Without prejudice
Bob Geldof has made a video explaining the wonders of Kent TV. I will when I get time expand on my views.
Incidentally Bob (director of KCC's, TV contractor Ten Alps) was apparently speaking after Kent TV's successful first year, so successful in fact that KCC are now considering spending another £400,000 of the taxpayers hard earned money to keep it going, well done!
For some reason Kent TV has not asked me to make a similar apprasal of Kent TV's success I wonder why, also I just wonder whether they will be inviting Trudy Dean of the Liberals or even Mike Eddy of Labour to speak about Kent TV?
One of the points that KCC is making about Kent TV is that a "whats on" channel has been added. I think KCC are claiming a cash savings of about £200,000 because of the whats on channel. So is it an extra £600,000 that is involved here?
ReplyDeleteI think that somebody should tell KCC that in these cash strapped times, KCC already support a "whats on" web site - Visitkent.co.uk. Now I dont know if this costs KCC any cash but its part-financed by the European Union.
Many towns and counties have a visitxxx web site.
There are also whats on sections on the kent newspaper web sites. KCC are always keen to support local business so why are they trying to take business away from our local media companies?
KCC seems to claim that 800,000 'hits' on its TV site is good news. My interpretation of this is that it has cost the tax-payers of Kent about £1.50 per visit in subsidy and thus it is an expensive waste of Council Tax-payers money. To pour more subsidy in is a disgraceful proposition.
ReplyDeleteThis really annoys me, if people hate something thats fine but at least get your facts right! I just read up on this, infact in their first year Kent Tv have had 1.2million visits and as it costs 600,000 a year, thats only 50p a visit, so where the hell people get £1.50 from I have no idea. Anyone who is in internet site management and development will tell you that nominally in your first 1-3years you shouldn't expect traffic above 400,000 IF ANY. I understand as a tax payer where everyone is coming from but the money for kent tv is from there media budget and I would rather they spent it on something useful to me and others than pathetic leaflets or promotional DVDS.
ReplyDeleteAnon 3.18:
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Kent TV contractor's press release at the end of October there where 802,940 visitors.
KCC has not been open about the true costs of this project and what the start up costs were, thats apart from the 2 year £1.2 million contract.
I dont know if you watched/attended the KCC cabinet meeting of 16 April 2007 but the money allocated in the budgets was not going to be spent on any other media activities. Its all money that need not have been spent.
I have nothing against good internet sites- most of which are self financing. But I quote you from the recomendations to the above cabinet meeting :-
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"3. Funding
3.1 KCC is initially investing £600k per annum for the two year pilot and this was agreed
by County Council in February 2007. However, we are confident that a significant
proportion of this will be covered by advertising and sponsorship. This has been
validated by those companies who remain in the tendering process. We would hope for
the channel to become self-funding over the first two years and then generate income
thereafter if the channel continues beyond the pilot. Expressions of interest from various
Kent-based organisations looking to contribute as sponsors have already been received.
3.1 The successful company will have a role in securing sponsorship and advertising
and this will be within guidelines determined by the Board of Governors. KCC will also
maximise this potential where possible and appropriate according to the same guidelines."
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Recently KCC have had to admit the the self funding option is not achievable in the current climate.
From my point of view, yes it does provide some jobs in the media but the content is available from many other internet sources which dont cost me a penny. So why should KCC tax payers have to pay for this duplication?
So your ok with KCC spending £15,000-£20,0000 a time to produce information DVDs? (Thats the going rate for promo dvds up to 10 minutes) or spending thousands on pointless leaflets? Or god knows how much through internet marketing? All I was saying is that if KCC bucked up its ideas it could utilize Kent TV as a source to output these information films etc rather then doubling up. I dont think that we can quote costs a person until its been up for the year. I take your point but with KCC wasting money left right and centre on the most pointless things, Im just thankful they have produced something that I can use for once.
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