[cma-l] Local TV and Community Radio

[Two Lochs Radio]

I'm sure they do read it Terry, but this is strictly a DCMS (UK Government)
matter. When Community Radio licences were established Parliament put many
details of the licences into primary legislation - ie it requires an Act of
Parliament to change the 50% etc rules, and not simply a regulation or order
laid down by a minister. That's quite unusual nowadays - usually the
Government is criticized for passing too much 'enabling legislation' and
leaving the details to the political whim of ministers.

That the law was drafted so prescriptively was no doubt down to effective
lobbying by the Commercial Radio Companies Association (now called
RadioCentre), alhtough I daresay the Radio Authority would also have made
recommendations.

The DCMS has seemed quite keen for a couple of years now to remove or lower
the caps on CR advertising, but as it requires an Act of Parliament they
were never likely to do it in a rush, and will have standard consultation
exercises to do, as they are doing now.

Ofcom is simply implementing what's been laid down in law and has do
discretionary power to vary the 50% or 0% thresholds, although I'm sure DCMS
will be consulting Ofcom among others for advice in addition to the public
consultation.

Alex

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "terry mechan" <terrymechan at live.co.uk>
To: <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 1:41 PM
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Local TV and Community Radio


> Considering the considerable input from interested parties on this forum,
> and more particular on this subject since the demise of Stroud FM , one
> hopes that someone from OFCOM subscribes to this mailing list
>
> If not, the maybe the moderator might like to send them the thread link so
> they can read the responses and suggestions first hand and as they come
> in.
>
> Terry Mechan
>
>