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May 19, 2009

Bob Geldof looks to form regional news consortium

By paulmcnally

Bob Geldof has announced plans to set up an independent news consortium to bid for the rights to provide local TV news in Northern Ireland.

Media regulator Ofcom has suggested the idea of competitively funded local news partnerships to the government as an alternative to ITV’s regional news operation.

Now the musician and aid campaigner, who owns production company Ten Alps, has said he will go up against UTV to launch a multi-platform news provider.

“Tendering out to the usual suspects just simply isn’t going to work. In the age of the internet, the notion of television itself is as archaic as the word wireless – even if that has been reinvented for the digital age,” Geldof told the FT.

“It doesn’t mean anything will be exclusively online, but multiplatform news will be required. Also, I don’t think there is any way of doing this without working with local newspapers and those kind of agencies.”

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