[cma-l] FW: FW: Ofcom to investigate over 50 community radio stations
Bay Fm Radio
radio at bayfm.co.uk
Wed Nov 19 17:55:46 GMT 2014
Hi All,
I do enjoy reading Nicks posts mostly because he says it as it is, no mincing with long words, as it is straight to the point basically saying what we’re all thinking.
Please let me apologies in advance for my rant.
“Community Radio is like swimming for your life in an Olympic championship, when you finally get there and qualify; they tie your hands and still expect you to win”
It took us seven years to get our licence and we will have been on air fulltime for two years next March. We’re one of many restricted from advertising & Sponsorship and by god has it been tough.
I’ve been running a business for many years and if I’d had a governing body putting restrictions on potential competition in my area I’d be ‘Laughing All The Way To The Midland’ In the real world it doesn’t happen...unless you’re in community radio. I have never been involved with a business where the restrictions turn away business and I’ve got to be honest, if it wasn’t for our free premises we would have handed back our licence a year ago.
As well as running the station, trying to please everyone, the constant criticism about the signal strength - you’re given (As Nick said previously a pea shooter could shoot further) than 25 watts compared to the commercials 1,000 watts. All this with no money to run the station and an ILR up the road who are not just content with your advertising restrictions they have to accuse us in the local paper of sponging off Tax Payers money while they plead poverty having to fund themselves through advertising we’re prohibited from using?!
We get £3K a year for a SLA and boy do we earn it and to top it all, our ILR are telling our town clerk that we’re a commercial station under a community blanket and our SLA is illegal, and claiming that we’ve had £20K in tax payers money thus far – dream on.
It’s a never ending battle with our ILR who are supposed to be – ‘The Professionals’
Then there’s constant Ofcom paperwork.
Ofcom put in a request wanting to know how every competition is run on our station. How people can enter, how they can win, lists of people who have won on EVERY show over the last two weeks, how the winners are selected, full details of the agreements made between us and the businesses who have donated the prizes and audio logs too. As a consequence being on a skeleton staff we had no local news because this request AGAIN tied up our local news reader, who also does our admin, for almost a week to supply this.
Recently Ofcom sent in a request for logs over a two day period and additional information and answer to several questions about nearly all our key commitments which we’ve just supplied (Another three days without local news), it wasn’t our annual report, we’ve got that to look forward to soon.
However, I can almost guarantee we’ll hear from them again anytime now after listening to the logs they will AGAIN ask for answers to the SAME Question about the SAME support mentions they asked about the last time they listened to our logs and it’s never the same person dealing with any case. It’s endless, how else can you say thank you to a business without mentioning who and where they are.
For years we’ve been hearing the restrictions are possibly being lifted – ‘WHEN IS THIS HAPPENING!!! Before another community station closes.
Just to finish off...
As far as the licence fees go, I have to agree with Nick, why are we paying to promote an artist’s product on the Radio? And if there isn’t some common sense done with PPL they’re single handily going to ruin the radio industry with their ridiculous charges to business for listening to the radio on their premises. As soon as we went on air they started targeting local businesses in our catchment area and their demands for extortionate fees are causing listeners to switch off. If there was realistic set fee (for example) £50 a year for every small business, business probably wouldn’t mind paying, PPL would probably make more money and radios wouldn’t get switched off! – One small business in Exmouth told me they’ve turned off because PPL wanted almost £300 a year?!
Despite several requests so far, Ofcom haven’t found any issues with us.
Andy Green, Bay FM Radio
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Subject: Re: [cma-l] FW: FW: Ofcom to investigate over 50 community radio
stations
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Jo
And you’ve brightened my day up as well with those words of encouragement thank you. I don’t want to be deemed as the clot in Bollington who is always whinging. I’m not. I am actually quite positive, in fact very positive and I am proud of what all of us have achieved with the odds stacked against us.
If I become a failure at anything or even a failure in life, then that’s fine if I have cocked it up myself
however, I’ll be damned if something is going to fail and it is the fault of others but appears as if it is us
no way Jose’ !
I repeat WE ARE NOT FAILING we are all trying our best but others are making it difficult. Throw the shackles off and watch us boogie on down. If the commercials are worried, then stick a top rate cap on it
then we’re all happy bunnies J
Christmas ‘’goodwill to all men’’ what a nice time to do it
Once again best wishes to our fraternity and to all the wonderful Community people of great loveliness J
Nick
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From: news at bcbradio.co.uk [mailto:news at bcbradio.co.uk]
Sent: 18 November 2014 16:35
To: Canalside's The Thread
Subject: Re: [cma-l] FW: FW: Ofcom to investigate over 50 community radio stations
Oh Nick I would like to thank you for brightening up my day! :)
Jo
BCB - Bradford Radio
Tel - 01274 77 16 77
Email - news at bcbradio.co.uk
www.bcbradio.co.uk
Radio Station of the Year (Yorkshire) - RadioAcademy Nations & Regions Awards 2013
Don't forget to Follow us on Twitter - twitter.com/bcbradio & Facebook - facebook.com/bcbradio
On 2014-11-18 14:55, Canalside's The Thread wrote:
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From: Canalside's The Thread [mailto:office at thethread.org.uk]
Sent: 18 November 2014 14:55
To: 'Two Lochs Radio'
Subject: RE: [cma-l] FW: Ofcom to investigate over 50 community radio stations
Alex
Thanks for that
you learn something everyday. I just put that in as I fly around the keyboard hitting anything that comes to hand LOL J I’m not one of the brightest chaps around I’m afraid, certainly from a high educational background
the only level I left school with was a ‘spirit level’ J LOL straight into Radio and straight into the Factory and then my DJ-ing
.. I’m 55 next birthday though, and what I lack slightly in grey matter is more than made up by a grand understanding life and rolling ones sleeve up and getting stuck in. I understand how people work, I spot small print, I never get outwitted and all of this is bread and butter to me.
People have to play fair though, and I do not believe the DCMS have played fair.
You may ask ‘’what a bizarre statement ?’’ it isn’t, because when things are pointed out time and time again that are wrong and you still do nothing about it, you have to ask the question who is failing who here ?
Community Radio is not failing through any fault of its own ... it is being let down by others. Mainly Ministers and the DCMS.
Sorry, these are my thoughts and I ain’t changing em
And thanks for the ‘considered discussion points not rants’ I’ll try to remember that even though they are rants LOL
Nick
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From: Two Lochs Radio [mailto:tlr at gairloch.co.uk]
Sent: 18 November 2014 14:04
To: Canalside's The Thread
Subject: Re: [cma-l] FW: Ofcom to investigate over 50 community radio stations
Hi Nick
I love your rants (er, considered discussion points), but just to be picky, re number 10 can I point out that <> is the symbol for "does not equal" !
The idea from your previous mail of just putting an overall cap on income, from whatever source, is attractive, though might cause accountign difficulties for stations that do a lot of npon-radio work as well.
Alex
----- Original Message -----
From: Canalside's The Thread
To: 'The Community Media Association Discussion List' ; 'Dom Chambers' ; 'Bill Best'
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 1:49 PM
Subject: [cma-l] FW: Ofcom to investigate over 50 community radio stations
Ooops only just seen this
. However, if you take my ramblings and plonk it alongside this report (well done Bill and Dom) even though unorthodox, we ain’t a millions miles away
Key words / sentences pop up though don’t you think ? :-
1) Lack of funding
2) Lack of assistance
3) Lack of understanding
4) Bureaucracy
5) More Bureaucracy
6) Even more Bureaucracy
7) Community Radio actually doing very well under difficult circumstances
8) Circumstances that can be changed if someone in authority has got the
.*****
.. to stand up and be counted
9) Even Ofcoms job is unworkable
10) Major key word <> DEBACLE
I rest my case
. Oh I forgot, I did that ten years ago and here we are still talking instead of doing.
Nick
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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of CMA-L
Sent: 18 November 2014 11:58
To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk
Subject: [cma-l] Ofcom to investigate over 50 community radio stations
The CMA has issued a statement below in response to yesterday's news that Ofcom intends to investigate more than 50 community radio stations:
http://media.info/radio/news/ofcom-to-investigate-over-50-community-radio-stations
\\
Whilst it is of significant concern that 53 community radio stations are to be investigated by Ofcom to determine if those stations have breached their key commitments, it is important to note that such an investigation does not imply that the broadcaster is automatically in breach. Not all investigations result in breaches of the licence or other regulatory requirements being recorded.
The Community Media Association (CMA) cannot comment on the details of any individual station in public as we would not wish to prejudice or otherwise pre-empt the outcome of any investigation. However a community radio station and CMA member under investigation has advised us:
"When responding to the investigation, we realised that we had in fact over-delivered on the key commitments in question. Our reason for ticking ‘no’ was because we felt that our work had not fitted the exact wording".
Bill Best, Operations Manager of the CMA:
“A number of stations that we have counselled informed us that they had misunderstood the reporting form and checked the wrong box in error. Furthermore, it is possible that some stations have not offset volunteer hours against advertising and sponsorship, and might appear to be in breach of the 50% restriction. We urge all member stations to contact the CMA if they require assistance with the Annual Return. The CMA looks to Ofcom for further guidance on this matter which we will disseminate to the sector”.
CMA members report that Ofcom is usually sympathetic to the issues that stations face when working to address potential shortfalls in their Annual Report. Previously the Community Radio Team has assisted stations to more accurately redraft their key commitments where targets may have been over-estimated, and the CMA expects that Ofcom will continue to support the sector in this regard. The CMA fully supports the role of Ofcom as the regulator in ensuring that social gain, as defined in the Community Radio Order 2004, remains at the core of community radio broadcasting.
In spite of an unprecedented adverse economic situation community radio continues to do an outstanding job in delivering social gain outcomes with minimal central funding - and any issues with compliance reporting should be understood within that context.
Community radio stations are working with very few resources to hand and no formal training on completing the Annual Report. The CMA calls for the Community Radio Fund to be enhanced in order to make funding available to support the education of community radio stations around compliance issues and best practice.
Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2014 advises that over the past five years, the average income for community radio has fallen from £84,000 to £55,500 per year. This represents a 33.9% decline over the period. Median income (the value at the mid-point in the distribution of incomes) now stands at £33,250 per year, a decline of 5.6% in the last year.
However over a full broadcast week of 168 hours, a typical community radio station broadcasts live for 78 hours, with an average 90 hours per week of originally-produced output. Speech output averages 30% of daytime output and the average station works with 82 volunteers.
Dom Chambers, Chair of the Community Media Association:
“It is a matter of great concern that around one quarter of community radio licensees are being investigated by the regulator in the area of key commitments. I know what extraordinary levels of social impact are achieved in our sector so we need to analyse where there are shortfalls in getting that information back to the licence regulator. Ofcom investigations can be very demoralising to those operating from a volunteer base. I am also concerned at the length of time it has taken for these investigations to come to light nor that this was brought up in our last quarterly meeting. As one who has filed five annual returns on behalf of a licensee I very much look forward to discussing this situation with Ofcom as CMA chair when we attend our next meeting in December.”
Notes:
Information on community radio regulatory issues including guidance on volunteer input, changes to stations’ key commitments and details on complaints may be found on the Ofcom website here:
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/radio/community/regulations/
\\
Community Media Association
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