[cma-l] Community Radio 50% Rules

[claire penketh]

 Absolutely!!!!! Here in Stroud we have a nightmare topography of valleys and hills, reception has been traditionally been really tricky here, even for the mainstream media.  Despite the fact that there is no commercial station in Stroud itself, as Star FM handed back their licence, and only the ubiquitous Heart  blasts from Gloucester, we had to trim our  transmitters output to just over 20 watts in order to comply with OFCOMS regs 
The feedback we get from people is that they love us, but can't pick us up easily. Tricky to reach the whole community really...
 
Claire Penketh
Station Manager
Stroud FMl
 

--- On Sun, 10/10/10, Murray Dawson <murraywdawson at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Murray Dawson <murraywdawson at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio 50% Rules
To: "Alan Coote" <alan.coote at btinternet.com>
Cc: "'cma-l'" <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
Date: Sunday, 10 October, 2010, 18:49


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
To: 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



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-- 
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

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