50 'Community Radio' stations to be investigated
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One of my local community radio stations is to be investigated due to it aparrently failing to fulfill its key commitments.
http://radiotoday.co.uk/2014/11/ofcom-to-investigate-over-50-community-radio-stations/?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter
My nearest station in Birmingham Big City Radio is one of them.
I wish this station did fulfil it's key commitments as it is well and truly the station the city needs.
It unfortunately does not offer any female presenters (50% of brum's population) or anyone from an ethnic minority (25% of Brum's population) or below the age of 40.
It no longer does a local news bulletin, only Sky News.
The music mix is excellent though.
The excellent but offensive (his twitter feed is full of links to anti-Muslim Daily Mail articles) breakfast presenter Steve Davis has left the station once again for reasons unexplained.
I want genuine local radio to survive and thrive but this station needs to have a serious rethink of how it can involve the local community and reflect it somehow.
http://radiotoday.co.uk/2014/11/ofcom-to-investigate-over-50-community-radio-stations/?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter
My nearest station in Birmingham Big City Radio is one of them.
I wish this station did fulfil it's key commitments as it is well and truly the station the city needs.
It unfortunately does not offer any female presenters (50% of brum's population) or anyone from an ethnic minority (25% of Brum's population) or below the age of 40.
It no longer does a local news bulletin, only Sky News.
The music mix is excellent though.
The excellent but offensive (his twitter feed is full of links to anti-Muslim Daily Mail articles) breakfast presenter Steve Davis has left the station once again for reasons unexplained.
I want genuine local radio to survive and thrive but this station needs to have a serious rethink of how it can involve the local community and reflect it somehow.
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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/belfast-radio-station-blast-106-wins-high-court-battle-to-continue-broadcasting-30422214.html
I've listened to Shine FM online and it seems to have quite a lot of local content and live programming, as does Drive 105. Haven't heard much on Lisburn FM, or Down FM anytime I've been down that direction.
Quite surprised Bangor FM isn't on the list as I've yet to hear any live programming on the station at all, though I gather they have officially launched.
Community radio also seems to be measured against a higher set of public service standards than commercial radio or even BBC local radio despite being run on a shoestring.
Ofcom are right to investigate but should distinguish between stations of any kind which fall short due to difficulties outside their control and those who are cynically ignoring their commitments.
Surely he didnt come cheap?
Unlikely as the ruling was because of the process and not giving the station the chance to have an oral hearing, not because they weren't in breach, which they were.
So all Ofcom need to do is make sure they follow due process.
The other interesting thing is that the key commitments form is more restrictive than it used to be. So an honest station may not have complied to the letter of a commitment, but Ofcom might find they've done enough in other ways to be compliant. Here's a hypothetical example; a station has to organise and deliver the training of ten local people in a year to use a studio. But actually it trained twenty local people, but organised through the local college and on a variety of tasks such as studio use, back office and other tasks. Technical breach of key commitments, but Ofcom may decide that they are complying with the spirit of them.
Perhaps you are not listening to Bangor FM every weekday when programming is very much live?
If there's such a thing as BB code for a thunderous applause smiley then I'd be grateful if someone could tell me how I can post it in response to this comment.
I hope so, given that some stations are twisting the truth beyond recognition about the training they give among many other things, as you have correctly highlighted (if they're not actually lying through their teeth that is). Some don't even train their own presenters for goodness' sake, let alone anyone else.
Why as it took them so long to realise community radio has become this mess !.
There needs to be a total rethink on community radio.
Maybe the future of community radio is simply RSLs with the current 5 year licences being replaced with smaller scale commercial stations without the constraints e.g. the not for profit stipulation.
I think that would solve a lot of problems.
If RSL were a lot more flexible & not so expensive it mite be a solution .
Stations could broadcast on line the rest the time.
I note that the Winner's of the Radio Acadamy#s Nations and Regions awards 2014 for the South - Community Radio station Angel FM is on the naughty list.
Sadly according to their OfCom report they have found it difficult to maintain enough staff to fullfill their live programming hours commitment
I quote
Think this a rather more valid excuse than some I could mention.....
Oh now don't start this one - The answer is yes of course. But the numbers who are not close friends and family vary enormously from station to staion.....
Future Radio in Norwich has actually done a couple of listener surveys carried out by staff at Price Waterhouse and Harborough FM has done similar research work. Both have significant listener numbers.
I believe Huntingdon CR and Cambridge 105 also have a measurable market share - but they may well be amongst the exceptions to the norm...
Of Course, whilst RAJAR remains so prohibitively expensive for CR to take part in it is hard to tell in most cases.
Me and my mates do as we want to listen to a wide range of music not available anywhere else which beats commercial radio, as it has gone down the pan with its same five songs on a loop playlist.
Maybe if commerical radio wasn't entirely networked then it may have worked but sadly it hasn't because of certain groups buying out these local stations and networking the so called "programming" elsewhere.
In my experience with community radio, you get a hell of a lot of texts when you run a competition with a half decent prize.
Yep, that's what a friend of mine was suggesting.
"A wide range of music not available anywhere else" does not in itself make a good radio station - or even a radio station worthy of the name at all. Maybe it was good enough on its own twenty years ago, but the internet killed that as a justification. I can learn about and obtain just about anything I like far more easily with my computer than I can with my radio. In my experience it is this point more than any other that some in community radio completely fail to understand.
I recall a meeting I once attended, where partly at the urging of a number of other disillusioned presenters, I virtually beseeched a station's directors to instigate some discipline, structure and proper training. The dismissive response was, "if we play good music people will listen" - I kid you not.
Apart from anything else it didn't seem to occur to the person making that response that what is "good" music is entirely subjective. Unfortunately too many of those who consider themselves music buffs and revolutionaries in the struggle for decent radio believe that they have superior taste to the great unwashed and delude themselves that somehow their opinion has an objective basis.
Suffice to say "people" don't listen to the station at all if my experience is anything to go by - unless of course those people are associated with the station's volunteers in some way.
That's actually a very interesting point.
Personally I would much prefer to see the sector brought into line, with even stronger action against the dilettantes, fantasists and incompetents so that full-time community radio can at last fulfill its potential. However you have made me reflect on the fact that all the RSLs I have been involved with were far tighter, far more professionally run and appeared to have more of a measurable audience than certain CR stations out there. Two of them played music that was far from mainstream - funk, jazz, hip-hop, dance and latin etc - so it wasn't a case of them playing safe. However they imposed discipline and training on presenters, were diligent about publicity, production, and getting themselves out there in the community with OBs and whatnot.
Most importantly in my opinion, they vetted presenters properly. You didn't get a show just because you were a director, or involved in some admin task, or knew somebody at the station and kept your show the next time the station was on air regardless - you had to audition and show at least some aptitude. I'm not talking about being slick straight off the bat - simply that you had to show that you had something to work with and that the truly hopeless cases were weeded out, which is clearly not the case at some community stations. While many people can put something half-decent out, especially with guidance, there are a few who quite simply cannot and probably never will.
It could simply be that all these were in central London, where it is probably easier to find people than in the wilds of the countryside. Then again it could also be partly due to the fact that it is easier to find significant human and other resources for limited periods rather than all year-round.
But comnercial radio is not entirely networked.
There are plenty ilr's in Scotland that do not network at all who are not part of the big Bauer, Global or Capital corporations and are thriving.
But it's disturbing what's been allowed to happen to ilr generally in the uk with ofcom you could see clearly in the background. All these now effective uk national commercial stations bar breakfast and drivetime replaced traditional ilr in large areas of the uk is truly appalling.
I suppose it's possible that OFCOM have gone for the wrong targets. However that doesn't mean the right targets aren't out there. Obviously unjust sanctions are wrong, but even if we accept that some stations are being unfairly punished, there are stations out there who deserve to be sanctioned but are still escaping scot-free.
I wonder how many people who object to such things at the same time are children of the neo-liberal capitalism that Thatcher so successfully turned into the zeitgeist of this country? If you believe that the free market and the bottom-line is not just the better way, but the only way, then you have to accept all the consequences that flow from the deregulation of markets that is an essential part of that philosophy.