Global rip Heart out of local radio

Just when you think that Global are done making local radio rubbish, they announce new plans to make it even more rubbish. Ofcom has allowed them to cut the number of Heart stations from 33 to 15.

Yes, what were once local radio stations are now going to become something else entirely - vaguely distant radio, perhaps?

Ashley Tabor, the Global Radio founder and Global Group chief executive, said Ofcom's regulatory change "enables commercial radio to organise itself more efficiently and take advantage of new technology to enable our people to work smarter".

"Although this has meant some brave decisions for our business, these changes considerably strengthen our company by providing listeners with higher quality programming and our customers with a far superior service," Tabor added.

Yes. Because why would you want to listen to programming from where you live, when you could tune in to something coming from the other side of the country?

It's fascinating to see Tabor use the phrase "enable our people to work smarter", an irritating and empty cliche which even the hardest-hearted management wonk dropped from their repertoire around the same time as 'do more with less' was recognised to be little more than a polite way of yelling 'do more work for less money' at a browbeaten staff.

Let's take a look at what this all means by seeing what they're doing here in Milton Keynes. What used to be Horizon Radio was turned into Heart Milton Keynes a while ago, and now will become Heart Home Counties:

Another new station, Heart Home Counties, will be made up of four Heart stations currently broadcasting from Northampton, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Dunstable.

Because of the changes, Heart is going to double its local news - to one whole minute every hour. But, erm, it's quadrupling the area it covers. So, in effect, you're going to wind up getting half as much local news as you used to.

This is what Global believe to be "higher quality programming".

And 'Home Counties'? Seriously, who calls where they live The Home Counties? Unless you're taking part in Round Britain Quiz, it's not a phrase that people really use in every day life. And Northamptonshire isn't even one of the Home Counties anyway.

Things get worse diagonally across the nation:

Four more stations in Wales and the north-west of England will become Heart North-West and Wales, broadcasting out of Wrexham.

Granada used to have to try and pretend that there was some sort of connection between Chester, Rhyl and Skelmersdale because of an accident of geography. But there isn't, not really, and this sort of 'draw a line around some places and that's a coherent region' approach shows exactly how much contempt Global have for their audiences.

How much longer till the 15 fall into a quasi-national, single blob, then?

When the BBC is dead, this is the sort of thing we'll have to look forward to

From Radio Today:

Mercia mid-morning jock John Dalziel is taking a unique approach at supporting England in the World Cup.

The presenter will legally change his name to the name of the England manager Fabio Capello today following a vote from listeners to the Orion Media station.

It's a surprise people prefer BBC local radio, isn't it?

Commercial radio supports making BBC worse

It's perhaps no surprise that commercial radio has an opinion about the future of the BBC, and that its vision involves effectively getting rid of the bits that people like.

The Radio Centre - the trades group for ad-supported radio - even have ideas about 6Music, which it wants closed just for the hell of it. They don't even bother to put it in the press release, but it does turn up in the Guardian report:

Radio Centre supports the closure of 6 Music and generally welcomes the BBC's aim of refocusing its radio services, but said the station's distinctive "John Peel legacy" programmes should be broadcast on Radio 1 and Radio 2.

So, there's nothing wrong with the programme, it admits that it offers something distinctive, but thinks it should be closed anyway.

It's not clear why the Radio Centre thinks this would help commercial radio. Perhaps a few of the 6Music audience will drift off to NME Radio or XFM, but they're really unsatisfying alternatives - dodgems instead of a rollercoaster. Closing 6Music won't shift audiences back to radio with adverts; it'd be excellent news for Spotify and Last FM instead.

They do have a second plan:

Value Partners [who carried out a report of helpful ideas] suggests that, as an alternative, 6 Music could be privatised.

There's always a consultant lurking with rubbish ideas, isn't there? One of the reasons that the BBC is using to justify closing 6Music is that it's relatively expensive for a pop station. So how would that work in the commercial sector?

Another part of the network's proposition is the access to the BBC archive - if 6Music went private, it either wouldn't be able to pull that content in, or it would have to do it on an equal footing with other commercial organisations. That might be a good idea, but would cost 6 some of its USP at a time when it would badly need it.

Still, closing 6Music would be on the Radio Centre's wish list, with programming shunted to Radios 1 and 2. This must be at the heart of a thought-through series of suggestions, right?

[T]he Radio Centre, said Radio 1 should focus on teenagers and the under-25s, who are less desirable to advertisers, while Radio 2 should shift its lower age limit up from 40-plus to 45-plus over three years.

Bless their little hearts, the Radio Centre really believe that it's possible to make a couple of tweaks to a playlist here, a late-night line-up there, and you can make the average audience age shift by a year and eight months over the course of fifty-two weeks.

No wonder commercial radio is so dire in the UK if it believes that sort of thing is possible. It simply doesn't understand that people's musical tastes stopped having any direct correlation to the music they listen to sometime around the end of the 1980s. "Two extra Vampire Weekend tracks in drive time a week, and everybody over 60 will switch off."

Let's pretend you could be that precise about twiddling, though, and accept that Radio 1 has a younger audience than 6Music, which in turn has a younger audience than Radio 2.

The Radio Centre want to take out 6, and pass some of its programming to Radio 1 and some to Radio 2.

So Radio 1 will pick up programming currently being listened to by an audience a bit older than its current median, and Radio 2 will add programming that attracts a slightly younger crowd. And that will make the Radio Centre happy.

Except, of course, the Radio Centre want Radio 1's audience to get younger, and Radio 2's to get older. So it will also make the Radio Centre unhappy.

But, hey, the fact that the organisation is just farting out contradictory suggestions doesn't mean that none of its thinking has been worked through, right?

Radio Centre also said that the BBC, as the wealthiest partner, should shoulder all the costs of completing the building digital radio transmission network – the national DAB multiplex and local and regional DAB services – to bring coverage to 98% of the country. If agreed this could be completed by 2013, at a cost of around £100m-£150m, said Andrew Harrison, Radio Centre chief executive.

Now, you can see the attraction - BBC pumps more and more cash into the dying DAB format to ensure that by 2013 everyone can access six slightly-different variants of Heart FM no matter where they live, BBC has less to spend on making programmes.

It must sound great to the Radio Centre, who realised their orignal proposal, that the BBC just throw cash off the roof the Broadcasting House, might even look odd to people who don't pay much attention.

Let's believe this is genuine, though, and the Radio Centre really want a strong DAB network in the UK by 2013 (or six or seven years too late). Why? Commercial Radio has shown bugger-all interest in creating new services for DAB, pleading poverty.

And, at the same time, it's applauding the closure of 6Music, which is one of the few reasons anyone has right now for buying a DAB radio. If the Radio Centre really want music fans to shift to digital radio, can't it see there's a case for having a radio station you can't get on FM already up and broadcasting, to drive take-up while the commercial sector waits to come up with an idea for what it might do on DAB and how it might fund it?

If this was a GCSE project, the Radio Centre would be looking at retakes. If this sort of sloppy thinking is what goes on when they're deciding what to put on air, that - rather than the BBC's licence-funding - might explain why people choose not to listen.

BBC Trust report: Radio 2 must better serve older people

So, alongside the report from the BBC Trust which was heartening about 6Music there was a separate report (well, a connected one) into Radio 2. This one, in short, agreed with complaints of commercial radio that Radio 2 isn't doing enough to serve older listeners.

Naturally, commercial radio doesn't really give a honk on the traffic helicopter's horn about whether older people find stuff on radio which they like or not. If commercial radio was bothered about that, it would make programmes for people over the age of ten. But it does feel that the more time Radio 2 is tending to the 65+ age group, the less time it will be playing newer music, and thus the less competition there will be for Heart.

This does sort-of fall down a bit in the assumption that you lose interest in new music as you get older - as if it vanishes with your hair.

Still, the BBC Trust has bought the argument:

Radio 2's under-35 audience had "grown significantly over the last 10 years, albeit from a low base, but since 2004 this growth has stabilised", the trust report added, with 82% of Radio 2's listeners now aged over 35 and an average audience age of 50.

But the report warned that the number of over-65 and "in particular" over-75 listeners had fallen. "Radio 2 should investigate the reasons for the decline" and "consider whether its range of music continues to meet this audience's expectations", the trust concluded.

There is a possibility that, since people who are 75 now would have been 18 just as rock and roll was bursting out, and so might be more likely to listen to the Beatles and Stones of Gold networks than be found gathering round a bunch of old 78s. Radio 2 might have a lower percentage of over 75 year-olds than they had a decade ago because over 75 year-olds are more confident at moving between media outlets and less easy to pigeonhole than their parents were.

Commercial radio: it's not going to live forever

The Guardian's Changing Media summit today had a poke at the state of the UK's commercial radio sector and made a sucking noise:

UK commercial radio 'dying out'

That was the gloomy headline, although it's not quite as bad as it sounds:

Commercial radio could die out within 15 to 20 years as advertising revenues dwindle, the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit heard today.

Claire Enders, the founder of Enders Analysis, made the prediction, pointing to the large number of radio stations in the UK that are currently unprofitable.

In twenty years? Seriously? In twenty years we're all going to have music and news weeped straight into our faces by highly trained, internet-connected fact bats, so predicting there might not be a space for thirty thousand variants of Heart FM isn't quite so daring.

She said revenues from classified, online and search advertising all outstripped those from radio, and that advertising agencies were tuning out of the medium.

"There is a next generation of people in agencies who are not that keen on radio," she said."

Which is unfortunate, as - listening to commercial radio - there also appears to be a generation of people in radio who are not that keen on radio.

Clive Dickens, out of that station that used to be Virgin, reckons he knows what the problem is:

"As an operator who has been in the sector with this brand for five months, [I would say] a whole range of failed models – plc models – have failed to grasp what consumers wanted: extended choice not upgraded sets," he said.

"Greater choice in the first seven years [of digital radio] came from the BBC. As someone operating for five months, I say watch this space."

Dickens is keen to stress that he's only been doing it for five months, but he's being modest: in that time, he's managed to chase away audience in numbers that some more seasoned heads would take years to lose.

Is it true that audiences want more choice, though? Isn't it that they want to feel a connection with the station they listen to, and most of the UK's commercial sector has been busily losing the valuable sense of connection by turning well-loved local brands into centralised, one-size-fits-all megabrands?

Smooth ruffles Scottish pride

Smooth Radio's recent junking of several local slots in favour of London-based network programmings hasn't gone down well in Scotland. The prospect of Mark Goodier and Fiona Philips in place of the old, Glasgow-based presenter hasn't thrilled everyone.

Having said that, the only person that The Herald could find to go on the record about how terrible it all is was Norman Quirk, who had been with the station back when it was owned by SAGA and left at roughly the time the new management came in, so he might not be the most unbiased person to talk to.

Transmission union threatens local radio

Our ears perked up when we heard that the Commercial Radio's Radio Centre body was warning of the dangers to local radio inherent in a proposed merger - could it be that, after all this time, the commercial radio industry has noticed that consolidation in the UK radio market has eroded the concept of local radio quite dangerously?

No, as it turns out - they're not bothered by the implications of members GCap and Global turning into a single entity, but the proposed union of the National Grid and Macquarie's transmission businesses. Apparently, while having a large, dominant broadcaster is good for listeners, having a dominant transmission company is bad:

Andrew Harrison, the chief executive of the Radio Centre, says that commercial radio will be financially "squeezed" by the £2.5bn acquisition of National Grid Wireless by Macquarie Bank, which owns rival operator Arqiva.

Harrison believes that the Competition Commission this week will clear Macquarie's £2.5bn acquisition of National Grid Wireless, even though no satisfactory agreement over reducing transmission fees has been reached.

And he added that failure to reach a deal on transmission fees could "make the difference" for a profitable commercial radio sector in its competition with the BBC.

Allowing a monopoly in transmission - or, at least, a profit-maximising monopoly - does seem to be slightly reckless on the part of the government. Of course, the Radio Centre might have a stronger case if it could point a large slew of distinctive, important local programming that could be lost if small stations had trouble paying the transmission company, but we suppose it would struggle a little to do so.

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.

Why internet radio will be throttled by rights holders

In light of the decision by Pandora to pull out of Britain, James Cridland has done the math on the "reasonable" demands of PPL/MCPS/PRS:

Paidcontent.co.uk reports that MCPS/PRS was asking for 0.085p per song per listener - which also appears on this PDF file on the MCPS/PRS website. PPL, in a press release about the Pandora closure, says they would charge 0.0561p 0.0773p per song per listener (the interactive radio rate). Pandora plays around 15 songs per hour.

Vordermanned out, this comes to:

Total music rights payments: 2.434p per listener, per hour.

Cridland then considers the established radio industry:

The latest figures from the UK’s Radio Advertising Bureau says that the commercial radio sector as a whole brought in £593m in 2007. The latest RAJAR figures show that commercial radio is listened-to for 441m total hours every week, or alternatively 23,018m total hours a year.

So… 23,018m total hours brings in £593m. Divide one by the other, and we find that, as a total industry average, commercial radio makes 2.57p per listener, per hour. And the revenue figures also include non-radio activity, like websites.

In other words: the rights holders want Pandora to be paying sums just shy of the established operators' entire turnover, just for rights. Never mind the other costs facing Pandora.

No wonder Pandora felt it couldn't afford to continue. It's up to you to decide if PRS-PPL-MCPS are shortsighted, greedy, or just hoping to screw as much cash out of the internet as they can before they're dumped and replaced with an organisation more suited to the new music world.

[Thanks to Alan C for the link]

Chill words for the music industry

Commercial radio in the UK is looking to cut its costs - and is targeting transmission and copyright costs. Especially copyright costs, says Radio Centre chief executive Andrew Harrison:

"Copyright fees total around £60m for the sector. The current arrangements are up for renegotiation as from 2008.

"This will be a tough negotiation but, from drawing comparisons with how copyright fees are levied in other countries around the world, it may well be an area where we are able to find a more favourable balance."

In other words: they don't want to pay as much for music anymore.

Mind you, the record companies might feel they have a slightly stronger bargaining position on this one - Capital Radio can't suddenly swap to putting out more speech if they suddenly lose rights to music.

Harrison also hopes that the BBC licence fee settlement might work in their favour, too:

"The BBC now finds itself under considerable cost pressure. Their ability to buy the biggest and best in terms of talent is significantly reduced," he added.

"Most of the on-air BBC talent started in commercial radio before being lured over by big salaries. Our biggest competitor has been tamed - slightly."

"Most" of the on-air talent? Is that true? And of the names - like Moyles - who did leave the commercial networks to join the BBC, how many had a Jonathan Ross style package dangled in front of them compared with the numbers who just fancied working for a broadcaster who doesn't use such strictly formatted shows?

Radio: mixed signals

Oddly, despite the claims of commercial radio operators that listeners couldn't care less where their programming comes from, Ed Richards of Ofcom has told the Radio Academy that the opposite is true:

Richards said the research showed that listeners believed the "quality would suffer if [such content] was not made and produced by local people."

"They see a local presentation as a bedrock to local content," he added.

So, Ofcom have decided that people want their local stations to be local. And how do they propose to ensure that people get the local content they want?

Erm... by changing the rules to allow less local content:

Speaking at the Cambridge Radio Festival, the Ofcom chief executive said the it had already proposed reducing the amount of local content stations were required to produce, and would look to reduce it for smaller stations.

Brilliant work, Ofcom. It's like encouraging rare species by handing out shotgun licences.

Commercial radio want a slice of the national pie

James P emails with the latest from commercial radio's attempts to try and shore up their collapsing world:
The top boss at the Radio Centre has unveiled
his latest tactic in the War on the BBC; If you can't beat them, ask them to
share.

Chief executive Andrew Harrison wants the BBC to share the rights to big
events like the Diana concert with commercial radio rivals. He says
"National events like the 2012 Olympics or the Concert for Diana deserve
local and national coverage. Commercial and BBC". Quite why a concert in
Wembley would need local coverage on Radio Broadland, I'm not sure. Unless
it'll be the same sort of 'local' programming they're used to, i.e. one
broadcast syndicated to every local station in the country, which kind of
defeats the object of 'local coverage' in the first place.

He makes an interesting threat to back this up; "It's nonsense to expect
commercial organisations and their shareholders to continue to invest in
digital platforms without a coherent industry strategy and without an
end-game to get a return on that investment". In other words, "Nice DAB
platform you've got there... Be a pity if it became... Obsolete..."

I'm not convinced this is a good idea. Would the people listening to these
events really want two lots of coverage; One from an experienced
broadcaster, and one punctuated with adverts for Chatteris Windows and
Blinds every fifteen minutes? And would we really need twice as many
stations (or more) on our dials bringing us the same live footage of Johnny
Borrell telling us to boil less water?

Anyhow, Harrison makes the point that the commercial radio business model
was "close to breaking point", up against a "dominant, well-fed and in many
ways unassailable" BBC. Frustratingly, he assumes that the reason commercial
radio is getting beaten is because it can't spend one day a year beaming big
events to its dwindling listenership. He doesn't seem interested in looking
at whether it could be more to do with repetitive playlists, endless
commercials and an apparent loathing of being in the actual area to which
the station broadcasts.

What's interesting about this is that this was commercial radio's big idea two years back as well - there was a small flurry of networked programming in 2005 (the Tsunami fundraiser Radio Aid, the election special Leaders Live and Live8) but the impetus withered and, frankly, there's not been much evidence since of Red Rose listeners pushing for a hook-up with the Smooth FM audience. Oddly enough, on Saturday we were looking for Live Earth coverage on Horizon FM (we were heading off to eat a whole baked cheese) and were a little surprised to discover nothing there. Although Harrison seems to be suggesting that the BBC bullies the little guys out the way, this doesn't seem to be the case - Radio 2 didn't pick up with Wembley until the middle of the evening. The lack of link-ups seems to be as much down to none of the individual stations being that arsed than the BBC greedily hoovering up the rights.

Commercial radio asks listeners what they think

Because they're always grumpy about their regulator - even a regulator which, really, is about as in control as the titular babysitter in Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead, the commercial radio sector in the UK is trying to fight against Ofcom's latest set of proposals by holding a big debate, called The Big Listen.

The survey is being promoted on commercial radio - which means it won't really be very good at finding out what people who don't already listen commercial radio want to hear on the radio - and appears to only be online, at a stroke disenfranchising the 16 million Britons who have never been online.

Those who do make it on might feel the questions are somewhat skewed. Take, for example, this proposition with which you are asked to agree or disagree:

I like to hear well-known personalities and celebrities on my local radio station

Is it just us being suspicious, or does that seem a little bit like they're expecting everyone to say "yes", thinking the question means "do you enjoy it when David Essex is interviewed on Radio Little Rissington", only for the statistics to be used to justify simulcasting one programme across many networks - "statistics show that listeners love being able to hear the big names on their stations..."

The agenda is slightly less hidden on this question:

As long as my local station gives the information I need, I don’t mind where it’s broadcast from

but still, it's not as honest as phrasing the question "It makes no difference to me if my local station is actually broadcasting from outside the area", is it? And the sort of people who get annoyed that their 'local' voice is actually coming from a tower block in central London have abandoned the stations where the survey is being promoted anyway.

Then there's this question:

In the future radio should be available on as many devices as possible

Since it's technically possible to broadcast radio through a toaster, does strongly agreeing with this mean you're signing up for a receiver to really be built into anything possible?

Tune-in

The nice Simon Tyers has been in touch again, this time with the following observations on what they're planning for our radio services:

I live my life vicariously and without need to pander to the whim of anyone,
which is why I spent most of today reading the text of the Communications
Bill discussed in the Commons on Tuesday off the Hansard website, and
further to your thoughts on the radio discussion a few points need to be
made and/or clarified. All quotes are from said publication:

* The main thrust of the local radio discussion, stemming from the concerns of the Commercial Radio Companies Association and backed by the Tories, is of a clause about "the power of Ofcom to interfere in the day-to-day running of a local radio station to the extent that the station must employ local people, provide local training and development, and use premises within the area or locality". Ron Atkinson-styled spotter's badge to you, sir. When everyone has a Morning Crew and a Drivetime Cash Giveaway, not to mention a central playlist, arguing about where the bloke who lines up the adverts is from is a bit late, not to mention the idea the whole bill can be held up by someone deciding the opportunities for local employment aren't neccesary. Then John Greenway, the opposition spokesman promoting the cause against the above, gets completely confused, stating "they will not be successful in providing a local service unless they have local people on the ground", even though surely there's no difference in the two outlooks as you can't tell a station they can employ whoever they want wherever they want and then remind them they're supposed to be local looking. Later he sugars the pill : "Success is achieved by offering something different - the local service".
Well, yes if you're BBC local radio, but I've never heard anyone say "You know what I love about (insert commercial station name here) FM? They sound so localised!" Luckily, the pro-locality clause was passed. Worth mentioning that a couple of years ago there was a lot of talk in the sector about how commercial radio had essentially been shown up by the success of Mark and Lard, with various MFM types saying they'd just realised that the mid-afternoon DJs could actually project their own personality and off-kilter features with success, but what this actually seems to have led to is a networked package of piss-poor topical entertainment involving Jon Culshaw to be slotted in whenever the DJ feels like it.

* Greenway again : "Local bands feature prominently on local radio, more so on commercial radio than on the BBC as a matter of fact." Fuck off! On XFM, possibly so. Nowhere is it stated, actually, what 'local bands' actually refers to, so possibly they're referring to a French-style music quota of British bands, as later suggested, but even so. And also, being a Conservative, it's possible it's just his anti-BBC radar going off.

* When a Labour MP brings up Clear Channel, Greenway rules out the idea that tighter regulation is due to media ownership loosening as "there are real dangers in trying to predetermine what commercial radio stations may need". However, even Kim Howells later admitted that playlists are generally too bland and samey across the country and appears to be against radio monopoly, citing "nationwide playlists for local stations, the removal of local station managers in favour of national brand managers and extensive computer-driven automation of services." See, he's good for some things.

* Howells also provided my favourite line of the transcript - "I know fanatical members of the Cabinet, whom I could ring any time, night or day, when I worked with them, but never on a Sunday evening when they listened to "Poetry Now" on Radio 4. I never rang them at that time." Place your bets!

* The Tony Hadley interjection appears to have been mis-reported, even if he does start about how the Spands "found our audience through a vibrant live music scene and through national and local radio stations playing music which, like ours at the time, was outside the mainstream", as if Radio 1 never goes near guitar bands any more. He goes on to cite the ClearChannel experience and how "both musical diversity and local character will also suffer". Unfortunately the Tory spokesman - a different one - uses this to go off on a rant about the national BBC dumbing down even though they're discussing a clause relating to commercial radio, and even after John Robertson read out an opinion poll finding about disenchantment with local radio.

* Pete Wishart, SNP and an ex-Runrig member (Robertson : "a band whose compact discs I have in my house. I enjoyed his music, along with that of his fellow artists") gets involved with the less locality argument, while of all people Michael Fabricant tries to point out that Radio 1 is providing showcases for left-field music, only to be met by Robertson with "I shall have to take the hon. Gentleman's word for that. I have now reached the age at which the music broadcast by Radio 2 becomes more one's kind of music. Radio 1's slot on the dial is sadly ignored these days: I am obviously getting very old." Evidently this passes for a joke in the Commons. Later Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru) namechecks Bethan Elfyn and the Thursday Session In Wales opt-out, which apparently he only listens to because it covers the local music scene.

* On a brighter note, it looks like DAB radio is going to get a push, both in terms of uptake and availability, which can only be good.

Now the horse isn't in the way, the door bolt shoots across lovely

Now MPs have joined in with the campaign to "keep" local music on local radio stations. Yeah? Bit late isn't it?

Labour backbencher John Robertson, MP for Glasgow Anniesland, [reports the Guardian] led the call for music content to be regulated by the bill, saying he had the backing of former Spandau Ballet frontman Tony Hadley.
Mr Robertson said Mr Hadley and other musicians were concerned that the relaxation would leave the UK with American-style centralised radio stations which ignored emerging bands.

Have these people tuned into a radio station recently? I mean, seriously. Presumably not since Tony Hadley used to pop up on the radio from time to time.

Tory John Greenwood weighed in:

"Mr Greenway also hit out at moves to force local radio stations to recruit staff from their area and broadcast from studios within their locality.
The most successful stations already did that without regulation, he said.

Really? Can he point to these stations? By which I mean the ones that have most of their functions performed by staff with long standing connections with their area, rather than most of their work done centrally elsewhere; and if he can name a single market leading radio station outside London whose programming comes entirely from its Target Service Area? Because I bet he can't.

Smith pops off

Jeff Smith leaves Capital amid "too much pop" crisis. Curious - is this a sign that the march of the last twenty years of Independent Local Radio towards all Top 40 formats is coming to an end?

Local music forever. Yeah, right

Leaving aside for a moment the question of why a campaign about The Entire Nation's local radio is tacked on the end of a MediaGuardian report about BBC London, we're not sure if we should cheer or sob, forever, until leopards form in our ducts at the Music Business Forum's sudden realisation that most "local" radio isn't local at all.

The Forum - the BPI, the MU and another thirteen bodies - have suddenly realised that crappy, standardised chart networks have swallowed virtually every radio station in the land, and that the interesting little pools where new talent used to be able to take their first steps have dried up. The indie BPI, AIM, are quoted as saying

"we want to make sure local radio stations are required to carry local music, just as TV stations have to broadcast local news",

which is wrong for a start - only one channel (ITV) is obliged to carry 'local' news anyway, and if the government attempted to enforce Channel 5 or, god forbid, Granada Men and Motors to carry local news, the proposal would be shot out the water. More to the point, what would count as local music?

Would Liverpool's Radio City be able to claim it'd kept its end up by playing a Beatles track every hour? Really, the fact there's fifteen organisations here and they've all sat by for the last thirty years watching local stations being bought up, allowed to change their formats more and more towards being "Rosie Ribbons, 24 hours a day", and not saying a word sticks in the craw a little. You wanted a station in Liverpool playing new Liverpool music? Where were you when Crash got fucked over, bought out and turned into a lite dance station?

Whistling in the dark: In at number three

Hats off to Dr Fox for being brave and doing a good fist of univeiling "a new chart show" as the Sunday chart rundown enters an era more exciting than any battle for the Christmas Number One.

The old ILR chart - previously known as The Network Chart, the Nescafe Chart and the Pepsi Chart - has had the relaunch forced on it by Pepsi's decision to end its sponsorship, resulting in an exciting new name - "Hit 40 UK" (sort of suggests they've not even been able to pull an Autoshield type sponsor out of the woodwork, but Fox is buoyant. "We've already got 900,000 more listeners than Radio 1, and maybe we can lift that figure up to the magic million."

Well, yes, maybe. Only you're not going to be helped by the decision of EMAP to drop the chart from its stations (City, Picadilly, Aire, etc, etc), are you? True, the Network chart has pulled in a couple of extra stations - Fosseway Radio! Dune FM! - and the slightly popular Galaxy Radio "network" (one north east station and a manchester operation) may help a bit, but since EMAP has created a market-confusing third chart, The Smash Hits Chart, to go out in the same slot, it's probably unlikely that many people will bother to retune.

The Smash Hits chart is being pushed by its production team as The first ever interactive countdown, which is bollocks anyway - all charts are interactive, supposedly, as you buy a record, the sale counts - but is also bollocks specifically, because what about Radio One's Most Wanted from a few years back?.

Presenting, of course, is Mr. Radio One Puffa Jacket himself, Mark Goodier. Someone cleverer than I pointed out that this means the man who sits in for Uncle Ken Bruce on Radio 2 will now be presenting the chart rundown on the 'ow my gums' Kiss 100 in London; it also suggests why Radio One were keen for Goodier to leave their chart rundown a lot earlier than had been originally planned.

His exit from the only chart that counts on licence fee funding has left the door open for Radio One to bring in a totally fresh talent, former Travel Monkey Wes Butters, who'll be joining the formidable One FM in a hail of lame margarine-themed puns later this month.

Jolly Rogers

The Commercial Radio Association is taking its own action against pirate radio - fair enough. But we have to ask whether the claim that pirates are "endangering people's lives", which solicitor Phil Sherrell tells the Guardian.

Now, back when the emergency services were all tucked up the top of the FM waveband, there might have been a point. But surely no pirate broadcasting on FM should be anywhere near the emergency frequencies? And this bit:

"Just last month a jet coming in to land at Heathrow had instructions from ground control drowned out by a garage music pirate station.

sounds like a bit of a cod to us - what, the pilots were communicating with the ground on an RSL licence?