Thatcher: The medium wave goodbye

There's a nice piece about Thatcher's influence on the media by Maggie Brown over on MediaGuardian, although if focuses on TV so doesn't mention the damage she and her government wrought to commercial radio.

The delicate ecosystem which supported genuinely local radio - often doing interesting things - got disrupted in the late 80s when the Thatcher government issued an edict that simulcasting was a waste of scarce resources, and if stations continued to broadcast the same programmes on FM and AM, they would have to surrender one of the frequencies.

Spooked, the incumbents suddenly felt compelled to launch entirely new stations, at a stroke doubling their day-to-day costs while - generally - not increasing the size of the audience. With the economics of the industry trashed, the result was a series of takeovers and amalgamations which has led to the current situation where "local" radio is now anything but.

Thatcher's insistence that you shouldn't get the same breakfast programme on two wavebands in one place has resulted in people hundreds of miles apart getting the same breakfast programme and local news rapidly vanishing.

Mick... Off... Gone

Some sad news from Liverpool: after 27 years, Mick Ord is leaving Radio Merseyside.

He's risen up to the top of the station; it's now the most-listened-to local station outside of London, which is quite an achievement in a pretty competitive market.

He's off to edit the religion and ethics website, reports the Echo. Yes, that's what I thought, but it really would be a spectacular misprint.

BBC: Goodbye to Introducing?

There are some stupid, end-of-days proposals floating out the BBC right now, which you have to hope are attempts to make the eventual cuts seem sane in comparison.

This morning's rat up a drainpipe is the suggestion that BBC Local Radio stations drop everything bar breakfast and drive, and carry Five Live the rest of the time.

Bloody hell, it's like they've hired an executive from Comemrcial Radio.

Naturally, such a move would spell the end of all local music programming - so goodbye to Merseyside's PMS, Raw Talent in the North East, Lancashire's venerable On The Wire and the slew of Introducing... programmes around the nation.

It's also a bit of a blow to the people reassured that the local radio network would be providing programming currently handled by the Asian Network, when that goes.

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?

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.

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.

Local talent: It's the future

Last week, Richard Park was talking about the need to nurture radio talent in the regions:

"All I was ever reading from people in publications like yours [MediaGuardian] was that there is no one out there, nothing doing, we can't find any talent. Well excuse me, you're not looking." He accepts the talent production line has stuttered to a halt but insists it can be restarted. "There are people broadcasting right now in Newcastle, in Scotland, in Manchester, in Birmingham that could be very good."

Allied to that, he recommends a less cavalier, more celebratory approach to the key talent commercial radio does have.

So, we can look forward to the new Global-GCap merged stations taking an approach where grassroots talent is nurtured, given space to grow and treated like they're special?

Not quite: GCap is kicking twenty djs out the morning slot to make way for a show networked from London.

Local Radio Company given permission to make company name ironic

Because, it seems, it's been decided to let local radio go to hell in a handbasket Ofcom has set a dangerous precedent by telling the Local Radio Company that it no longer needs to have its station based in the place to which they are broadcasting.

Creating a situation akin to the days when stations in Luxembourg produced programming aimed at the UK, Ofcom says it couldn't care any more if Arrow FM abandons its audience in Hastings to broadcast from Sovereigns' studios in Eastbourne instead. Likewise:

Similar co-location arrangements have been agreed for Mix 96 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire with Mix 107 in High Wycombe; 3TR FM in Warminster with Spire FM in Salisbury; and Vale FM in Shaftesbury with Wessex FM in Dorchester.

The company won't be packing their belongings into tea chests just yet, though:

LRC chief executive, Richard Wheatly, said that although the group had been given permission for the relocations by the regulator, it had no immediate plans to go ahead with the moves.

"We have no plans to co-locate, but it gives us the flexibility," Wheatly added. "Most people feel there's an element of common sense in it."

Yes. What could be more commonsense than radio by the people of Hastings, for the people of Hastings, from the heart of a totally different town? Local radio is fond of talking about the weather, so it should be interesting to see them attempt that: "It's a beautiful day in Hastings, probably... judging by the weather in Eastbourne..."

Once again, Ofcom has totally ignored the rationale for the stations it and the Radio Authority brought into being - these were meant to be local stations for smaller communities. Now, they're distant and not even providing any financial benefits for the audience they're supposed to be serving - why should a local service for Hastings be buying its sandwiches, getting its windows cleaned, having its milk delivered in Eastbourne? A shabby deal all round.

However will Global pay for their GCap takeover?

By cutting costs, of course: Heart and Galaxy are going to "network" much of their programming. James P emails with this:

Only breakfast and drive shows will survive on Galaxy (Heart also get to keep their local mid-morning programmes). Everything else will be networked, with Global claiming it will offer a "quasi-national proposition to advertisers". It's also being described as a 'cost-cutting measure'.

The Global chief executive has an interesting reason for this disposal of local shows; "People assume networking is about big name DJs. It's not, it's about quality presenters. If you take 50 different radio stations there cannot possibly be 50 good presenters at every station in a particular slot. Why not take the two or three quality class players and put them across the network".

The sad part is that he doesn't seem to question why there aren't '50 good presenters at every station in a particular slot', or wonder if it's maybe because the increase in networking across commercial stations means a reduction in the hours for those slots where 'good presenters' got their first break. In the past, off-peak slots could be used to try out new talent. Now they're filled across the country with the same presenter who's, you know, adequate.

Still, when the 'quality class players' decide to take that better job at the BBC or a bingo channel and Global realise there are no experienced presenters to take their place, I suppose there's always ex-Big Brother contestants...

It also misses the things that local radio do really strongly - or did, to be honest, before cost-cutting set in - which is to be local. It's like saying "what's the point of gossiping with people in your street, who might not be very good at it? We'll have one, giant gossip, covering your entire region - you won't actually hear any gossip about people you know, but it will be delivered in an expert fashion.

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.

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.