[cma-l] 5km: limit or no limit

Sun Jan 17 14:51:26 GMT 2016

I'm afraid there's not much to gain by having a public moan.
If you feel Ofcom's not been fair - write and say so.If the response is unsatisfactory - escalate it to a higher level.
If still not satisfied - ask your MP to refer it to the Minister of State at the DCMS - who will probably delegate it to one of his Officers and you can arrange a meeting.
This then works back down the chain and you can monitor it at each level.
Not easy, I know, but it works if you keep at it.
I've had the privilege of talking over Nick's situation with him over a nice cup of coffee in his cosy office by the Canal.
We formulated a plan of attack which has slowed a little but can easily be revitalised.
This is only one of several lines of campaign that we are involved in.
I'd love to tell you all about them - but - as the saying goes I believe - I'd then probably have to kill you.

Ian Hickling
Partner

Office: 01635 578435  (7am-11pm UK time)Carphone: 07530 980115 (only responds when driving)6 Horn Street, Compton, NEWBURY, RG20 6QS

Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2016 17:59:06 +0000
From: alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk
To: cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk
Subject: Re: [cma-l] 5km: limit or no limit

Nick,
I can back up your experience with mine during the time I set up and ran The Bay for Poole and Bournemouth. The conurbation is around 350,000 people. At every stage Ofcom believed they knew more about them and the area than we did.
I’m pretty sure Ofcom’s community radio section never bothered getting a map out. If they had they would have found the boundaries and terrain are such that it’s impossible to cover with 25Watts. A fact we pointed out very many times.
We we’re very frustrated to see the commercial station was given an increase from 100Watts to 1000Watts ERP to solve the very same issue we raised with Ofcom.
My strong advise to anyone applying for a community radio license of 25Watts is don’t! Unless, that is, you're happy broadcasting to a very small town or village.        	  
Alan

From:  <cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk> on behalf of Thread <office at thethread.org.uk>
Reply-To:  "cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk" <cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
Date:  Saturday, 16 January 2016 at 12:54
To:  "cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk" <cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
Subject:  Re: [cma-l] 5km: limit or no limit

Amigos ----- Listen up everyone por favor This is all well and good, but sadly we
climb back onto the merry-go-round again. This whole sh-bang falls down at Hurdle (numero
cuatro) Number 4 on Ians list ------------- which actually ought to be at the
first Port of call if Number 1 on Ians list is correct. I am not disagreeing
with any of this I am merely pointing everybody towards what we call in the
Business (reality) I quote     :-   ‘’tell us your Community
and how you propose to cover it’’ ??? Ah ???    hmm ???     problems here
before we even get in the starting blocks let alone get out of them :- 1)       We did tell them our Community and not beating about the bush it
ended up where they seemed to know our Community better than we did. In
otherwords it wasn’t our Community, when actually it was, because our Community
is nearer to 9 Miles as opposed to 5km.2)       So far as us telling Ofcom / DCMS on how we propose to cover it,
yet again technically we did, but the Man from Del Monte went against the norm’
and on this very important occasion ‘’he say NOPE !’’ Here endith the lesson, please try hard
to register this, because this is the reality, these are the facts, this is
what really happened, it is not a Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. The
traffic in our case was clearly being direct partly due to the restrictions and
the extra restrictions that we had upon us. I am virtually 99% certain that all the
knowledge we have gained over the past 12 years there is actually only one
reason as to why the local commercial Station has more listeners than us in the
immediate 5 mile vicinity ----- it isn’t because they are better than us, or
deliver a better service (anything but to be honest)   the fact of the matter
is, there are lots and lots and lots and lots of local folk who would like to
listen to us, but can’t, because they can’t hear us. Basic facts that have
rumbled on for years and years and here we are still stuck in a hole and
soldiering on. I hope this helps. I shall now wander back to our 5km snap
crackle and pop with Real Wales coming over the top of us 1 mile up the road
and where you can’t pick us up inside buildings in Macclesfield which is only 4
Miles away as the crow flys. …………reality dear Watson and yes    sorry everyone
a bit sarcastic but tongue in cheek.Just trying to help, that’s all J Let’s stick to the facts and not the
fantasy and yes, it is a miracle that we have about 250 Stations still
broadcasting. We have been up against the odds. Really that number should be
about 6 Well done to everyone, keep battling on,
we’ll get there, we’ll get the level playing surface in the end. Regards Nick From:
cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk]
On Behalf Of John Walton
Sent: 15 January 2016 19:42
To: The Community Media
Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] 5km: limit or
no limit It may be of interest that at Lincoln City Radio Ofcom reduced our ERP
from 25 to 13 watts before we began broadcasting.  Probably something to
do with the fact that our antenna is on the top of Lincoln
Cathedral.  (Our transmitter's in the Bell Tower.) On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:24 PM, Ian Hickling <transplanfm at hotmail.com>
wrote:5km was never a limit - it was offered as a typical case.

As I've pointed out many times, 37 of the current 236 stations on air have more
that the "standard" 25 + 25 Watts.Stations with larger
powers have proved to Ofcom that it was necessary.

The original offer was "Tell us your Community and tell us how you propose
to cover it"

It is always best to ask for enough power when you submit your Application than
to ask later.

If you are refused the power you believe you need then tell Ofcom you will
assess what they have assigned.

If you can show that cover of your Licensed area is inadequate once you are on
air then you have the best weapon in "I told you so".

If Ofcom refuses to offer more power - for any reason - against proof that what
it has assigned is inadequate for the area in the Licence then you have good
cause to take it higher.

A strong well-composed letter from your MP to the DCMS is the way to start.Ian HicklingPartner

Office:
01635 578435  (7am-11pm UK time)Carphone:
07530 980115 (only responds when driving)6 Horn Street, Compton, NEWBURY,
 RG20 6QS Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2016
11:08:52 +0000

From: tlr at gairloch.co.uk

To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk

Subject: [cma-l] 5km: limit or no limit

In relation to our discussion in recent months about the 'typical' 5km service
radius assumed for CR licensees, this story by James Cridland in his media.info today may be of interest:

Dales
Radio licence challengedmedia.info 8 Jan 2016

The licence of Dales Radio, a new community radio station in the Yorkshire
Dales, has been challenged by a former director of a radio station based in
Kirkby Lonsdale.

In its licence application, Dales Radio argued for a wider transmission area
"normally considered by Ofcom". The resulting coverage area,
including Sedbergh, Hawes and Leyburn, appears to have a radius of around 24km;
yet Ofcom note that the general size of a community radio licence is 5km, with a special dispensation to go larger in rural
areas "where there is greater availability of suitable FM frequencies
(such as parts of Scotland and Wales)". The Dales Radio coverage appears
to be five times as large as Ofcom's guidelines for licence applicants would
normally permit.

In a letter sent to the DCMS, Paul Broadbent draws attention to his own
community radio station, Indigo 106.6, which handed its community licence back
to Ofcom November 2014 after it was unable to enlarge its
transmission area to make it more financially viable. Ofcom told the station
that it had refused the request because Indigo had not originally applied for
such an extension; yet Indigo claim it had merely complied with Ofcom's own Guidance Notes. Mr Broadbent claims that Ofcom is showing
"a lack of parity".

Nineteen community radio stations have handed back their licence since 2010.

Dales Radio is set to launch this Monday, 11 January, on 104.9FM, 103FM and
936AM.

_______________________________________The
letter in fullI note recent publicity given to the intended launch of Dales Community
Radio station, originally awarded a licence in late 2013.

Firstly, I would seek clarification as to why it has been permitted a longer
than usual period to achieve a Launch.

More importantly however, I write to question and challenge the legitimacy of
the licence that it was granted on the basis that the coverage area (MCA)
exceeds the criteria set down for all community radio stations in Section 5 (1)
of the Notes for Guidance revised in May 2010.

In making their application, the group stated that (they) “fully understand
that this proposal exceeds the transmission parameters normally considered by
Ofcom for a Community Radio service. However, (they believed) that the only way
to viably service this unique, sparsely populated and geographically
challenging area, is with a multiple transmitter service”.

They added that; “The distance between the sites and the intervening terrain would
prevent full coverage when travelling along the interconnecting roads but that
distance also allows the same frequencies to be used without significant
problems of interaction”.

Interestingly the OFCOM MCA list does not include that of Dales Radio, but
given the eventual coverage area which ultimately has been granted to cover an
area of the Yorkshire Dales national park to include “distinct” communities of
Leyburn, Hawes, Sedbergh and Kirkby Stephen along with presumably other smaller
yet “distinct” communities, in a geographical area far exceeding the general
policy of 5Km radius, and therefore far exceeding the MCA given to the majority
of community radio licencees. Nor can the intended station be described as
serving a “community of interest” as described by Section 2(1) of the Order
below.

I originally raised the legitimacy of this licence award with my own local MP,
and now LibDem leader Tim Farron, back in 2014. I understood at that time that
he took the matter up with the DCMS, but as yet, I am not aware of a response.

I therefore seek a review of the decision making process that led to the
licence grant, before Dales Radio is permitted to launch, and also the
legitimacy of the decision made. My conclusion is that the MCA granted is
outwith what might be regarded as a reasonable extension and that therefore
extraneous factors must have been taken into account. The question then is why
these same criteria and extraneous factors have not been applied to other
community radio applicants in similar geographically dispersed areas.

The latter point is significant because it goes to the very viability of rural
community radio stations and it would appear that Dales Radio may have been
given an unfair advantage of survivability simply because other station applicants
did not ask the question at a time when OFCOM were being quite restrictive in
their interpretation of the criteria.

Indeed in a letter dated 2nd February 2014 addressed to Ms Halstead Smith of
OFCOM, and noting the arguments put forward by Dales Radio as to why it was
appropriate for it to be licensed for a larger coverage area, and OFCOM’s
decision, on its merits, to depart from the transmission parameters normally
considered appropriate, I personally made an application for OFCOM to apply the
same criteria to licence holder CR051 (INDIGO 106.6fm), the Voice Community
Trust, a licence which I then held, in order similarly to depart from the
transmission parameters normally considered appropriate. Ms Halstead Smith did
not reply but subsequently Ms Soo Williams did make a technical response. She
did not justify why Dales Radio had been permitted to exceed the 5Km radius,
but justified a refusal to INDIGO on the basis that it had not originally
applied for such an extension, It had not done so because it, in common with
many other rural community stations, complied with the Guidance Notes, at a
time when OFCOM were giving a restrictive interpretation to them.

Working within the constraints of the current geographic parameters for the six
years 2008 2014, it had become increasingly clear that the constraints meant
that it is not financially viable to operate the licence, and as such a CR
station would not be financially viable,

It also had become clear that grants/advertising/sponsorship were simply not be
obtainable and sustainable.

Therefore based on the precedent of Dales Radio accepted by OFCOM, INDIGO and
the Voice Community Trust argued that it should similarly be entitled to submit
for coverage of the South
 Lakes area, a synonymous
geographic community, which is equally sparsely populated and geographically
challenged.

The application was not granted and ultimately the licence for INDIGO, a
regionally award winning station, was handed back in common with many other
rural community stations in the past and others currently facing financial
viability problems because of lack of parity exercised by OFCOM.

I understand that this is not sufficient justification to question a licence,
but I do believe that some form of judicial review should be undertaken of
OFCOM’s decision making and interpretation process with regard to the grant of
Dales Radio licence and that until such time it should be prevented from
launching as the ground for the grant of the licence is unsafe.

Yours faithfully,

Paul Broadbent LLB(Hons) MA(Econ).MA

Formerly director of Indigo 106.6fm - the first community radio station in the South Lakes
Interpretation

2(1) In this Order "the 1990 Act" means the Broadcasting Act 1990;
"the 2003 Act" means the Communications Act 2003;
"community" means (a) the persons who live or work or undergo
education or training in a particular area or locality, or (b) persons who
(whether or not they fall within paragraph (a)) have one or more interests or
characteristics in common;

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-- John WaltonVoice Overs & Radio Promos; Songs; Scripts; MusicalsWebsite: www.johnwaltonmusic.comTel. +44(0) 1522 754086
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