After 11 years on air, Notts TV has ceased broadcasting after key staff running the channel departed. The East Midlands is the first region to see a local TV channel close without replacement.
- Channel was originally due to cease broadcasting in November.
- Amidst an industry funding crisis, Notts TV opted not to apply for a licence renewal
- Infrastructure to carry local TV service in the East Midlands remains on air for now.
Local TV channel Notts TV vanished from the airwaves overnight as it became the latest established local broadcaster to stop broadcasting.
Earlier this year, the channel had announced it would not seek to renew its Ofcom licence, which was due to expire in November.
The closure was hastily brought forward to 29th August after a number of key staff left the broadcaster to take up new opportunities.
Since midnight, its slot on Freeview channel 7 loads an information caption (pictured). In a sign of its hasty departure from the airwaves, the Freeview Electronic Programme Guide still carried listings for the channel on Saturday.
Over on cable, Notts TV has been removed from Virgin Media channel 159 in the area.
The Notts TV website remains online as an archive of the channel’s content.
Funding squeeze contributed to its demise
Notts TV had suffered from multiple funding blows. All local TV channels set up under the former culture secretary Jeremy Hunt have suffered from lower than expected advertising revenue. They’ve also seen a drop in revenue from selling surplus bandwidth on the local TV multiplex – part of the broadcast infrastructure used to carry the local TV signal to viewer’s homes.
Additionally, Nottingham Trent University, which ended up as sole shareholder of Notts TV Limited, has been suffering from a wider financial crunch affecting higher education institutions across the country.
Notts TV’s most recent financial reports showed it had just managed to break even in 2024. It had reported an operating loss of £13,049 in 2023. Had Notts TV wanted to renew its licence, it would have had to demonstrate to Ofcom how it would remain financially viable over the next decade.
First local TV channel to close outright rather than being sold
The decision to close Notts TV contrasts with other recent exits from the local TV business. It is unclear if there had been any approaches from any rival operator.
Local TV services covering Aberdeen, Ayr, Belfast, Birmingham, Cambridge, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Grimsby, Liverpool, London, Norwich and Swansea have all been transferred to new owners since launching, with their original owners backing out of local TV. That’s resulted in just two companies controlling all but two local TV services in the UK. They are Local TV Limited and That’s Media Limited (trading as That’s TV). Channel M in Manchester closed without a direct replacement, but was not officially part of the current local TV framework.
In the absence of any news about any potential new Ofcom licence award for Nottingham, the broadcast infrastructure used by Notts TV remains on air.
The Local TV multiplex was set up to carry the Freeview signal of each local TV channel, bundled alongside other channels that can ‘piggyback’ on the local TV signal. The multiplex currently continues to broadcast from Waltham and Nottingham transmitters. It continues to carry the linear channel ‘High Street TV’ on Freeview channel 95.
By: Marc Thornham | Image: Contributed, Screenshot of Notts TV closure caption, which is broadcast as a HbbTV slate.