kitchen repairs.
As for Council Leaseholders, they would be expected to pay on a sliding scale, but in some cases, up to £1,000 and something the council is or was prepared to force them to pay whether they wanted such an expensive system or not.
Other neighbouring boroughs selected digital systems that were a fraction of the cost of Haringey’s choice. Such is the power of the addiction of our council to opportunities for Public Relations (really self-publicity).
Would one or more of the 1,000+ digital channels be available as an on-line version of Haringey People?
I can see one potential advantage. if Haringey-TV were to replace the council’s propaganda journal the overheads could be less, but unlikely. It would be more self-selecting because at present, we get HP whether we want it or not. Haringey TV would probably be additional to HaringeyPravdaPeople and the two media outlets would reinforce each other.
The current Haringey Council’s website is pretty good and the propaganda flavour is only apparent in the News and Press Releases section; on the whole, they play with a straight bat.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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From what the scruffy one says, it's distributed over the Internet, not over the air to aerials.
But as for Council Leaseholders, are they not being expected to pay twice for the upgraded communal aerial systems ? Once directly and a second time via Council tax ?
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Ha ha ha. This is like installing gas lighting as electric lighting is coming along.
TV will come over the internets which is wires in the ground.
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Yes, you’re right John, the Leaseholders are being expected to pay twice.
However it seems that following a little adverse comment, they council may be re-”thinking” this one. The salesman told Haringey that their (satellite-based) digital system was “future-proof”. The Cabinet Member (a photo of whom was unkindly dubbed by a neighbour as “Early Release”), also quoted this, which is a real hostage to fortune.
As a number of people have observed, the future is likely to lie with Fibre Optic Cable to the premises, the same way many people receive a superior Broadband service. Fibre Optic has almost unlimited bandwidth. Not with satellite systems whose aerials have been described has “diamond encrusted” and which may be vulnerable to rain blocking the signal.
One of the Ham & High’s most prescient correspondents asked if Saturation television was the council’s new opiate of the masses (attached). - Attachments:
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Clive, being wrong early doesn't make you prescient. Nor are remarks about Cllr Bevan's physical appearance relevant. (As Jay Leno said, "Politics is just show business for ugly people". I can assure you, some of us are beautiful on the inside.)
About the aerial issue, can I suggest you try to keep to the high standard of factual accuracy shown in your critique of Cllr Adje's dealings with Firoka at Alexandra Palace.
Let's take your comments about the TV aerials and propaganda.
"The propaganda aspect is one of the less-discussed or less advanced reasons for Haringey’s keenness on the most expensive digital aerial system for council blocks."
"Would one or more of the 1,000+ digital channels be available as an on-line version of Haringey People?"
"Does the council see it as being in their interests to keep tenants in a state of docile dependency?" (Quote from your letter to the Ham & High.)
To declare an interest, as well as being a Labour councillor, I'm on the Board of Homes for Haringey. I've read and listened to Cllr Bevan's views and arguments on this issue. For what it's worth:
— I've heard and seen nothing that John Bevan or anyone else has said or written which gives the slightest support to any of these assertions.
I can't speak for Cllr Bevan, of course. But if I had to guess the main motivation for his proposal it would be: (1) to have the widest possible range of TV stations serving Haringey's different ethnic communities; and (b) to get rid of the thousands of individual satellite dishes on Council-owned property. Plainly, the two are linked.
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Alan, thanks for your response. As always, I appreciate the fact you are prepared to discuss these issues in a public forum.
As someone on the Board of Homes for Haringey, do you have any comment about the reported raiding of the Decent Homes budget to pay for this most-expensive-of-all digital systems? If your flat needed kitchen and bathroom repairs, which might you prefer?
Do you think that the widest possible range of TV stations should come at any price? Is £1,000 too much to demand from Leaseholders for a system they might not want? Even Turkish people have to pay bills and at least one has written to the local paper saying the cost is just too much, even thought they would have access to Turkish channels.
To get rid of thousands of individual satellite dishes – Do you have any comment about the merits of fibre-optic cable as an alternative? Do you believe Cllr. Bevan when he claims the £1,000 system chosen by the council is “future-proof”?
It sounds like a salesman’s patter to me!
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OK Clive, as Unix geeks we have a pretty good grounding in the term "future proof" and know that it is an oxymoron. This guy is talking out of his backside, you don't need Alan to tell you that.
The other thing that annoys me about this is the dishes themselves. They're ugly and remind me of a "joke": Q. What do you call the small box attached to the side of a Satellite dish? A: A Council flat.
This is just plain wrong for the council to ruin their own (and other's) real estate in this way. The cost will seem like nothing in 10 years when the nasty dishes are hanging rusted and ugly on the side of their boxes.
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John: if Cllr. Bevan has a will to reduce the thousands of satellite dishes on council-owned property, that’d be one area of agreement. Because they are an eyesore and not just on council property. However, it seems to me they don’t have necessarily to be replaced with a single large satellite dish.
Do you have any views about the merits of fibre optic cable as a digital conduit of the future?
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