Previous plans for BBC ultra-local TV were scrapped in October after regional newspapers had already feared this would be unfair competition to their own services.

Said Ian Davies, development director of regional publisher Archant:

“Geotagging, multi-local, mapping, local video. Sound familiar? It is what the regional press in the UK and the US has been building as the core to their websites for the past couple of years.

“The BBC, having offered a flimsy white flag of surrender in its ultra-local TV plans, has dyed the flag red and signaled an unprecedented assault on the regional press.

“The new websites will have hyper-local capabilities using geo tagging of content and mapping interfaces.

“What a strange approach to public service media. Look at what the community-leading local press is doing in reinventing itself to provide local content and ‘connectivity’ beyond print; then take a huge publicly funded stick and swing hard to cause as much damage as possible to this vital organ of local comment and democracy.

“This is not competition. This is BBC, full-bodied, unfair, damaging to existing emerging services, competition.”

Said John Meehan, editor of the Hull Daily Mail:

“The BBC should disclose its plans promptly and fully so that they can be subject to proper scrutiny. I’m sure the Newspaper Society and the major regional groups will wish to highlight how proposed developments of this kind will amount to unfair competition funded by the taxpayer.”

Source: Press Gazette through IFRA Executive News Service