No Rock And Roll Fun

FM RADIO - ARE THEY STILL MAKING THAT?: There are plans afoot to cram some extra FM radio stations onto the airwaves, with proposed new services for a number of cities and regions. These are the first new licences to be mooted since Ofcom took over regulation of pretty much everything, so it's not clear quite what they'll be looking for from potential bidders. In the past, the Radio Authority used to play a game where it awarded the licence to the radio company most likely to offer something new on the radio, and then allow whoever purchased the licence three days later to do more or less what they like with it (i.e. in Liverpool, Crash FM won the licence with the promise of offering alternative music and dance; it quickly became Juice offering yer same bog standard Top 40 as Radio City, the city's commercial radio gorilla.) So, it might be a good thing. On the other hand, it could just wind up allowing Capital Radio to pump Capital Gold out all over the country.

Places which can expect a flurry of activity in the new two to three years or so are, in city areas:
Aberdeen
Belfast
Bristol
Cardiff or Newport
Dundee and/or Perth
Edinburgh
Exeter and/or Torbay
Humberside (subject to an existing service changing frequency)
Liverpool
Manchester
Middlesbrough
Newcastle and/or Sunderland
Norwich
Plymouth
South Hampshire
Swansea

and in non-city areas:
Abingdon
Barrow-in-Furness
Chorley (subject to decisions about Manchester licence(s))
Devizes and/or Andover
Halifax-into-Calderdale
Newry
Northallerton
Swindon
Thames Estuary (two frequencies)

Plus, there's going to be new regional services for the South West, North East, Wales and South Hampshire and Bournemouth. Amusingly, Gregory Watson from the GWR radio group says he's not that certain about the South West station because "Devon and Cornwall are such different beasts" - as if his radio company hasn't had a policy of stretching one groaning formula to fit everywhere it spreads to. After all, North Wales and Cambridge are pretty different beasts, but it doesn't stop a large chunk of their programming being almost indistinguishable.