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March 9, 2017updated 10 Mar 2017 4:25pm

Made in Teesside to be UK’s 22nd local TV station

By Dominic Ponsford

Middlesbrough is the latest UK city to get its own local TV station.

Made in Teesside is set to launch on 30 March and will be available 24 hours a day on Freeview channel 7. It will be part of the Made TV network which also runs local TV stations in Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Liverpool and Tyne and Wear.

Made TV also has the licence to launch a station transmitting in Mold, North Wales, later this year.

The first local TV stations launched in early 2014 made possible through a subsidised transmission network and £5m a year of support for programming from the BBC licence fee.

There are currently 21 stations on air with 13 more channels planned in phase two. All provide original news and sport in addition to a range of other original local programming.

Some local TV channels have struggled financially. The Birmingham channel, BLTV, went into administration in mid 2014 and the franchise for the city was later taken over by Made TV.

Made TV took over the Liverpool local tv franchise from Bay TV in 2016.

Chief executive of Made Television Jamie Conway said: “We are very excited to be bringing Made Television to viewers in Teesside.

“Our commitment to provide local content that reflects the lives and aspirations of our viewers has been very successful to date and we will be replicating this for our viewers in Teesside.

“We are also committed to providing opportunities for local people to get involved in what we do and we’re looking forward to working with the local community to present a great new channel later this month.”

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