[cma-l] Community Radio Fund & the CMA

[Eddie Stuart]

Hmm - a fascinating debate! However, I can see some problems with some of the suggestions......

CR stations, like Joseph's coat come in many colours...

It would seem that some are fairly sizeable training organisations, and the radio side is almost an aside - in that the training is the key part, radio is obviously part of it, community involvement etc., and running a radio station has an extremely wide range of skills needed..... - I hope that that makes sense? It's not meant to be derogatory in any way!!!

At the other end of the spectrum, there are some CR stations that have relatively little training in their mix, but run a very small station with just a handful of people.

We come into the latter category. We've been operating as a weekday evening community opt-out from MFR (Inverness) on their frequency in the Moray area since 1997, now gradually going 7 days a week and extending our hours - we love MFR but we are now enjoying our freedom on our own frequency!!

If the CR fund was used to pay each station £50,000 we'd have a problem - that's about 4 times our current annual turnover....... (you can check for free at Companies House - last A/Cs there are to 31/3/2015 when it was 5.5x t/o..... - going live on our own licence has increased our costs!)

So, a lesser amount (£30K) would still be in excess - even £10K would encourage us to be very lazy as it would cover say 1/2 to 2/3 or more of our costs.

If you are at the opposite end of the scale to us, yup, £30K/£50K could very much make the difference between survival. It could kill us for a different reason!

Avoiding a conservative v socialist discussion (!!) it is true that having little cash and applying for our licence really did sharpen everyone up. Conversely, tell me that you'll cover x% of everything and boy, am I going to use every (legal!!) trick to max that x%.

Like when I worked in the public sector, in March you spent like mad, otherwise you lost it for future years. Not sure that you'll actually use it? Doesn't matter, get rid of the money and you'll have it again next year...... Bad financial discipline.....

No easy answer!!

Eddie

KCR broadcasts across Moray and beyond on 107.7FM
and to the world on the internet athttp://kcr.fm

KCR is the operating name of Keith Community Radio Ltd.
Registered in Scotland: No SC 173805
Registered Office: 59a Land Street, Keith, Banffshire, AB55 5AN