Local television in the United Kingdom
Open-knowledge reference entry
Local television in the United Kingdom, described in legislation as Local Digital Television Programme Services (L-DTPS), provides a television station for a specific local area. Successful applicants are awarded a sole licence for their chosen area, and are expected to locate their studios within the same area. They broadcast on the digital terrestrial (DTT) system, as used by the national Freeview service.
The independent regulator, Ofcom, invites applications in all areas where transmission is technically possible, and assesses proposals against the statutory criteria.
Availability
The multiplexes carrying the stations are operated by Comux, owned by the local TV broadcasters, with operations run by Canis Media.
In England and Northern Ireland, the local channels were on channel 8 and in Scotland and Wales they were originally given channel 45; however, after a number of channel closures, channel 23 was used. Following the closure of BBC Three, the local stations moved to channel 7 in England and Northern Ireland, and channel 8 in Scotland and Wales. Some local stations in England however are broadcast on Channel 8 for other reasons. Some stations are also available (in their local areas) via cable (Virgin Media) channel 159 and satellite (Sky) channel 117 (channel 134 in Wales because channel 117 is already occupied). Channels 168, 169 and 209 (previously 216) were used if a region wants multiple local TV channels on Sky before 1 May 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Local television in the United Kingdom” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.