[cma-l] Community Radio Fund mini-survey

[Bill Best]

Hi

Just in case people didn't see this email buried in the long thread
entitled 'Community Radio Fund & the CMA' I'm reposting this in a new
thread to give it higher profile.

The CMA informed DCMS in its 2014 Community Radio Consultation that we had
held a consultation meeting in Sheffield in April 2014 at which members
attending the meeting "unanimously put forward the view that the Community
Radio Fund should be distributed equally to all eligible stations rather
than on a contested basis as is now". However it was apparent at the time
that not all members supported that view.

The original question put forward by DCMS in its 2014 Consultation was as
follows:

Question 7 – How can Community Radio Fund grant funding be better used.
*There are no plans to alter how decisions are taken to distribute the
grant however we welcome views on other ways in which the grant could be
better targeted and how might this be done. *


Interestingly there is no acknowledgement of Question 7 in the Government
Response to the Consultation on Community Radio here: http://bit.ly/1XmMLaA

The advice I have received on this so far is that a change to how the
Community Radio Fund is distributed would not be impossible. However to
distribute the Fund equally between all licensed stations would require a
substantial change on which DCMS "would probably need to consult".

The agreement between DCMS and Ofcom is written by DCMS - the Fund belongs
to DCMS and is merely administered by Ofcom. The Funding Agreement for the
next four years now requires updating. For the current year (2016/17),
substantial change is not envisaged - the first round of the Fund
<http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/radio/community-radio-fund/> is
already open for applications and *closes next week on Thursday 26th May*.

Going forward, DCMS will look more broadly at the CRF to reflect the
secured funding of £400,000 for community radio for 2016/17, 2017/18,
2018/19 and 2019/20. Other options for distributing the Fund will be
considered.

This week, the CMA has again indicated to DCMS that a proposal to
distribute the CRF equally amongst licensed stations remains popular and
the CMA will collate the views expressed on this mailing list and submit
them to DCMS and to Ofcom. There is also an online form here for members to
submit their feedback:

http://bit.ly/2016CRF

We will keep this 'mini-survey' open until *30th June*.

Best regards for now

Bill Best
-- 
Operations Manager
Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk
https://twitter.com/community_media
https://facebook.com/CommunityMediaAssociation

Canstream Internet Radio
http://www.canstream.co.uk
https://twitter.com/canstream

*Book your tickets now for the Community Media Conference
2016: http://bit.ly/2016CMAConf <http://bit.ly/2016CMAConf>*
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