Local radio told: Be bloody local

Ofcom has rejected the pleas of the major radio groups to be allowed to broadcast hardly any local programming on their local radio stations.

With Ofcom and the Radio Authority having sat by unconcerned as local radio companies were hoovered up by larger and larger consortia, there had been some expectation that the regulator would have swallowed the logic and allowed the stations to become quasi-national outlets.

Commercial radio opertors had suggested that three hours a day of local material would be more than enough; Ofcom's future of radio document calls for ten hours of local material a day on weekdays, with four at weekends, although AM stations and those with fewer than a quarter of a million people in their catchment area will be given more generous rules.