[cma-l] Community Radio 50% Rules

[Murray Dawson]

  Alan,

I feel that the changes to the 50% rule now leaves a fair amount of 
flexibility to ensure that Community Radio stations can develop on a 
sound financial footing - without 'selling out' by going down the 
commercial ad driven route.

Our organisation works across a range of community media formats, which 
allows us even greater flexibility, as it's the income of the company 
that is measured.  Therefore every grant we get for another area of the 
organisations work means the rule becomes less and less relevant to us 
(and in any case we had 14,000 hrs of volunteering last year, and had no 
commercial adverts).

I did have a major issue with the original rule though - and it cost our 
organisation heavily as we had to scale back our original Big Lottery 
bid to a figure which I felt we could match 50/50 - this is no longer 
the case though.

So my recommendation - diversification......

Where I do have a serious problem with the 'rules' though is with the 
power and range we can transmit.
Why should we be restricted to a fraction of the power of the commercials?
In Aberdeen, we are in a situation where a large proportion of our 
target communities don't get reception - or get a very poor reception, 
and the commercials still moan to Ofcom that our reach is too far!
Too far for what?
We're not interested in stealing their revenues or audience - the 
opposite is the case.  We have evidence that our station has increased 
radio listeners across the city (commercial and community) by 
re-engaging people with the medium again.

Let's pull together and campaign on this one instead?

All the best

Murray

On 09/10/2010 12:48, Alan Coote wrote:
>
> Ian,
>
> The CMA will do nothing.
>
> Sorry to be so harsh, but during the Ofcom Community Radio review a 
> couple of years ago they supported the 50% rule as it characterises 
> Community Radio.
>
> I totally agree with you it's outdated and in desperate need of review 
> along with a number of aspects -- the sooner the better.
>
> Alan
>
> *From:* cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk 
> [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] *On Behalf Of *Ian Hickling
> *Sent:* 09 October 2010 8:47 AM
> *To:* Jaqui Devereux; cma-l
> *Subject:* [cma-l] Community Radio 50% Rules
>
>
> I think most of us understood them Jaqui.
> More so now - thank you.
> But what exactly is the CMA doing about changing this outdated and 
> punishing regulation?
>
> Ian Hickling
> Partner
> transplan UK
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2010 15:46:23 +0100
> From: jaqui.devereux at commedia.org.uk 
> <mailto:jaqui.devereux at commedia.org.uk>
> To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk <mailto:cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
> Subject: [cma-l] Community radio 50% rules - understanding them
>
> Dear all
>
> Just a clarification on the revised 50% rules for community radio 
> following the CR Amendment Order:
>
>
> No more than 50% of your income can come from on air advertising 
> and/or sponsorship.
>
> The Amendment Order does however now allow that more than 50% can come 
> from grants, Service Level Agreements etc.
>
> Volunteer time can be counted as part of the "income" mix, but it must 
> be auditable (timesheets, signing in sheets etc).  However, if 50% of 
> your income does come from on air ads etc, then only 25% of your 
> income can be from volunteer in kind time.
>
> So e.g.:
>
> 1 - station has a Big Lottery grant of £50,000 for the year (lucky 
> it!), on air ads etc £20,000, volunteer time £10,000 - that mix is OK.
>
> 2 - station has a BL grant of £20,000, on air ads £50,000, volunteer 
> time £30,000 - NOT OK as volunteer time exceeds 25% of the total
>
> 3 - station has BL grant of £25,000, on air ads £50,000, volunteer 
> time £25,000 - is OK as volunteer time 25%
>
> 4 - station has BL grant of £20,000, on air ads £50,000, volunteer 
> time £30,000, OFF air ads/sponsorship £20,000 - is OK as off air does 
> not count towards the 50% limit
>
> Hope that  helps....
>
> Jaqui
>
> -- 
> Jaqui Devereux
> Director, Community Media Association
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Jaqui Devereux
> Director, Community Media Association
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________ cma-l mailing list - 
> cma-l at commedia.org.uk <mailto:cma-l at commedia.org.uk> Community Media 
> Association - www.commedia.org.uk <http://www.commedia.org.uk> 
> _______________________________________________ To manage your mailing 
> list subscription please visit: 
> http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/cma-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> cma-l mailing list - cma-l at commedia.org.uk
>
> Community Media Association - www.commedia.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
>
> To manage your mailing list subscription please visit:
> http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/cma-l

-- 
please reply to

murray at shmu.org.uk


Murray Dawson
Project Director
Station House Media Unit
Station Road, Woodside,
Aberdeen  AB24 2WB

Tel - 01224 515013

www.shmu.org.uk

listen to our community radio station live on 99.8FM and at www.shmufm.net

SHMU is a charity registered in Scotland - SC034211 and a registered Limited Company - SC332413

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message is not intended to have contractual effect
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/pipermail/cma-l/attachments/20101010/4ffc6767/attachment.html>