Owned by STV Group plc Language English | Country United Kingdom Broadcast area Glasgow and Edinburgh | |
Launched 2 June 2014 (2014-06-02) (Glasgow)
12 January 2015 (2015-01-12) (Edinburgh) Audience share STV City:
0.01% (September 2015 (2015-09), BARB) | ||
STV City is a local television network in Scotland, operating two city-based TV stations serving Glasgow and Edinburgh. It is owned and operated by STV Group plc.
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The group also holds local TV licences to broadcast services in Aberdeen, Dundee and Ayr, which will launch in early 2017, and the network of services will be rebranded as "STV2".
Overview
In January 2013, the broadcast regulator OFCOM announced STV had been awarded two licences to broadcast local TV services in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas for a twelve-year period. The broadcaster pledged to run the channels in partnership with Glasgow Caledonian University and Edinburgh Napier University respectively.
Coinciding with a group-wide revamp, STV Glasgow began broadcasting at 6.30pm on Monday 2 June 2014, with the first edition of its flagship evening magazine programme, The Riverside Show. STV Edinburgh followed at 7pm on Monday 12 January 2015, launching with the first edition of The Fountainbridge Show.
In March 2015, STV won three further local TV licences for the Aberdeen, Dundee and Ayr areas - under the working titles of Around Aberdeen, View from the Bridges and Ayrshire Today. No other bids were received for the three services, which have yet to begin broadcasting.
The Glasgow and Edinburgh channels are based at STV's studios in Pacific Quay and Fountainbridge respectively. Unlike the main STV channel, where transmission originates in-house from the Glasgow headquarters, playout and presentation is provided by Comux, the local TV multiplex operator, at its operations centre in Birmingham.
Programming
As of February 2016, the two STV city channels in Glasgow and Edinburgh share the majority of programming, with the exception of local news bulletins.
STV News airs an in-depth, pan-regional STV News at Ten each weeknight, alongside short bulletins throughout the day, a simulcast of STV News at Six and a local STV News at Eight. In January 2016, the channels' localised magazine shows were replaced by two new regional programmes - the early evening magazine show Live at Five (produced by STV Glasgow) and the late evening chat show The Late Show (produced by STV Edinburgh).
Other key non-news programmes on both channels include Peter and Roughie's Football Show, Grass Roots Music, My Life in Ten Pictures and Scotland's City Safari, along with extended coverage of Scottish Parliament sessions at the weekend. The two stations also air archived STV programming and the Polish World War II drama Czas honoru (Days of Honour). The channels pledge to broadcast at least an hour a week of non-English language programming.
STV News Tonight
In September 2016, it was announced that STV is to launch a news programme bringing together Scottish, UK and international news coverage for the first time. "STV News Tonight" will be produced and broadcast from Glasgow using STV's resources from across Scotland and ITV's international and UK news resources. It is the first time all news coverage relevant to Scottish viewers - from Scottish to UK and international - has been brought together in a single programme each week night.
STV News Tonight will be the flagship news programme on STV's expanding city network. In addition to Glasgow and Edinburgh, three new licences - Aberdeen, Ayr and Dundee - will be added in early 2017 and the network of services rebranded as "STV2". The 30-minute programme, presented by Halla Mohieddeen, will air on every week night at 7pm on STV2 and streamed live on the STV Player.