[cma-l] a tale of two stations

[Office - ccr-fm]

Phil

 

Thanks for the advice .. much appreciated, and a story worth telling. Key
commitments are after all ...... er ?  Key ?          and I agree with you,
anyone who thinks that the likes of Soo and Lawrie n'all at Ofcom are
unreasonable people have clearly had no real dealings with them. Providing
people don't take the 'michael' they are very reasonable and furthermore
quite helpful within the restraints of how much information and advice that
they are permitted to give.

 

In fact, I haven't come across anyone yet in the last 7 years who is
unreasonable apart from the overall rules which afterall came about via lots
of meetings and lots of committees ........ the committees consisting of
course of a number of possible influential people who are removed from the
real world. I think decisions were made based on information that wasn't
really readily available and it has been a learning curve for all of us. The
main issue has been the constant ignoring of observations / complaints from
licence holders almost to extent of the authorities showing no respect for
what we are doing ........ hence the reason why I at times have a tendency
to 'shout off ! and/or go off on one'                           anyway,
enough of that for now.

 

My question here is quite simple ....... surely no station goes off-air
deliberately ?!.... What is to be gained by  ''going off-air''
believe it or not, we have been off-air 3 times this week ........ !
once last weekend when there was a power cut at the Mill ... Fortunately our
UPS system pulled us through for half-an-hour or so, which meant we were
only down for about 11 minutes ..... (long enough though to possibly have
listeners migrating away)             the second time we went off was on
Friday ........ we had a computer ''crash!''     and we didn't have the cd
players in the studio as we were cleaning the lenses at the time ....
possibly bad or unfortunate timing ?!                 we were off-air for 6
minutes ........... and then (would you Adam and Eve it?)     this morning
at 7am when the person who set the clock for overnight last night didn't do
his maths correctly ..... I was driving in this morning at 6:50am covering
one day for our brekky presenter and whilst driving I hear our news jingle
going off ... by the time I'd collected the papers and got to the studios,
we had had 2 minutes of 'dead air'

The point I make is that this was all unfortunate and certainly not
something that we want to be doing ............. Question (How long does a
station have to be off-air before it ceases to fulfil its key commitments ??
and ..   According to the rules and regulations we are 70% community and
only 30% radio so .. What's the big deal anyway !?)
sorry to be a bore, but on this occasion I'm only playing devils advocate.

 

By the way, has anyone got any suggestions regarding my observation on the
census ??                               belive it or not once again, I
actually briefly mentioned it on brekky this morning as a passing comment
..... so many days to valentines / so many days to the Brits / so many days
to the sale of Olympic games tickets and   er???   so many days to the
census ....... But ...... No detail and certainly not elaborating on it.
What that guy said two weeks ago at that meeting was nothing short of
insulting and it was a ''WAKE-UP CALL'' for ''ALL'' of us !

 

The problem we've got as I see it is that our approach doesn't appear to be
co-ordinated ..........   I don't mind someone from the CMA, or Ian or Phil
or whoever sending a message to the board and saying ''Nicky dear boy, you
are talking out of your bottom''             that's fine by me .....
However, that must be coupled with another comment stating that if you don't
agree then what is your alternative and as a group what are we going to try
and do about it.

 

This really is the root of my gripes ....... I think ?

 

All the best

 

Regards

 

Nick

 

  _____  

From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Phil Korbel
Sent: 07 February 2011 15:29
To: CMA-L
Subject: [cma-l] a tale of two stations

 

in today's Ofcom Bulletin - two community stations - Voice Of Africa
[London] and Afan [Port Talbot, Wales] are told off for apparently going off
air [or near as].  

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/enforcement/broadcast-bulletins/ob
b175/issue175.pdf

There's an interesting nuance - VOA went off air completely for weeks it
seems and neglected to tell Ofcom at all, and Afan had what sounds like a
terminal IT meltdown and had to put on a loop for a week or three.  Now they
told Ofcom about their IT SNAFU, got permission for a temporary remedial
service [that didnt fulfill their Key Commitments]  but over-ran on the
amount of time they'd been permitted.  Ofcom discovered the VOA boo-boo and
a complainant alerted then to the Afan situation  Both stations have had the
same breach declared but I wonder if the different approaches to Ofcom will
make the seriousness of any sanction vary between the two?

Of course we cant know the full context and detail of the two incidents but
one lesson is clear - if there's something going awry that's likely to make
you breach your licence - 'fess up!  Start a dialogue w the community radio
team - they are reasonable people [whatever you think of the regulations
Nick]...

best wishes

Phil

-- 
Phil Korbel
Director
0161 237 5454

Radio Regen is a community, media and urban regeneration charity 
A company limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales No.
3753832 
Registered office: 12 Hilton Street, Manchester, M1 1JF 
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