AM/FM #1 — July 1992

News from the UK Radio Industry. Edited by Stephen Hebditch.

Radio Authority Announces New Regional Licences

The Radio Authority are to advertise five new regional radio licences. The stations will cover Central Scotland, North-East England, The West Midlands, North-West England and the Severn Estuary. They will cover a maximum of four and a half million adults and broadcast on FM only. The stations will be expected to offer a different format to the existing broadcasters.

Peter Baldwin, Director of the Authority, says he hopes they will provide a way of offering listeners some of the choice already available in London. Dance music and rock formats are suggested as likely winners. Research is to be carried out by the RA into which music formats would be most popular in each of the areas.

London's Kiss FM, LBC, Jazz FM and Capital Radio are amongst the stations who have already expressed an interest. Capital are seeking to confirm whether their pop/dance FM format would be allowed in an area like Scotland where existing ILR offers a more general format.

Re-advertising of licences

The Radio Authority has confirmed the rules under which existing Independent Radio licences will be re-advertised. Starting from this autumn, each AM and FM frequency will be advertised separately. This has upset some stations who don't believe that they could make a profit if they lost one of their frequencies. However, Peter Baldwin says he expects there to be a 'reasonable degree of stability' and they will take this factor into account when they make a decision.

The Radio Authority also revealed that the current licence shared by London Greek Radio and black music station WNK in North London will only go to one station when it is re-advertised next year.

British Success At International Radio Awards

Britain has won twelve out of the sixty awards at this year's New York International Radio Festival. Six went to the BBC, including Radio Five's first international award for Best Science and Technology Programme. Others went to Saturday morning talk show Loose Ends, Germany Calling, a documentary on wartime broadcaster Lord Haw Haw and The World Tonight, for its live broadcast from Moscow on the last day of the Soviet Union. Belfast's Downtown Radio won Best Drama Award for its Voices of the Somme documentary. Radio Clyde, LBC and Capital also won awards.

Test Transmissions From Classic FM Begin

Classic FM have begun test transmissions at a number of sites around the country. They can be found between 100 and 102 FM. The station will initially broadcast from 22 transmitter sites, with programmes coming from studios in Camden Town. The test transmissions consist mainly of wildlife sound recordings — the station is keeping its format under wraps until right before its launch.

Concern Over LBC

The Radio Authority is concerned about the health of London news and talk station LBC. Crown Communications, its owners, last week announced a loss of over five and a half million pounds for the last six months. The value of their shares has dramatically dropped from two pounds fifty two years ago to just eight pence. It is understood that the Authority has had meetings with investors who could take over the station in the event of its parent company collapsing. Crown are currently in talks to sell a stake in its IRS advertising sales house to American sales house Interep.

Second INR To Launch In 1993

Independent Music Radio, the second INR station, will now be launching in Spring 1993 instead of the previous Autumn 1992 date. The Radio Authority are currently surveying advertisers to find out when they think they should advertise the third Independent National Radio licence which will be for speech only.

Appeal Over Third INR Licence

Heritage Radio, one of the failed contenders for both Independent National Radio stations and London licences, has appealed to the Government to allow them to run a new arts radio station. They want to operate under the control of the new Ministry of Heritage rather than the Radio Authority. Although it has the backing of a number of leading figures in the arts world, insiders are not holding out hope of success for Heritage Radio's chances.

New Local Licences

The Radio Authority has announced that three new Londonwide licences will be on offer in 1993 — all on AM. A new neighbourhood licence will also be on offer for the Newham and Tower Hamlets area of East London.

The latest licence up for grabs is for a station to serve Dorchester and Weymouth in Dorset. The new service will reach around eighty thousand people. The deadline for applications is September.

Wey Valley Radio has won the licence for Alton in Hampshire. It was the only bidder.

Six groups have bid for the Colchester ILR licence, including former pirate station ICR.

Restricted Service Stations

Radio Wimbledon are broadcasting on 101.6 FM to a two mile radius around the All England Club for the duration of the tournament. The advert-free station, paid for by the club, features a mix of MOR pop, interviews with tennis stars and commentators and information for people attending the tournament.

Irish Festival Radio will be broadcasting to North London for 4 weeks from the 3rd of July.

The Guardian are to sponsor restricted service station Festival Radio at this year's Edinburgh Festival. The station is being put together by Somethin' Else Productions, run by Kiss FM deejays Chris Philips and Jez Nelson.

Restricted service station Dartington Community Radio was hit by vandals during its recent broadcast. Two thousand pounds worth of equipment was stolen after thieves broke into its mobile studio caravan.

Meanwhile, in the run-up to the issuing of more full licences in London, the number of restricted service licences on offer in the capital will be reduced.

Takeovers

Irish state broadcaster RTE has sold part of its stake in Atlantic 252 to partners CLT — owners of Radio Luxembourg. RTE now holds 20 percent of the station with CLT 80 percent. At the same time, station manager Travis Baxter becomes Managing Director.

GWR have bought a forty percent share in new Salisbury radio station Spire FM. It recently purchased Isle of Wight Radio for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

East Anglian Radio have denied they plan to bid for neighbours Mid Anglia Radio. Insider reports suggest that there have been informal talks between the two companies, however.

Financial News

Profits at Capital Radio are down nine hundred thousand pounds to 4.11 million for the six months up to the end of March. Although Capital is mostly keeping its share of the London radio audience, it has had to spend more on promotion to do so, which has hit its profits. However, it still has 18 million pounds in the bank which it is likely to spend on buying up stations outside London.

Profits at Radio Clyde are up nearly sixty percent, to 1.1 million pounds. This was largely because of the Glasgow station's takeover of Edinburgh's Radio Forth and Birmingham's Buzz FM.

GWR — one of Classic FM's shareholders — has announced profits up by nearly seven hundred percent to quarter of a million pounds last year.

Midland Radio, who operate seven ILR stations, have announced profits of seven hundred thousand pounds — nearly double their last year's figures.

Chiltern Radio have announced a loss of 179,000 pounds on a two and a half million pound turnover. It is now concentrating its efforts on local advertising sales.

The Radio Authority made a loss of 585,000 pounds last year. It earnt just under two million pounds from licence fees from stations.

Job Losses

Birmingham's Buzz FM have closed their newsroom with the loss of three jobs. It will instead transmit IRN news on the hour, and use freelancers to provide travel information.

Radio Two is to lay off four out of its eleven newsreaders.

People

Radio One and GLR deejay Chris Evans is to present the new Channel Four breakfast show. The programme, produced by Bob Geldof's TV company, will be set in a London house, rather than a TV studio.

Metro FM deejay Mark Forrest has set off on a five month cycling expedition across Europe to raise money for radiotherapy equipment for Newcastle General Hospital. The station will carry regular reports of his progress.

In a repeat of last year, several music stars are to sit in for Simon Bates when he is away next month. Bates' Mates — as the BBC has dubbed them — will include Diana Ross, Oleta Adams, Def Leppard's Joe Elliot and The Petshop Boys.

Radio One's Bruno Brooks is to get married to model Debbie Brooker.

Bits

Northants 96, part of the Chiltern Radio Network, have increased the amount of local programming they produce to 12 hours a day. In the run-up to the re-advertising of the ILR licences, more stations seem set to follow suit.

The BBC are to run a show at Broadcasting House this summer to celebrate 70 years of BBC Radio and 60 years of Broadcasting House. The exhibition will feature actors who will tell visitors about the history of the Corporation.

Today Newspaper are to carry Radio Two's Easy Listening chart.

London listings magazine City Limits is to sponsor a what's on guide on Jazz FM, to go out three times an evening.

Paisley Local Radio, on air in West Glasgow from September, will use the on-air name Q96 FM.

Ireland's Atlantic 252 will be included in the new RAJAR audience research figures. Previously it was denied a place in the UK Independent Radio figures.