The Argus: What Latest TV has to offer

What Brighton and Hove’s very own TV channel Latest TV has to offer
Saturday 30 August 2014 – News
www.theargus.co.uk

THIS week, Brighton and Hove’s very own TV channel launched. Ruari Barratt retuned his television for 24 hours of entertainment from the team behind Latest TV.

HAVING beaten what the new channel describes as “competition from several experienced television broadcasters”, Latest TV won the licence for the Greater Brighton area and it became available to around 400,000 people on Thursday.

Broadcasting on Freeview Channel 8, the new digital channel for local stations, it will deliver locally-produced content “up to 24 hours a day”, with at least six hours of unique material in each day’s schedule with the rest made up of repeats.

News and sport is at the core of the schedule and from what I saw of the first bulletin at 6pm, the news was well-produced and full of engaging content.

This was followed by the live launch party of entertainment show Brighton Lights with presenter Guy Lloyd of Juice 107.2’s Juice Drivetime show – a wise choice with his personable delivery and presenting experience.

It was a shame that much of the show was based around what Latest TV is going to do, rather than the best of its content. There were also cut-aways – namely during the interesting choice of co-presenter

While the idea of the programme is great, and as much as I tried to really enjoy it, it failed to keep me engaged.

By the time the programme Post Feature started, in all honestly I had lost all enthusiasm.

I was hoping What the Waffle would turn that around. I was expecting a series of amateur, YouTube-style and student quality sketches – but either there wasn’t a point or I missed it.

Maybe some people will find comedy in it, but I could only describe it as a mess.

Thankfully – after the disaster that was What the Waffle – Latest Homes Live was well produced.

The presenters seemed to know what they were doing and it was reasonably nicely shot – although the sound wasn’t great.

To be fair, the channel is operating on a small budget.

Unavoidably this will only be reflected in the quality of some its presenters, sound engineering, camera work and the use of green screen effects which verged on completely bizarre.

Despite this, there seems to be an enormous sense of confidence and ambition within the team.

The channel certainly is supportive of local talent, with platforms for local bands and a dedicated film night for amateur filmmakers and that should be celebrated.

If any city deserves its own channel it is Brighton and Hove and I genuinely hope it takes off.