SBLTV – A Triumph Of Media Collaboration

Award-winning Carl Jones, editor of Shropshire Business, describes how regional business journalists have joined together to launch a new television programme about their patch

Everyone was scrambling around trying to work out what to do. It felt like there were myriad questions, but very few answers.

Would people still want to promote their businesses and services in the regional media during lockdown?

How would business-to-business publications get distributed to their core audiences if premises were shut down, and letterboxes off limits?

And what future lay ahead for those relying on a thriving exhibitions, awards and conferences sector?

It was against this kind of backdrop that three West Midlands media organisations got together around a coffee table in September 2020 with a blank piece of paper, to discuss a potential way forward.

In one corner was Shropshire Business, a former Midlands Magazine of the Year winner which had been forced to cancel a series of proposed breakfast networking events which were growing in popularity.

In another was Yarrington, a multi-award-winning events and conferences business from Shrewsbury which had seen all of its in-person venue bookings literally vanish overnight.

And last but not least was Shropshire Live, the online news and features platform which had been pursuing ways to expand onto other multimedia platforms when Covid struck.

Very quickly, we could see that our challenges overlapped greatly. A plan soon began to emerge, which ticked everyone’s boxes.

Shropshire Business Live TV – a monthly live streamed news and chat show for the county’s business community – was a perfect blend of the Shropshire Business and Shropshire Live brands.

And for Yarrington, it was a chance to showcase the TV quality studio which the team had rapidly pivoted to build at their Frankwell headquarters, making use of its broadcast technology which would otherwise have been mothballed.

The studio was capable of live streaming everything from conferences and awards ceremonies to product launches at home and abroad – so why not a regular TV show for the Shropshire business community?

And so, SBLTV hit the airwaves for the first time in October 2020, live streaming to . . . well, who knows was going to be watching.

Very quickly, when social media interaction was invited from my co-presenter Chris Pritchard and I during that first live broadcast, it started to come in. Phew – people were tuning in, and responding too.

The 10-episode first series saw viewer figures climb steadily, and the team became increasingly adventurous, moving from the initial base at the Yarrington studios to hosting some shows as outside broadcasts at iconic locations like the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust.

And as word spread, the number of people watching SBLTV through the online catch-up service also grew.

To make commercial ends meet, businesses were invited to air their commercials on the channel, or sign up as resident ‘Ask The Expert’ guests – we had wealth managers, commercial solicitors, telecoms experts, and many more.

Meanwhile, our editorially-led features included panel debates on the hospitality sector, spotlights on the food and drink sector, and a debate about investment in transport infrastructure which provoked much social media traffic!

The idea of SBLTV is to serve up a mixture of news, panel-style debate, expert advice and analysis in a chat-style show format running between 90 and 120 minutes. We’ve pitched it very much as a sort-of ‘One Show for Shropshire businesses’.

SBLTV is streamed on the channel’s own website, www.sbltv.co.uk, with links from the Shropshire Business and Shropshire Live’s platforms, www.shropshirebiz.com, and www.shropshirelive.com.

All previous episodes can also be viewed on a catch-up service, and commercial partners get their professionally filmed and edited segments provided to them, copyright-free, for their own ongoing marketing use.

Right from those initial discussions, we felt this would be a fresh and creative way for the business community to stay connected, informed, and hopefully entertained too, and it has definitely found a loyal audience.

And even though face-to-face networking events are gradually returning, the first series was sufficiently successful to persuade us SBLTV still had miles in the tank. And so, we are delighted that series two will kick off on September 30th (with a few tweaks and fresh ideas) and continue to air on the last Thursday of each month.

Although it is predominantly watched by West Midlands-based viewers, particularly those in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, SBLTV has also attracted interest from as far afield as the USA, and across Europe.

The shows have included a wide range of guests, including local MPs Owen Paterson, Philip Dunne, Mark Pritchard and Daniel Kawczynski.

Businesses want to connect and engage with their audiences while staying safe, and doing it through a TV show which serves up topical debate in bite-sized chunks which are easy to digest is a perfect solution.

All episodes of the first series can be viewed on the catch-up player at sbltv.co.uk/episodes