[cma-l] Offensive language on radio - how to avoid the pitfalls

Wed Sep 21 15:50:23 BST 2011

Without risking repeating what's been said already, the message here from ofcom is quite clear: swearing on the radio is not acceptable. However, you will notice that in 2 of the cases the matter was seen as 'resolved' due to the efforts made by the station to ensure compliance.

Those looking for conspiracy will no doubt see it here and complain that community radio is been beaten with a stick and those who get paid to do radio have escaped. But the point to see here is actually that if you have robust and appropriate compliance systems ofcom will recognise what you've done.

Part of the deal of taking on a licence is you follow the rules and those rules are the same for everyone. Obviously, by its nature community radio takes more risks. Capital will only play around 140 different tracks at any one time and it those are picked very carefully indeed by their music team. Community stations will play much more than that and so the risks are increased of playing something a bit naughty.

You could tackle this in one of a number of ways. Insist only tracks on a playout system are played and these can only be added by a single person… or presenters can add tracks but won't be released for automation until they've listened to and approved. Presenter contracts emphasising their compliance role may also be a useful check. You may of course be of the view that the important part of what you do as a station is what the presenters say and where they come from – not the music they play – and so a locked-down schedule of music is not only useful but sometimes desirable. As you will note that the live swearing on Radio 1 escaped sanction because they had audit-able evidence of the steps they took to ensure compliance.

This goes back to my often made point in this field that if you make the effort to ensure compliance and something goes wrong then ofcom will be more understanding. Training and development is at the heart of this. This may be time consuming and generally a pain but it's what we're all about – or at least it should be.

Richard Berry
Senior Lecturer in Radio
University of Sunderland
Tel: (+44) 0191 515 2239
Social: @sunderlandradio

From: Office - ccr-fm <office at ccr-fm.co.uk<mailto:office at ccr-fm.co.uk>>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:35:43 +0100
To: 'Julian Mellor' <julian at 10radio.org<mailto:julian at 10radio.org>>, 'CMA-L' <cma-l at commedia.org.uk<mailto:cma-l at commedia.org.uk>>
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Offensive language on radio - how to avoid the pitfalls

Dear All

Could I go back to my absolutely square one, point one, the beginning etc etc and point out that if weren’t scratting our backsides for funding because of the restrictions we could lighten the load of the unemployment service / job seekers by about 600 persons and knock all the skittles down with one bowl by having one or two more hands on deck (possibly professionals) (which = better training)

This I believe is the point ………….. we will never find the remedy if we don’t understand the symptoms. The symptoms are VERY IMPORTANT ………. If they are caused by and created by us (Community Radio) then we have to take it on the chin when the big chiefs come down on us …….. if however they are part of theblame (which the restrictions are)      then a re-think needs to happen. Preferably sooner rather than later.

Everyone is trying to do their best under the circumstances, us included. I personally think we all deserve a medal operating in the main very good services with little help from people who live in Ivory Towers and have no idea of what is actually going on. These people get my gander right up and one day very soon I shall bump into one or two of them and they will not like it up em’ Mr Mainwaring !       :)     LOL

Regards

Nick

Soldier on chaps and do your best !

________________________________
From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk<mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk> [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Mellor
Sent: 21 September 2011 12:31
To: CMA-L
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Offensive language on radio - how to avoid the pitfalls

Interesting debate.

It does seem that there are two models of community radio.

One is a radio station that happens to use community and voluntary resources.  The operational style is probably very similar to commercial radio.

The other is a community project that happens to produce radio.

It's not to say one is better than the other, and I'm sure some stations combine both.  But we very much fall into the second model.

Hardly anyone had previous radio experience before we setup six years ago, but we had lots of community development experience.  We setup primarily to do community development.  In that context, we're not going to be negligent and we're not going to ignore what we have signed up to do. But we are going to be realistic about what volunteers can be expected to do, and what they can achieve and deliver in the absence of full-time hands-on management.  From the conversations I've had, people from the more commercial and possibly top down model really struggle with this approach.  But it works for us, it works for our community, and from what Ofcom have said having monitored our output, it works for them as well.

So getting back to the original point, a regulatory system which relies upon stations having fully resourced staff and management teams presents extra challenges for volunteer run stations such as ours.   If, at the meeting in October, Ofcom seem inclined to move towards increased regulation or expectations, I would ask that the Jaqui and the CMA represent the difficulties that this will pose for stations operating with minimal resources.

Julian

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