£400,000 more to be spent on Kent TV?

8.29.57am GMT Thu 13th Nov 2008

Conservative Kent County Council has announced it is considering spending another £400,000 of taxpayers' money on its Internet TV station Kent TV. £1.2million was originally set aside to meet the costs of the two-year pilot and a further £200,000 has already been spent on start-up costs. But now the authority is considering extending the two-year pilot project for Kent TV by a further year at a potential cost of £400,000.

In a statement, Kent County Council Conservative deputy leader Alex King said: "There is a proposal to possibly extend the contract to run Kent TV for up to a further year from September 2009."

Kent TV was "contributing to significant financial savings to the county council" and was expected to meet a target of £200,000 this year, he added.

However, a report due to be presented to county councillors this week says the recession means there is less chance of paying for Kent TV through advertising, as the council had originally planned.

It states: "It is going to be increasingly difficult to get sponsorship and/or advertising revenues as there is not as much money in the pot and people are more likely to stick with proven advertising techniques rather than new ones at such times."

Opposition Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Trudy Dean said: "KCC should be getting its priorities right and putting its money into creating jobs and helping less well off people to cope with the difficult times ahead.

"Extending the pilot would be pouring good money after bad and we should be ending this pilot as soon as the contract comes to an end."

"Viewing figures for Kent TV for their first year show Kent tax payers are paying over £1 per head for each viewer. That is way too much. Advertising income is not coming in fast enough, and it is going to reduce further because of the hard times we are now in."

The county council was recently ordered to release more details about its spending on Kent TV by an information watchdog after a successful appeal by the Kent Messenger Group under the Freedom of Information Act.