[cma-l] Community Radio Fund & the CMA

Tue May 17 20:24:51 BST 2016

I catch your drift - I'm on the same wavelength/frequency!

I hope I don't get in trouble for this, but there is a similar conversation
going on at a new Facebook group for Community Radio (nothing to do with
me!)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/892430130867211/

Glyn

On 17 May 2016 at 17:22, Phil Edmonds <lists at philedmonds.info> wrote:

> Thinking aloud here....
>
> Every Community Radio station has the Ofcom Licence fees (which unless
> it's changed since I last looked a couple of years back, that if you were
> an analogue Commercial Radio station would be zero rated if you had the
> turnover of an average CR station) plus at least the 'minimum' PRS/MCPS and
> PPL fee.
>
> So there's 500k in the Community Radio fund....
>
> Maybe someone should put in an application to the Community Radio Fund to
> mass pay "everyone's" Ofcom and minimum music royalties basic costs (hey it
> might even mean that PRS can sort out the admin correctly on such a 'block
> booking'!)
>
> Back of the fag packet calculations gets me broadly to the 500k mark with
> this.
>
> I could be even more radical and suggest a mass submission of the same
> "spilt up the fund to all stations equally" set of applications...
>
>
> Now my initial thought on this front was somewhat "tongue in cheek", but
> maybe there is a little nugget of an idea in there?
>
> I'll duck and cover now....
>
> Phil.
> (Personal views, not necessarily those of any organisation I'm involved
> with.)
>
>
>
>
> On 17/05/2016 13:24, Alex Gray, Two Lochs Radio wrote:
>
>> Clearly a grant to Community Radio is not in any way a handout to a
>> ‘begging bowl’. The whole justification for there being CR licences
>> available is that such stations are expected to provide ‘social gain’ –
>> so the government has already accepted that there is a value to society
>> in having these stations. In which case it seems to me that in principle
>> it would be perfectly proper for public funds to contribute to
>> delivering that social purpose.
>>
>> As has already been mentioned, that was indeed proposed to the tune of
>> £30k per station in the original 2003 recommendations for CR licensing.
>> That didn’t happen, presumably because of a lack of political
>> will/lobbying from the commercial companies.
>>
>> There is another potential practical route to value this social purpose
>> – one that has worked well for us in Scotland for the stations that were
>> licensed prior to CR licences and their restrictions on commercial income.
>>
>> That is to persuade the Government of the need and value to run ‘public
>> service’ and ‘social message’ advertising on community-based stations.
>> This avoids any need to think about or discuss ‘begging bowls’ since we
>> are selling them a product of value in return for the income, not asking
>> for ‘something for nothing’.
>>
>> In Scotland the Scottish Government instructs the advertising agencies
>> to place a small share of the overall public service advertising budget
>> with the community-based non-profit stations such as ours, and it has
>> been a very important income stream.
>>
>> Of course there is a problem in this scheme in that as things stand it
>> couldn’t be applied to stations with CR licences that limit or bar
>> commercial airtime income, but maybe it would be easier to persuade
>> Ofcom/DCMS that this requirement should be eased/removed in the case of
>> official social/public service messages from Government – ie that such
>> advertising would not count as commercial income for Ofcom purposes, or
>> that licence conditions would be amended to permit such income.
>>
>> Just an idea. While it’s provides nowhere near as much as the originally
>> proposed core CR funding from Government,  It has been a substantial
>> help for us for over 10 years in Scotland.
>>
>>
>> Alex
>>
>> *From:*cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
>> [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] *On Behalf Of
>> *Canalside's The Thread
>> *Sent:* 17 May 2016 12:36
>> *To:* 'The Community Media Association Discussion List'
>> <cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
>> *Subject:* Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Fund & the CMA
>>
>> Let’s not get into the debate    re:- value of the product
>> our product is viewed differently by possibly every Tom, Dick and Harry
>> on this Island. It is irrelevant owing to the very reason why Community
>> Radio was set up….
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Glyn Roylance - Principal Consultant
Associated Broadcast Consultants <http://www.a-bc.co.uk/>
<http://www.a-bc.co.uk/index.html>
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