News 

The Trust, which was setup to represent licence payers, decided the planned £68 million outlay would be better spent elsewhere.

“We believe the BBC’s priority should be improving the quality of existing services,” the Trust said in a statement. “The public wants better quality regional television news programmes and more programmes of all kinds produced in and reflecting their areas.”

BBC

ADVERTISEMENT

management said that it would present new proposals to the Trust.

“Management believed that the local video proposal would strengthen the BBC's news coverage for local communities and deliver real value for licence fee payers,” a BBC statement says. “The BBC Trust challenged BBC management to instead improve its existing services to ensure audiences across the UK see a better reflection of their local communities. That is a challenge we will pursue with vigour.”

The Trust also said that the addition of video would harm commercial interests such as local newspapers that compete with the BBC. The Newspaper Society, which represents the interests of 1,300 newspapers and 1,100 websites, welcomed the decision.

“This is a proposal which the BBC should never have made and would have severely reduced consumers’ media choice and the rich tapestry of local news and information provision in the UK,” said director David Newell.