Viewer Numbers Released As Council TV Looks For Funding

Councillors are being presented with a choice to keep webcasting meetings, with an option to expand coverage.

They are being given report that shows a breakdown of ‘viewers’ saying: “Up to the end of November 2014 there had been 9178 “hits”, made up of 1975 live viewings of meetings and 7203 viewings of the archived copies. This works out as an average of 918 per meeting.

“The highest combination of live and archived viewings was for the Executive Board on 5 August (2102 viewings). The highest number of live viewings was for the Planning Committee meeting on 6 October 2014 (403 viewings).”

In the usual sections of the report the main issues come under Legal, Finance and Risk with points made that although webcasting is not currently a legal requirement there is indications that it will be at some point in the future.

The finance issue is that funding from the Welsh Government is no longer there, so if it is to continue Wrexham Council have to self fund it, and the ‘risk’ is stated as: “There is a significant risk that ending the broadcasting of council meetings may be viewed as inhibiting openness and transparency.”

Three options are proposed for debate, with an unstated fourth which would be to cancel webcasting entirely.

The first two options are the same provison but one with a ‘Connect Social’ service and one without. The ‘Connect Social’ service explaination and overview is stated as “This module offers additional facilities in terms of enhanced community engagement by allowing access from multiple devices such as mobiles, tablets and browsers. In addition it means that councils are able to identify who it is you are interacting with. Given the fact that we are at an early stage in developing the system this particular element has not yet been used to its full potential.”

The third option is to expand usage to include other meetings e.g. scrutiny but without the Connect Social element.

The base option is priced at £15,000pa, with ‘Connect Social’ costing £4,000 more on top. The option to cover Scrutiny is £19,000pa without the ‘Connect Social’ addon, and would also incur unspecified extra staffing costs due to room relocations.

All three options are based on a three year contract with the provider.

The viewership is based off directly measured figures, rather than the usual television or radio viewing or listening figures which are often collated from small samples with BARB noted as having a panel of 11,500 people representing 60,000,000 viewers and our annual RAJAR nit picking on how radio listenership is detailed. Due to this we were quite surprised at Wrexham.com Towers at how high the viewership was, however there is a caveat in the report saying: “we should bear in mind that these figures includes viewings by councillors and staff, as well as members of the public”.

On Tuesday the Council Leader Mark Pritchard told Wrexham.com “I will be in full support of retaining it for all the obvious reasons such as openness and democracy for Wrexham Council. It is not always about money, democracy is as important”.

Mr Pritchard went on to say: “Webcasting has been one of the most positive things in terms of transparency to come out of Wrexham Council and I thank the Welsh Government for giving us £40,000 to do it but they have said there is no more money for it.

“Lots of residents don’t come in to the Council or get to see debates and most of their contact with the Council or members is via a planning issue or the like. Now with webcasting they can sit at home and watch it.

Mr Pritchard not only voiced support for the current system, but also added: “I would like it to cover all parts of the Council including Scrutiny Meetings as then people can have a true picture and vision of what’s going on in the Council.”

The full report to be presented to Councillors can be found here.