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AM/FM

AM/FM #12 — June 1993

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

RAJAR Wave One Ratings Out

The latest audience research figures are out, covering the first three months of 1993. Radio One remains Britain's top station with 16 million listeners, followed by Radio Two with 10 million, Radio Four with 9 million, Classic FM with 4.5 million and Atlantic 252 with 3.9 million. Classic FM's audience increased by 5.5%. Improved performances at Radio Four and Radio Five helped boost the BBC's figures, giving the BBC 59% of the total radio audience.

In London, Capital FM continued to pull the biggest audience, though there was a surprise surge from Jazz FM, up 130,000 listeners to 666,000.

RAJAR have announced that they are to make changes to better tarket young people in their next audience research. This followed criticism of previous research for under-representing the youth sector.

The latest Cultural Trends survey shows radio undergoing a huge surge in popularity and starting to close the gap on television. Nine out of ten people now listen to the radio for three hours or more every day with a total audience in the UK of 41.6 million listeners.

Sunset Licence Cut Short

In an unprecedented move, the Radio Authority has cut short the licence of Manchester's Sunset Radio. The Authority made the decision after accusing the station of providing inaccurate information about its financial and management affairs.

Sunset was launched in 1989 and provides a mixture of dance music and ethnic programming. However, it has had a number of management and financial problems. Its founder Mike Shaft was sacked, reinstated and then resigned during its first year. John Darch, widely credited for turning the station around and bringing it into profit, left in unclear circumstances in 1991. Sunset is currently owned by Iraqi businessman Hassan Al-Jaizani and was a shareholder in one of the groups applying for the North West regional licence.

Jazz FM For The North West

Golden Rose, owners of Jazz FM, have won the new regional Independent licence for the North West. The new station will begin broadcasting in September 1994 to around 4.3 million listeners in Merseyside, Greater Manchester, South Lancashire and North Cheshire. Its format will be similar to Jazz FM and will share some programming outside daytime hours. Golden Rose faced competition from 10 other groups for the licence.

Golden Rose are also applying for a Londonwide AM licence for a station targetted at 30-something women. The company has raised 0.5 million out of a needed 3.5 million pounds to support its London bid, bringing Jazz FM into profit and winning the new North West regional licence.

Dann Quits GLR

Trevor Dann has resigned as Managing Editor of GLR. He followed his deputy Kate Marsh who walked out of the the station the previous week. Along with former GLR boss Matthew Bannister, Dann had been responsible for GLR's innovative mix of adult rock and talk. This helped to turn around the station and bring in much larger audiences than the old Radio London. However, BBC management wanted the station to concentrate more on speech, as part of a general policy for BBC local radio. After seeing the loss of many of his best staff to Virgin 1215 and the audience drop substantially since the latest changes, Trevor Dann finally decided to leave. He has been replaced by the boss of BBC Radio Solent.

A 'GLR in exile' has been formed to apply for one of the Londonwide licences currently on offer. The consortium was put together by Nicholas Wapshott, chairman of the advisory panel to the BBC local station, and has approached Trevor Dann to work for the new station. If successful, the consortium would offer a format almost identical to the GLR of old.

BBC Network Radio To Stay In Current Form

The BBC is to keep all its National networks in their current form. The announcement was made by Liz Forgan, new head of BBC Radio, in an interview on Radio Two. Radio Five was singled out for praise by her as being the BBC's most adventurous station. She also announced that further changes to Radio Three were likely in order to bring in a larger audience for the classical music station. Richard Branson's idea of swapping Virgin on AM for Radio Four on FM was dismissed by Ms Forgan as a publicity stunt. Two thirds of Radio Four's audience currently listens on FM.

Radio One's Commercial Partnerships Defended

The BBC has defended Radio One against claims that it is breaching its licence by running promotions with private companies. This followed a complaint from the Association of Independent Radio Companies to the BBC and the Department of National Heritage. They allege that in the past year outside companies have spent one million pounds on co-promotion activities with the station. Because of the BBC's behaviour they believe Independent Radio is being deprived of advertising and sponsorship revenue. A spokesman for Radio One said that it kept editorial control and worked within the strict rules, although Radio One "pushed to the limits of the guidelines".

Two New FM Stations For London?

The Radio Authority are looking into the possibility of licensing two new FM stations for London. These would broadcast on the 105 to 108 MHz part of the band that becomes available by 1996. A decision has yet to be made as to whether these should cover just the Metropolitan area or a wider spread across the South East. The new licences are likely to be offered at the same time as those for Capital FM and Capital Gold are renewed.

Research With Renewal Reminders

The BBC are to ask two million people a year what they think of the Corporation's output and how it is performing. Along with their TV licence renewal reminders, one in ten people will get a questionaire to fill in. The plan was outlined in the BBC submission to the Government on its future after its charter is renewed in 1996. The BBC says it wants to continue offering the broad range of quality and distinctive programmes it does now, but with greater openness and accountability. A White Paper which more firmly decides just what will happen to the BBC will be published by the end of the year.

London Licence Applicants

Joan Bakewell is behind a talk and quality pop station aimed primarily at women.

The Chrysalis Group and French pop network NRJ have applied to run an adult rock station.

A group of people previously involved with eighties pirate station Solar FM want to run a new soul station.

Bloomberg, owners of New York news station WNEW-AM, have bid to run a business news station.

London Transport have applied for a station to carry London travel information during the day and rock music at night.

The deadline for applications closed on the 8th of June. The next issue of the AM/FM Online Edition carries a full listing of applicants, many of whom are also profiled in the AM/FM Newsletter.

Local Licences

Five groups have applied for the regional radio licence for the North East: Heritage FM, Easy FM and The Mix — all promising easy listening formats — country station Radio North East and Christian station Sound FM.

Three groups have so far announced plans to apply for the new FM licence for the West Midlands. These are Diamond Radio, an AOR service, pop/dance station Buzz FM who want to expand their coverage area, and Allied Radio.

The Radio Authority has advertised the Independent Regional Radio licence for Central Scotland. The station will reach a potential audience of 2.3 million people and is expected to cover most of the area from Glasgow to Edinburgh. This is the last of the regional licences to be advertised in the current phase.

The BBC has launched a new station, Dorset FM, to compete with the new ILR station for the area opening later in the year. The station will include locally produced breakfast and lunchtime programmes, with the rest of the output taken from BBC Radio Devon.

Chiltern Radio has retained its licences for Bedford / Luton and Northampton.

Mercia Sound has retained its re-advertised licences for Coventry.

Hereward Radio was the sole-bidder for its re-advertised licences for Peterborough.

Yorkshire Coast Radio has won the new ILR licence for Scarborough.

Mid Anglia Radio was the sole applicant for its re-advertised licences for Peterborough.

The Radio Authority has re-advertised the licences for Gloucester, currently held by Severn Sound Hot FM and Severn Sound Supergold, part of the Chiltern Group. The licences for Exeter and Torbay, held by DevonAir Radio, have also been re-advertised.

Ten17, the new ILR station for Harlow, took to the air on May 1st. The station is owned by Essex Radio, with 30 hours a week of its own local programming.

Financial News

Capital Radio made a profit of 4.6 million pounds on a 16 million pound turnover in the 6 months up to the end of March. Profits were up by around 13 percent over last time on a similar turnover. This was helped by a reduction in the amount the station has to pay for record royalties.

Metro Radio saw advertising revenue at the station go up to 6.6 million pounds from 5.95 million for the six months up to the end of March. Profits were up 19 percent to 797,000 pounds. Local advertising has been doing well at the station, up 21 percent, but national advertising has been down 10 percent. This has been partly due to problems at Independent Radio Sales who represent Metro to national advertisers. IRS is owned by Crown Communications who are currently in receivership.

Radio Clyde made a profit of 1.5 million pounds in the six months up to the end of March — 50 percent more than it made in the whole of the previous year. Clyde, which now owns stations throughout Scotland, turned over 7 million pounds in the half year period.

Losses at the Chiltern Group are growing. In the six months up the end of March, the station had a loss of 325,000 pounds compared to an 180,000 pound loss last time. Turnover was up 7.8 percent to 2.75 million.

Southern Radio, owners of most of the ILR stations south of London, have seen their profits go up by nearly 60 percent. In the six months to the end of March, the group made a 165,000 pound profit on a 4.01 million pound turnover.

Bits

The Radio Authority have upheld a complaint over Birmingham's Buzz FM. The Authority found that the station had fallen below the requirement in its promise of performance for 70 percent black music. Instead it says listeners were being treated to a mainstream contemporary service during the daytime and black music at off-peak hours.

Complaints have been flooding in to the BBC over the new schedules for Radio Scotland. In line with the rest of the Corporation's output, the BBC has introduced more speech on the station. This has meant the axing of several contemporary music programmes, cutting access to the airwaves for Scottish rock music. Other specialist programmes have also gone, to make way for more talk and MOR music.

The Save Radio Four on Long Wave campaign have backed Richard Branson in his suggestion that Virgin 1215 should carry out a swap with the BBC's FM frequencies for Radio Four.

Virgin 1215 have been banned from booking advertising time for the station on Capital FM. The station originally planned to spend half a million pounds on local radio advertising.

Atlantic 252 and Classic FM are considering linking up to try and sell a joint advertising package to national advertisers.

Classic FM has put up its advertising rates following its success in the latest audience research figures.

LBC was forced to apologise on air after accidentally running an old advert. In place of the correct commercial for Harrod's, an old one for a one-off warehouse sale was put out. The station put out special announcements to correct the error, but some members of the public still turned up the Harrod's Osterley warehouse.

A junior school in Birmingham was closed for several days in May for a 'cooling-off period' after a local pirate station broadcast calls for a demonstration in support of a boy who staff were refusing to teach.

Attendances at churches which featured in a local radio advertising campaign by the Church of England at Christmas were up 16 percent compared with those that didn't take part.