[cma-l] Ofcom: 10th March, DCMS: 11th March

[Bill Best]

On 8 March 2016 at 12:31, James Cridland <james at cridland.net> wrote:
>

> In separate news, I'm really impressed at the quality of radio from the community radio
> sector here in Australia. I visited Bay FM in Byron Bay a few weeks ago, who had
> massively impressive news gathering, and 4ZZZ in Brisbane also has tremendous and
> unexpected programming (a fascinating computer games news show the other day).
> 4ZZZ appears to directly feed the local ABC with staff, and similarly many of the local
> ABC staff are also involved with 4ZZZ too. I've yet to hear anyone moan about ACMA,
> much less whine about the general unfairness of everything. Seems that people just
> get on and make great radio, with the same lack of resource as the UK manages on,
> by the way.

Thanks for your comments James.

The latest figure I have for community radio funding in Australia was
that community radio was assigned AUD15.5 million by the government
for 2013-14, of which AUD2.3 million was set aside for digital.
Putting digital to one side leaves AUD 13.2 million for supporting
community radio station of which there are about 350. This equates to
an average potential grant community radio station of approximately
£20,000 each. Not a huge amount - but a sum that no UK community radio
station would ever turn down.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) allocated £397,456
for the Community Radio Fund for 2013/14 to support approximately 200
stations on air that year - equating to less than two thousand pounds
per station on average.

The Community Radio Fund is inadequate. In 2005/06, there were only 14
licensees and all received approvals of support from the fund, with an
average grant per station of £31,716, representing in the region of 30
per cent of total income. Since then annual government spending
commitments to the Fund have not increased while the number of
licensed services has grown to over 260.

The single most important change that government could make to the
viability of the community radio sector and to its delivery of public
benefit, would be to significantly increase the size of the Community
Radio Fund in line with the 2003 Everitt report.

A central element of Everitt’s proposals was a funding mechanism that
would provide around £30,000 per annum (£42,500 at 2015 prices) per
station towards core operating costs such as the employment of a
station manager. The Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell, said at the
time, in a letter to key stakeholders: “I have now considered Anthony
Everitt’s evaluation of the access radio experiment and believe that
it provides a sound basis for taking the work on access radio to the
next level”.

At the same time, the Government’s own Regulatory Impact Assessment
(30 June 2003) stated: “One possibility being considered is the
creation by Government of an access radio fund to support the
establishment and running of access radio stations. If it is decided
to proceed with such a scheme the amount of Government support is
unlikely to be more than £3 to 4 million per annum.”

While the community radio sector has declined in income and viability,
Government has, in recent years, allocated £40m to the development of
local digital TV services, a disparity which community radio licensees
consider to be grossly incomprehensible. A question that we are all
still asking is why should the new local digital TV sector, whose
viability and social benefit is unproven, receive £40m in public
investment - meanwhile over 260 community radio stations of evident
social value and public benefit have been allowed to decline with just
a token investment from the public purse?

Regards

Bill Best
-- 
Operations Manager
Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk