[cma-l] [CMA members] Community Radio Fund

[Two Lochs Radio]

Darren and Phil

We have obviously fallen at the first hurdle in making the case clear  as you have both referred to taking money from the BBC, and in Phil's case to 'dismantling of the licence fee settlement'  which is simply not my proposal. 

The BBC makes good use of the money it gets (leaving aside the odd slip-ups that around to occur in a £34bn business), and there is no need to propose and eroding of that as part of our proposal. At present funding from the licence fee does not have to mean reducing the BBC's effective settlement - in past decades it might have meant that, or an increase in the fee, but right now it does not, and that is an opportunity to be grabbed.There is £803m pounds in the 5-year settlement that was ring-fenced to be spent only on Digital Switchover and in the event that it is not spent on that, the Secretary of State has to decide what should be done with it. It is not the BBC's money and has no impact on their budgets. 

I have always thought that properly managed and purposeful community-based/non-profit radio should be core funded from the licence fee, but in past times this might have meant either an additional real-terms increase in the fee or a cut to the BBC budget, neither of which is inherently desireable. But with more licence fee being collected that has been allocated to the BBC's own budgets, we have a window of opportunity.

You might say it is wrong in principle to come up with a scheme to use money just because it is there, and I might ordinarily agree, but that is precisely what the DCMS and Ofcom have done with their proposal for spending £47m from this windfall over two years (0.65% of annual licence fee) on a pilot project subsidizing ITV. In Ofcom's own words, this would be to 'restore the profitability of the ITV licences'.  I would contend that if the ITV news subsidy scheme with an identified benefit of supporting private profit is seen by DMS as a reasonable proposal, then core funding of community radio certainly is.

You say the percentage figure has no evidence of need, and then promptly calculate that need to be of  a similar order as the figure being bandied about! I worked on a basis of 240 radio stations (to inlcude the not-for-profit Highlands and Islands stations and the addional CR licences likely to be granted in the next few years). Multiplied by £81,000 brings you to about 0.6% of the licence fee. With thoughts of some development and basic admin activity as well, I suggested an initial target of 0.7%. I can see the merit of going for a simple figure such as 1% as a campaigning platform, but realistically maybe ending up with two-thirds of that.

I too think that there is a lot of value in local tackling of MPs and candidates, but not as a substitute for a concerted approach, rather as a ground laying reinforcement. If the matter comes up at a national level. One MP is unlikely to do much to push such a thing through, but if it then comes up centrally and they each one can say 'ah yes, I know about this, and I think it's worth looking at', then the chances of success are magnified dramatically.

Yes, a USP would be good and very useful, but it would have to gloss over the fact that the broad church of community radio has several selling points some of which are more relevant in some areas than others (for a start some stations are geographic community, some community of interest, some major on training and access, others on providing services to rural and isolated areas, etc etc). If we could come up with one USP that encompasses the broad spectrum that would be excellent - but it's a tough call.

Alex
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