BORDER Television is applying for an early renewal of its ITV licence with the promise of more Scottish news for viewers north of the Border.
The Carlisle-based broadcaster yesterday pledged to broadcast more Scottish news and to extend Scottish news opt-outs for all its viewers in the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway next year if the Independent Television Commission (ITC) renews its licence for a further eight years from January 1 1999.
Border's present licence runs until 2001, but the company is taking advantage of ITC rules which allow it to apply, without competition from rival bidders, for an early renewal.
The price of an early renewal is likely to be an increase in the #57,000 annual fee which Border pays for its channel three licence.
But managing director Peter Brownlow said: ''We would not expect to pay significantly more than that because we are ploughing additional monies into broadcasting and as the second-smallest licencee in the UK, we do not believe that we generate any excess profits''.
The announcement that Border is seeking an early licence renewal prompted a 1.5p increase in the company's shares to 356p.
At present only 70,000 people in the Galashiels area receive such Border's Scottish news programmes via the Selkirk transmitter.
But the company hopes the ITC will release a new frequency next year that will enable it to broadcast Scottish news opt-outs to a further 190,000 people in a broad swathe of territory stretching from Hawick to Stranraer. The signal would be transmitted from its Caldbeck transmitter near Carlisle.
Brownlow said that having a bigger news audience in Scotland would enable Border to invest more in news gathering in Scotland.
The company tentatively plans to base two news-gathering teams in the south of Scotland and establish ''a permanent presence'' of some kind in Edinburgh, he added. The foothold in Edinburgh would be principally aimed at covering the Scottish Parliament.
Brownlow said any move to increase Border's news output for Scotland would imply a corresponding increase in dedicated news for English and Manx viewers in Cumbria and the Isle of Man.
But he refused to be drawn on how much Border was prepared to invest in improving its overall local news coverage in order to persuade the ITC to grant an early licence renewal. ''It's a double whammy on costs, but at the moment we are treating that as a confidential he said.
Brownlow anticipated a successful outcome to negotiations with the ITC ''within the next couple of months''.
He also disclosed that Border, which at one stage owned a minority stake in Scot FM, has dropped out of the hotly contested bidding for a new Central Scotland commercial radio licence.
He said Border, which currently operates three radio stations in England, wanted to concentrate instead on getting its fourth station Boss FM on air in September. The station, based at Salford, is Border's biggest to date. It will broadcast to a potential audience of five million people in the Manchester area.
n TEN other regional television companies have applied to the Independent Television Commission to renew their licences from January 1, 1999.
Anglia, Carlton, Central, GMTV, HTV, Meridian, Tyne Tees, Ulster, Westcountry and Yorkshire have all applied at the first opportunity to have their licences renewed.
Channel, Grampian, Granada, LWT and Scottish Television have yet to put in their applications.
There are two further deadlines for applications to be made, by January 31, 1999, and September 29, in the year 2000.
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