[CMA_Radioforum] access radio and the joint committee on the draft communications bill

[Nicky Edmonds]

Hello access radio pilots,

I hope that you are all also on the CMA news list, but just in case you
aren't  (life after all is short)  I would like to draw your attention to a
presentation made this morning by Tony Stoller of the Radio Authority to the
joint committee that is presently discussing the draft communications bill.

For the first time in parliamentary history, the committee meetings are
being webcast and then the committee is inviting people to respond by email.
( see http://www.commbill.net/ for more information about the committee). So
it would be worthwhile the access radio stations yourselves emailing the
committee  about your experiences. From what you said at the meeting last
week, I think that funding is a key issue and that it may be worth letting
the committee know how important a community media/access radio fund would
be to the sector. Email edemocracy at lse.ac.uk.

I've pasted the notes that I made from the webcast below.

Joint scrutiny committee May 23 2002

Summary of what the Radio Authority (Tony Stoller) said about access radio

A Committee member asked is access radio really going to be community based?

T. S said that they are unhappy with the label "community" because many
local commercial stations provide a community service.

But that access radio could be a new innovative and irreverent tier of radio

There are 2 issues:
1. Availability of frequencies. To an extent this is not within the Radio
Authorities gift - though there are some frequencies available on FM and AM,
there are not enough, so if access radio is going to work, it will need to
use some of the BBC radio spectrum. Already  2 of the access radio pilots
are using BBC spectrum, one in the national sub band and one in the local.
T.S. thinks that this will be handled better by Ofcom as they will have the
power to plan for all frequencies.

2. Finance. They are pleased to see the access radio fund mentioned - but
they don't think that the whole access radio concept would fall if the fund
wasn't available. The access radio experiment is identifying how the
stations could be funded and what the maximum commercial revenue should be.
It is looking at what effect access radio has on the income and the
audiences of local commercial stations. NGOs are showing an interest, such
as the Gulbenkian funding the evaluation and the Jerusalem Trust have funded
some start up costs.

When asked if access radio stations might end up being bought up by
newspaper groups or other commercial groups, TS said that this would not
happen because the stations were clearly not for profit with a clearly
defined social remit. For instance there are stations working in Manchester
around social regeneration or there is the London Musicians Collective which
is producing artistic work that wouldn't otherwise happen in radio.  It is
important that access radio stations don't drift into the commercial sector.

At some point in the discussion,  TS gave the impression that Access Radio
will happen in a fairly major way, in a similar way that the local
commercial stations sector has grown, and that access radio will be an
excellent addition to the radio landscape in the UK.


Any questions, please get in touch,  nicky at commedia.org.uk tel -0114 279
5219
best wishes
Nicky Edmonds


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