UK radio - let's start again
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If we were planning UK radio again from scratch, what would we do?
Most people want their favourite music plus a bit of chat and relevant news/info. Some prefer all speech, some all music.
So, howabout..
--- 10 (say) national commercial music stations covering all the most popular genres properly, ALL with localised news/ads (why should only listeners of certain demographics and musical tastes get local content?).
--- Two or three national talk stations with localised news/ads(replacing Radio 4/5/LBC).
--- ONE, viable, truly local station in each city, playing mainstream music with local content. Instead of having additional stations in bigger cities, the nationals could be localised for a larger part of the day.
This way, almost everybody could access their preferred type of music and relevent news - regardless of where they lived. It'd open up the advertising market so clients could easily target any demographic anywhere, rather than just the few covered by the current mish-mash commercial stations.
I would..
>Scrap ALL BBC stations - the BBC's role can be as a news/content provider, along with commercial competitors.
>Scrap regional radio - nobody identifies with their region nowadays, they listen for the music. It's silly having different formats in different regions.
>Scrap minority stations (including Radio 3) - save the spectrum (and money). Niche formats belong on the internet.
>Scrap small stations - the existing ones are clearly not viable without networking and automation. They're usually amateurish, pointless, loss-making and a waste specrum. Local content would reach its audience better if delivered as professional opt-ins to nationals.
>Scrap automated jukebox shows/stations - that's what the internet is for.
How about it?
Most people want their favourite music plus a bit of chat and relevant news/info. Some prefer all speech, some all music.
So, howabout..
--- 10 (say) national commercial music stations covering all the most popular genres properly, ALL with localised news/ads (why should only listeners of certain demographics and musical tastes get local content?).
--- Two or three national talk stations with localised news/ads(replacing Radio 4/5/LBC).
--- ONE, viable, truly local station in each city, playing mainstream music with local content. Instead of having additional stations in bigger cities, the nationals could be localised for a larger part of the day.
This way, almost everybody could access their preferred type of music and relevent news - regardless of where they lived. It'd open up the advertising market so clients could easily target any demographic anywhere, rather than just the few covered by the current mish-mash commercial stations.
I would..
>Scrap ALL BBC stations - the BBC's role can be as a news/content provider, along with commercial competitors.
>Scrap regional radio - nobody identifies with their region nowadays, they listen for the music. It's silly having different formats in different regions.
>Scrap minority stations (including Radio 3) - save the spectrum (and money). Niche formats belong on the internet.
>Scrap small stations - the existing ones are clearly not viable without networking and automation. They're usually amateurish, pointless, loss-making and a waste specrum. Local content would reach its audience better if delivered as professional opt-ins to nationals.
>Scrap automated jukebox shows/stations - that's what the internet is for.
How about it?
0
Comments
FM and DAB to provide stations playing current chart hits, hip hop, what currently qualifies as R & B for younger people. For older listeners gold stations and some way ought to be found to make narrowcasting of minority music formats a realistic proposition. I am thinking here of country, rock n' roll, old style rhythm and blues even songs from the shows (although it's not my cup of tea). There is lots and lots of space on DAB but too many of the stations sound too much alike. The only unusual stations from my viewpoint are religious stations, a mother and baby station and lots of ethnic stations.
There's nothing for the fifty something bloke with an interest in classic country, rhythm and blues or rock n' roll. The gold format is OK but there's a lot more to music for over 40s than that ! A little thought on the subject of financing these stations could come up with a workable system to make a wider range of formats viable.
No way.
You're not far off, I'd modify it a little and say
10 National commercial stations, possibly more if freqs allow.
Either close all ILRs or convert them to Regionals (their choice).
Let the BBC only provide local radio, they do it best.
Drastically reduce the hideous BBC sub-bands. Give them 3MHz only and let the beeb choose which national stations they would like to keep and coverage.
No way.
I can't stand commercial radio, and as someone who listens to the radio for 9/10 hours a day I appreciate the lack of adverts on the BBC radio stations. License fee is worth every penny in this regard.
There should be just 1 local commercial radio station in each English county, same as the BBC locals. In big cities, 4 stations offering 1.Hit Music, 2.Classic Hits, 3.Oldies, 4 News & Speech.
That way each commercial station will be profitable. One group owning the lot in England, with Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland running things their own way.
What f*cked up the industry were these pathetic tier 2 licences that have always struggled to make a profit!
I agree, I never listen to any commercial stations because I cannot stand adverts on the radio (as well the poor quality programme content). If I happen to end up on a commercial station by accident then I retune as soon as an advert comes on.
A commercial news & talk station in every city? Forget it. LBC barely makes money, and that's in London. Attempts to run similar stations elsewhere (Liverpool & Edinburgh) have ended in total failure. Local talk radio just isn't profitable in the UK, because the BBC does it so well on R4, 5Live & LR.
I think the big dilemma for Global now is whether they should attempt to turn LBC into a national station (on Digital One).
In the capital LBC beats 5 Live in most timeslots. If they dilute the London content in an attempt to take on 5 Live across the UK they risk losing a large portion of the 97.3FM audience to BBC London 94.9.
They could keep Ferrari & Whale as London-only shows, with separate breakfast & drive shows on Digital One (simulcast on 1152AM). Is this next on the agenda after the Capital rebrand?
I can't see it to be honest.
At the end of the day it's all about maximising advertising revenue. DAB generates very little extra revenue yet it costs a hell of a lot to transmit on D1, so for a station that barely makes any money as it is it simply wouldn't be worth it - even if they just stuck LBC on D1 as it is, with no changes to programming to reflect a national audience.
Global have very little interest in DAB. They broadcast on it out of necessity rather than desire (to guarantee automatic licence extensions, for example). But they've shown no interest in starting up digital-only stations or creating separate digital content on their existing brands which broadcast on DAB. I don't blame them - DAB simply isn't profitable.
It's a bit unfair that listeners who like some types of content (e.g. serious classical) get it commercial free, while others have to tolerate loads and loads of ads. Yet everybody pays the licence fee.
If almost all stations were national commercial, maybe the ads would be more thinly spead and not so obtrusive?
National networks are cheaper to run, so maybe wouldn't needs so many ads as ILR?
Reality check - if you want to hear Lady Gaga or JLS, commercial radio will be more than happy to oblige. But the chances of a advertising funded station ever focussing on Stockhausen, Charlie Parker, Martin Carthy, Captain Beefheart or Auteche are nigh on nil.
I guess to get the signal heard you need to transmit at a certain strength.
However the distance from county to county in the UK is not that great, and I imagine that the overlap of signals would be far to great.
I guess that is why in Bedfordshire we are a radio black hole, drive along the M1 from say 14 Milton Keynes and you hear BBC 3CR from MK and Sandy Heath, and Heart MK/Bedford.
But get jut south of Luton (about junction 9) and the London Stations are quite clear, so Hertfordshire would struggle to find space for 10 stations broadcasting to Herts alone.
Apparently to get the right signal for the 3 Counties, I have heard 3CR driving between Manchester and Sheffield!
If anything I would scrap commercial radio as a large amount of it is just a jukebox with a few lines from a presenter and adverts in between although I think we still need BBC and Commercial Radio.
What I would like to see happen is stations that network more than 50% of output should have to have network their adverts too then we wouldn't have all these stations that would like to be national but want to still have a local ad revenue coming in. In return all local requirements could be dropped. This would mean advertising could be more evenly spread as the stations that want to be local would have more revenue from local firms because they can't afford to advertise semi-nationally while the larger networked stations would have less revenue coming in from local firms but they wouldn't have to provide local output.
Yes, some people think Sarah Kennedy's show was fantastic and lots of people love Steve Wright's show.
I was thinking of the old Radio Four network on AM. We (in Mid Wales) could get a good signal on more than one frequency.
The network of independent stations is next to useless at night. Radio Maldwyn's transmitter is only about 15 miles away from here putting out something like 630 watts on 756Khz. The signal is good during the day but after about 8pm it is difficult even to find it amongst the powerful continental stations which come through at that time. Once you've found it there is very strong interference for Deutchland Funk running something like 500,000 watts.
Gold (ex WABC) on 1017 from Shrewsbury suffers the same fate with continental interference and phase distortion and Piccadilly Magic from Manchester on 1152 is inaudible. Then there's Gold (ex Beacon)from Wolverhampton on 990, Signal from Stoke on 1170, Marcher Gold from Wrexham on 1260 and Gold- (ex City) Liverpool on 1548 all totally inaudible
100 KW from Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff would have been a much better proposition. I could probably hear all three.
There's no dilemma because it won't happen.
Global are highly unlikely to offer a "buddy" national service to their existing network.
As we've heard this week, Tabor is already whingeing and demanding that the BBC pay for the rest of DAB rollout, so he's nor going to stump up cash for two network-ready presenters.
Addtiionally, what about the news, ad breaks, traffic etc... it's all London based.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1286218&highlight=dab%2B+germany However if they do nothing for DAB there could be a slim chance the Classic FM licence could still be readvertised, but will be hard to find another group who will provide another non popular music based station!
In the Sky interview Global did mention the possibility of a relaunched national LBC!
But they are after maybe the BBC money left over from the TV DSO to expand DAB, Global have Choice, Chill and Arrow rock almost on hold, which could be good stations, but currently with no investment!
Global are playing a dangerous game if they sit back and do nothing with DAB, as there will be plenty of bidders for the 100-102 FM licence if it goes up for auction, even with its non-pop conditions. The new Government may decide that they need the money from the auction and the market rate of annual licence payments and there is scope in the Digital Economy Act for them to re-introduce such an auction.
I don't think Global can afford to sit back and do nothing on the basis that the Classic 100-102 licence is "in the bag".
From Media Guardian (Feb 2009), this makes interesting reading:
Commercial radio has proposed launching two new national digital stations in return for easing regulation of the ailing sector, under suggestions contained in a report commissioned by trade body the RadioCentre.
The report said the commercial sector would launch two new national DAB stations "and take on a number of commitments to promote DAB". But as a quid pro quo for the extra investment, it said the government should "relax dated analogue localness regulations to make radio fit for purpose in a digital age".
Of the two new proposed DAB services, the news and speech station would include a flagship three-hour news and current affairs breakfast show.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/17/commercial-radio-stations-digital-radio
I never saw the point of these 'regional' licenses randomly dotted about, or these tier 2 smaller scale locals that were introduced in the 90's and 00's, all competing for the same revenue and audience as the heritage ILR's! Lets's face it, our FM band has been badly managed for years in my view.
I suspect you don't want minority and niche programming on the radio because you don't like minority and niche programming. I don't listen to BBC Radio 7, but I don't want it scrapped... So you want the big national brands like Global to dominate and have no-one else get a look in? As with the removal of minority and niche programming, that would bring about the dirge of UK radio where only the most populist stuff is played and to hell with everyone else.
As a sidenote, Firefox crashed five times as I attempted to make this post, wasting me 45 minutes. Thank goodness Google Chrome didn't!
FF 3.6.6 is working fine with the forum. However, you may want to download the No Script add-on which may help.