Ofcom chooses consortium to run Sheffield TV station

A consortium involving two Sheffield universities, film-makers and festival organisers has been chosen to run a local TV station in the city.

Sheffield Local Television Ltd was awarded a 12-year licence to provide the digital terrestrial TV (DTT) service by industry regulator Ofcom.

The channel will be called SLTV and is due to launch in October 2013.

The two bidders to lose out were Metro8 Sheffield and YourTV Sheffield.

In May, Ofcom invited applications to run local TV services in 21 areas as part of a government project part-funded by the BBC.

SLTV's bid set out plans to broadcast at least four hours of original local content every day, including one hour of local news.

Ofcom said it would set out the reasons behind its choice at a later date.