Will local newspapers be saved by a government subsidy? That may be one possibility considered by Lord Carter, whose Digital Britain Report lands next week, the House of Commons heard in a debate today tabled by MPs concerned about the perilous state of the local press. Ashok Kumar, Labour MP for Middlesborough South, raised the question of subsidies and in response economic secretary to the treasury Ian Pearson (NYSE: PSO) MP, said (via PG): “It’s a complex one given the requirement of freedom of editorial control… I’d like to reassure him this is something being considered within the Digital Britain plan Lord Carter is taking forward.” Carter confirmed he is looking at regional media, particularly newspapers, in a preview of the report last week—but it’s quite a leap from a willingness to address the decline in regional news to financial support for private companies, especially when editors have already voiced their concerns over state intervention.

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Also today, the grim inquest following the defeat of the BBC’s local video plans continues as a Beeb exec says newspapers will not achieve the same level of investment with their own local video efforts. The plans were stopped in November and Pat Loughrey, the BBC’s director of nations and regions, says (via PG): “I for one do not believe that the market will provide in the next five or 10 years anything like the vision that we had and the investment that we could have brought”. Loughrey says (also via PG) the that he and his colleague are experiencing a “sense of bereavement” at the proposal’s rejection.