No-one seems particularly suprised that Five should be prepared to pay £200m for Big Brother for four years, according to reports in todays papers. For media commentators, it's a good national media story - huge programme brand to switch networks, an opportunity for Five to go head-to-head with Channel 4, will it work, is Big Brother played out already and so on.
However, if you look at it from a different perspective - from Manchester for instance - then the usual metropolitan media bias means a bigger question simply does not enter the editorial equation. At £200m - that's five years of £40m pa on Five's programme budget. Where does that leave Channel 6 - which, according to Richard Horwood, one of the main proponents for a sixth national channel, will have a similar programme budget to Five. Does that mean adding an extra £40m to the programme spending business plan? Is there anything that Channel 6 could buy which would rival Big Brother? And if there is something worth that much - why wouldn't Sky buy it first?
As you probably realise by now, I don't think the success of a new national/local channel depends on having a Big Brother-style, super-charged programme budget. According to interesting research from Attentional, the guarantee of channel 6 prominence on the EPG has considerable value - but to achieve that value it will need to have a programme offering to compete with other prominent digital channels. That's why Channel 4 is taking so long to come forward with its proposals for Channel 6 and is number-crunching to work out what impact a successful channel in the sixth EPG slot would have on the share of viewing and revenues it derives from E4 and More4. The more you go down that route, the more you start to think the national network proposal won't be viable.
The 'Big National Channel 6' concept only has traction if it seen through the distorting lens of national media, which cannot conceive of a new channel that might not be based in London. So ingrained is metropolitan media bias that no-one would suggest that it might make more sense - from a financial point of view - to devise a network that is distinctive and not me-too, and make it successful because it will be located outside London.
Look at the reaction to a major media development that has had the nerve to locate itself outside London - the BBC's MediacityUK project. The doors are about to open in a month's time, the place looks fantastic, and on the ground in Manchester there is a real sense of imminent and transformational change. But for the glass-half-empty tendency metropolitan media commentators in the papers, the story this week has been about which presenters and how many staff will be moving with Breakfast next year. Breakfast TV from Manchester? That's like saying This Morning could have come from the Albert Dock in Liverpool. Who could imagine it.
Fortunately the government is not entirely susceptible to metropolitan media bias. I know - because I heard him say it in a meeting in Manchester a couple of weeks ago - that Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary who is championing local TV, believes that local elements are at the heart of the idea of a new national channel 6. While it is true that it is important to have a strong network at the heart of this project, that does not mean it has to be based in London as a me-too for Five.
So that's why MediacityUK is a better role model for Channel 6 than Big Brother. And a much better home for it than London for that matter.
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