[cma-l] General Election 2015 – Community Radio Archive - your contributions are wanted.

[Tamar Millen]

General Election 2015 – Community Radio Archive

The British Library plans to create an archive of UK community radio 
programmes around the forthcoming General Election. All (Ofcom licensed) 
community radio stations are invited to participate by recording their 
most interesting election programming between now and the end of the 
week following the election – i.e. Friday 15 May 2015. So that we can 
plan the project and the resources needed please drop a line to Paul 
Wilson (radio at bl.uk <mailto:radio at bl.uk>) expressing your interest in 
contributing and we will contact you with further instructions and 
advice on how to deliver the recordings.

Why are we doing this?

The objective is to demonstrate the value of a more nationally 
representative, pluralistic and localised news radio archive. We also 
hope that the corpus will suggest the potential value of community radio 
more generally. This is NOT a competition and in this case we’re not 
particularly concerned with ‘production values’ or traditional notions 
of broadcast ‘quality’.

What do we want?

We’re opening it to almost any kind of commentary and are allowing 
individual stations to decide what to contribute, but it should relate 
in some way to the 2015 General Election and issues around it. For 
example, it might be:

·an interview with a local MP

·a debate of some sort featuring members of the public

·a programme which listeners phoned into

·coverage of an election related event

We’d like the programme to reflect each community’s electoral interests 
– whether they are the topics of national discussion right now (e.g. the 
immigration debate, NHS, tuition fees etc) or matters of more local 
concern such as redevelopment of a public space, a local oil exploration 
application or local employment concerns etc. It could be serious and 
analytic in tone, light-hearted (e.g. comic parody or drama inspired by 
topical events) or angry debate.

How much do we want each station to provide and in what form?

As a general guide between 30 mins and 4 hours from each participating 
station would be fine. We would prefer where possible to have complete 
shows (please leave any continuity and any interrupting news bulletins 
or music intact). We will also accept excerpts where the relevant 
segment was a self-contained element of a longer and otherwise 
non-relevant programme. However we do _not_ want individual programmes 
or programme segments to be edited in such a way as to highlight, modify 
or censor any contributor’s views or language, however offensive or 
extreme. The archive will not be used to characterise any particular 
station or community.

What formats are acceptable?

This will depend on what format each station is transmitting and the 
recording mechanisms they have available but in general we’re aiming for 
the _highest resolution available_ –

·WAV (but _not_ compressed formats transcoded to WAV)

·AAC encoded MPEG-4 or MPEG-2

·MPEG-3 (highest res available)

What accompanying information do we need?

We would like whatever metadata is available, but as a minimum the basic 
schedule data and any published description: station name, programme 
title, transmission date and time, names and roles of 
producer/contributors/speakers where available and programme 
description. Links to any supplementary or contextualising information 
and rights holder information will also be welcome. As a guide we will 
provide each participating station with a spreadsheet to complete.

What will we do with it?

In due course we will catalogue and archive the corpus and make it 
available for onsite study and research here at the Library. We may also 
give online access to UK HFE institutions either directly or via a 
partner institution with the appropriate licence. Selected content may 
be made available online with station and other rights holders 
permission, where stations agree and the requisite permissions can be 
arranged. We will actively encourage and facilitate the corpus’s use for 
research and will report back to stations our findings at a later date, 
directly or via a blog.

If your station wishes to participate please drop an email with your 
contact details to Paul Wilson at radio at bl.uk <mailto:radio at bl.uk>

-- 
Tamar Millen
Arts Coordinator
Community Media Association
15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield
S1 2BX
0114 2795219

www.arts.commedia.org.uk


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