A programme about pensioners learning hip-hop moves might not win a nomination for a Bafta, but it is this type of content that is pivotal to ITV's plans to take a share of the estimated 拢3bn local advertising market.
Last week, the broadcaster announced that it was expanding its ITV Local community broadband service with the launch of channels with local-interest content for all the boroughs of the London region. The move provided further evidence that ITV is serious about its ambitions to go head-to-head with the regional press.
For ITV, the strategy makes sense. Core TV ad revenue has been in decline for some years and although the classified ad market has also suffered, it has started to stabilise, and an increasing number of blue-chip advertisers are running local ad campaigns, according to Robert Ray, marketing director at the Newspaper Society.
Moreover, ITV has a network of under-used local newsrooms and journalists, inherited through the merger of its regional stations - such as Westcountry and Anglia - ready and waiting to provide content for the service.
ITV launched ITV Local in October 2005 with the trial of a service in the Brighton and Hastings area. It has subsequently been rolled out to the rest of the Meridian region as well as the London and Central TV regions, meaning it is currently available to 45% of the UK population; the company plans to have full coverage in every UK region by the end of the year.
The website shows a mixture of news, lifestyle programming, event guides, travel and weather bulletins, all tailored for a local audience. More than 90% of the content is long-form video-rich programming. Advertising comes from business listings; last year, ITV purchased Enable Media, which traded as Scoot, to allow it to break into the online directories business. Other revenues come from classifieds, property, dating and jobs as well as brand advertising.
The audience figures have not been astounding. ITV claims that it has had 250,000 unique users a month since the services' launch in the three regions, and had 1m video plays a month. However, so far it has had only a soft-launch, with consumers directed to the website in promotions within local TV news programmes, and site visitor numbers are expected to be boosted by a marketing campaign planned to run this summer.
Craig Nayman, ITV Local's commercial director, will not disclose projected revenue figures for the service, but ITV Local, along with the relaunched ITV.com site, is a key part of the company's digital strategy. It is also consistent with ITV executive chairman Michael Grade's stated intent to reconnect with local audiences.
So, how threatening is it to the regional press, which has traditionally had the local ad market sewn up?
Not very, is the view of Lawrie Proctor, managing director of Mediaforce, which represents regional newspaper publishers including Johnston Press. 'I don't think their tanks are on our lawn. If you look at what ITV is doing it is very generic and much of the content is user-generated,' he says. 'What ITV is doing is nowhere near what our publishers represent.'
It is certainly true that local papers have had digital brand extensions for many years - between them they have more than 800 websites as well as two TV channels - and that ITV is playing catch-up. 'All of our publishers have embraced online as another channel to disseminate content,' says Proctor. 'I can't see anything that ITV is offering in ITV Local that is not already being done and being done better by the regional press.'
Moreover, Ray says that the regional press is better resourced, with more than 13,000 journalists, as well as having a closer relationship with local communities than ITV can ever manage. 'More than 80% of people regularly consume a local newspaper and our journalists are trusted at a local level,' he says. 'Our move into digital - mobile and online - is about building our delivery and interactivity. It isn't new to us; it's just an evolution of the readers' letters page. I would question whether ITV has really got the local angle.'
The threat is not dismissed so quickly by everyone. 'It is still early days, but clearly ITV Local will start to eat into local ad revenue as it becomes more established,' says Melissa Smith, head of regional press at Universal McCann. 'ITV Local's expansion will give advertisers more choice, and greater competition should accelerate the growth of local-press websites and keep publishers on their toes to improve the quality and experience of existing ones.'
Damian Hodge, associate director at MediaCom, also believes that if ITV gets it right, it could be on to something. 'ITV is definitely doing the right thing and there probably is a niche in the market. It will be good for advertisers who can now target local audiences on the back of good content.'
Nonetheless, Smith agrees with Ray's assessment that ITV will have to produce some pretty compelling programming, beyond hip-hopping OAPs, in order to attract viewers.
'It could be easy to overstate how much of a threat it represents to local-press publishers,' she says. 'It is hard to imagine ITV being able to provide local content on the same scale as local-press publishers, which have far more journalists on the ground to supply the kind of in-depth local news and information that people need.'
Nayman says that ITV's ultimate objective is to create content that will be so targeted that it will be relevant on a postcode basis. The broadcaster is currently in negotiation with the operators of traffic cameras in order to provide live feeds of traffic problems, and is committed to getting involved with grass-roots sports to build closer links with local communities. 'We want ITV Local to be a mouthpiece for local communities and once we reach full roll-out, our unique users will be at such a level by the first quarter of 2008 that it will have really taken off,' he promises.
The ambition may be bold, but key to ITV Local's success will be how effective it is at building, and maintaining, these relationships in the first place.