[cma-l] Tempo FM and AllFM make the Guardian - Radio that listens to its audience

[Jaqui Devereux]

Source:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2008/08/it_is_not_quite_oprah.html


Tempo FM & All FM: radio that listens to its audience
Can Wetherby's Tempo FM and Manchester's All FM show us the way ahead 
for local radio?
August 4, 2008 9:22 AM

It is not quite Oprah Winfrey's book club, but if you happen to live in 
the small Yorkshire town of Wetherby and you want advice on the latest 
hot books, the local librarian has a 20-minute slot on Tempo FM, the 
town's community radio station, telling you what is new on the shelves, 
and what the week's most borrowed books are.

This is local radio writ very local. The station is called Tempo FM not 
for reasons of raciness, says Bob Preedy, the former Yorkshire TV 
continuity announcer who runs the station - but because car radio 
displays will only take eight characters, not enough for Wetherby FM. 
"Also, we didn't want to exclude Boston Spa, Collingham and Little 
Ribston, which are in our area too."

I think there are more people living on my street than in Little Ribston 
- the whole Wetherby district has a population of only 26,000 - but that 
is the joy of community radio: when your potential audience is so small 
there has to be something for every pair of ears.

"We do all the things local radio used to do," says Preedy. "We give out 
details of lost pets, we publicise coffee mornings and the police come 
in once a week and talk about crimes in the area." The annual budget for 
all this is around £5,000, says Preedy, which for their BBC rivals would 
barely cover focus groups.

Tempo FM's research is less scientific, he admits. "I get stopped in the 
street by people and end up pumping them for their opinions." There are 
no Rajar figures for the station, but Bob says it is on in all the cafes 
and shops in Wetherby, which justifies the £2 for a 20-second commercial 
slot that local butchers and bakers pay.

Apart from the parish pump stuff, the station's unique selling point is 
its music. Preedy, who has been a disc jockey for more than 20 years, 
does the breakfast show himself, and then programmes the tunes for the 
rest of the day. After every two songs, there is a pre-recorded piece of 
local news or information, "concise and snappily delivered", he says.

The music policy is simple: songs Preedy likes and thinks will sound 
good on the radio. "I stay away from the old chestnuts. I might play a 
Four Tops song, but not Reach Out I'll Be There. We rarely play anything 
that has been in the top 20, and we play more 60s and 70s than the 
commercial stations. We are deliberately different from them."

Manchester's All FM, a community station catering for roughly eight 
times as many listeners as Tempo, also makes a virtue of its musical 
differences, but if it were to play the tracks on Bob's easy-listening 
playlist, its listeners would besiege the Victorian house in south 
Manchester where the studios are based.

Broadcasting to a younger, more racially diverse audience than Tempo, 
All FM concentrates on indie pop at breakfast time, with specialist 
music in other slots and local bands playing live on Caroline Rennie's 
drivetime show, and Mog's Saturday show.

Mog, alias Ian Morris, the former bass guitarist of Manchester music 
legends the Smirks, also does a weekly evening stint, usually alongside 
Paul Heaton of the Beautiful South. But last week he invited me in - "If 
you want headphones, you'll have to bring your own" - to play some of my 
favourite tracks. While Mog played a variety of stuff from new bands and 
mates on the Manchester music scene, I played some old Motown and 
Marlene Dietrich.

It was essentially two old guys chuntering on and playing tunes from a 
student flat in Levenshulme, and the contrast with Bob Preedy's Beach 
Boys album tracks and local librarian could not have been more stark. 
But both stations seem about right for their particular crowd, and each 
grew out of its own community, which is the important thing. Neither is 
in thrall to emails arriving from hundreds of miles away. If local radio 
has a future, this may be where it lies.

-- 
Jaqui Devereux

Director
Community Media Association

15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield
S1 2BX

+44 114 279 5219


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