[cma-l] Community Radio Fund - open letter to PM

[Peter Lewis]

Dear Steve

A very good letter. Please add my name to it.

If you feel the need to do any redrafting in the light of responses from 
others, could you think about the point I made in the letter the 
Guardian published recently 
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/01/letters-fund-local-news) 
that other Departments of Government should be required to contribute to 
the CRF since CR touches on so many other agendas across the board. The 
original inter-Departmental steering group for the Canadian Challenge 
for Change programme is a good model.

Incidentally, if there are other college and university lecturers on the 
list reading this, I am very much in a minority in pressing this point 
within the MeCCSA Policy Network. (Media Communications and Cultural 
Studies Association). Most are occupied with defending the BBC against 
top-slicing. If any MeCCSA member wants to join me in proposing a panel 
to debate CR issues in the next Annual Conference at the LSE, JAnuary 
2010, please get in touch.


Peter M. Lewis
Senior Lecturer in Community Media
Department of Applied Social Sciences
London Metropolitan University
Ladbroke House
62-66 Highbury Grove
London N5 2AD





Steve Buckley wrote:
> Dear all
> 
> It is five years ago today, that the House of 
> Lords passed the Community Radio Order 2004 
> http://bit.ly/11voFK with the Order coming into force on 20 July 2004.
> 
> It seems a fitting time to remind the government 
> of some unfinished business - that is the 
> woefully inadequate Community Radio Fund - and to 
> support the CMA's efforts to keep this issue on 
> the agenda. As a volunteer and director of 
> community radio licence holder, Sheffield Live!, 
> I am painfully aware of the gap between what we 
> could achieve and what we do achieve as a result 
> of the lack of adequate funding for the sector.
> 
> So, to mark the occasion, I have drafted an open 
> letter to the Prime Minister to be signed by and 
> sent on behalf of community radio stations and their supporters.
> 
> If you would like to join in signing this letter, 
> please reply to me with your name and 
> station/organisation affiliation (if any). If you 
> feel moved to do so, why not also use the 
> occasion to ask your MP to raise this issue with 
> the PM. If there is sufficient interest in a 
> fresh initiative on this, then we might also look 
> at launching a petition, or more?
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> Steve
> 
> //
> [draft for sign on, replies to 
> sbuckley at gn.apc.org, deadline 12 noon 20 July 2009]
> 
> Open letter to Prime Minister
> 
> Rt Hon Gordon Brown
> Prime Minister
> 10 Downing Street
> London
> 
> [date]
> 
> Dear Gordon
> 
> It is five years since the Community Radio Order 
> 2004 came into force. The growth, since then of 
> community radio has been described by Ofcom, in 
> its Annual Report 2008/09, as “one of the great 
> UK broadcasting success stories in the last few years”.
> 
> Over 200 community radio services have been 
> licensed by Ofcom since 2004. Around 150 of these 
> services are “on air”, creating around 400 jobs, 
> involving over 10,000 volunteers, and serving a 
> potential audience of more than 10 million people.
> 
> Yet this new sector is economically very 
> precarious. Six stations have failed to launch, 
> three have handed back their licences. Others are 
> at high risk. This is not only a result of the 
> recession but is a direct consequence of a failure in government policy.
> 
> Community radio broadcasters, the vast majority 
> unpaid volunteers, are disappointed that their 
> achievement is not matched by greater government recognition and support.
> 
> The Community Radio Order 2004 restricts 
> community radio to a maximum 50 per cent of 
> revenue from advertising and sponsorship and, in 
> some locations, advertising is prohibited 
> entirely. This settlement was to be complemented, 
> in part, by a sizeable Community Radio Fund. The 
> governments own impact assessment, in line with 
> the recommendations of the Everitt Report, 
> suggested the Fund would require £3-4 million per 
> annum. In its first year £500,000 was provided 
> and all 17 applicants were supported. Average 
> grant per station was £26,119. Since then annual 
> government spending commitments to the Fund have 
> not increased at all. In 2008/09 the Community 
> Radio Fund received 117 eligible applications, 
> against which only 30 grant awards were made, 
> with the average grant per station being just £14,978.
> 
> To put this in context, the money available 
> annually through the Community Radio Fund to 
> support the operating costs of 150 community 
> radio stations is less than the annual salary of 
> a Radio 1 breakfast DJ. From being widely 
> applauded in 2004 as a model of good practice, 
> the UK settlement for community radio is now 
> looking poor in comparison with many other 
> western European countries. France, for example, 
> provides around Euro 25 million per annum for around 600 community radios.
> 
> The sums needed to put the community radio sector 
> in the UK on a sustainable long term footing are 
> modest by comparison with the government’s 
> separate proposals for investment in local news 
> consortia, the objectives of which can partly be 
> met by the provision of news and information 
> services on community radio stations.
> 
> We are aware the Department of Culture Media and 
> Sport is currently conducting a review into the 
> Community Radio Order 2004. Alongside that review 
> must also be a serious commitment to support the 
> sustainability and development of community radio 
> and its continuing delivery of social and 
> economic benefit, by substantially increasing the 
> government's public spending contribution to the Community Radio Fund.
> 
> Yours
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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