AM/FM #16 — October 1993

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

Radio One Changes

The long-awaited Radio One reshuffle was announced on the 27th of September by the station's new controller, Matthew Bannister. As predicted in issue 9 of AM/FM, Mark Goodier will take over the breakfast show from Simon Mayo, who will move to the mid-morning show. Jakki Brambles and Steve Wright will stay in their current slots. Mark Goodier's former residence on the early evening new music show will go permanently by Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley. Following the predominantly talk based slots at 8.30pm, Mark Radcliffe will take over at 10pm with a show coming from Manchester. Midnight sees Lynne Parsons in the chair for four hours until Bruno Brookes who continues on early mornings.

Radio Five's Danny Baker jumps over to the weekend mid-morning show, giving rise to speculation about the future of the BBC's fifth national network. The rest of the weekend sees an increase in the number of specialist programmes during daylight hours. Andy Kershaw brings his world music programme to Saturday afternoons, to be followed by John Peel in his first daytime slot for 20 years. Sunday afternoon is the new location of the rock show, presented by recent recruit Claire Sturgess.

After years of being shunned by the station, resulting in Radio One largely missing out on the major new music trend of the past five years, dance music finally gets a higher profile. Pete Tong is to have his Friday night show extended, Steve Edwards moves to Sundays and there is to be a new Saturday mix show.

Six presenters are to leave Radio One: Simon Bates, Nicky Campbell, Alan Freeman, Bob Harris, The Man Ezeke and Diane Oxberry. Simon Bates was reportedly offered a new weekend programme, but declined. His future plans are currently uncertain, although Radio One says he will still do some special programmes for the station. Nicky Campbell has retired from the station for the time being to help care for his wife, Linda, who is suffering from ME. 66 year old Alan Freeman is to retire from regular broadcasting, having suffered increasingly from arthritis in recent years. The new schedule will come in on October 25th.

In a farewell speech to the music industry, the outgoing Controller of Radio One attacked the recently sacked Dave Lee Travis for being a dinosaur. Speaking at the In The City music business convention in Manchester, Johnny Beerling condemned those who did not want the BBC to move forward and keep pace with changing times. However, he also voiced his disagreement with BBC plans to abandon those listeners who were too old for Radio One but too young for Radio Two.

The BBC has recently outlined its desire to attract more young people to Radio One. At the same time, Radio Two has begun once more to concentrate primarily on people over 50. Beerling said that this was music to the ears of Virgin 1215 and the ILR Gold stations. He would prefer to see Radio Two operating as the BBC's contemporary music station for grown ups, targetting the 30 to 60 year old post-rock generation.

LBC Abandons Licence Appeal

LBC has abandoned its plans to launch a judicial review of the Radio Authority's decision to remove its licence. It says that this procedure would be too expensive and time consuming with little chance of success. Instead it plans to concentrate its energies on applying for the third Independent National Radio licence, which will be advertised in December. LBC's decision was announced at a supporters' rally held by the station in September, attended by 1,500 of its listeners. Dame Shirley Porter, chairman of the station, says they plan to submit an aggressive bid, backed by finance from their family interests in Tesco's supermarkets.

The Radio Authority warned LBC in early September that it was considering imposing sanctions on the station over its campaign to keep its licence. The Authority was concerned that LBC was breaching the rules on impartiality by devoting so much time to its plight. Station management told presenters that direct attacks on the Authority must cease.

LBC's Mike Carlton and Richard Littlejohn have been particularly vitriolic in their attacks on the Radio Authority. In reply to an article by Mike Carlton in the Guardian newspaper, Radio Authority board member John Grant accused Mike Carlton of being a "pompous, overbearing, overpaid imported Aussie". The number of complaints to the Authority over the termination of LBC's licence was so great that a temporary secretary had to be taken on to cope with the extra influx of mail.

The Authority has insisted that the decision to replace LBC with London News Radio was taken on merit alone. However, under the broadcasting legislation it does not have to give reasons for its choice. David Mellor MP, one of the main architects of the 1990 Broadcasting Act, says he now believes that this was a mistake. The Association of Independent Radio Companies has pointed out that it expressed a desire for an open system in all its submissions to the Government when the legislation was drawn up.

LNR Get The Go-Ahead

The Radio Authority have now approved the financial structure of London News Radio, the successor to LBC. The Authority had asked for some changes to bring the company into line with requirements under the 1990 Broadcasting Act for domestic broadcasters to have their majority control within the EC.

At the time of its bid, LNR was controlled by the Japanese-owned merchant bank Guinness Mahon, although it expected to bring in other partners including French media group Hachette. Under the new arrangement control passes to the new Managing Director of LNR, former Guinness Mahon Head of Communications Bruce Fireman. Hachette meanwhile seem likely to drop out, although Guinness Mahon still hope to place shares among institutional shareholders. LBC has questioned the suitability of its replacement following these disclosures.

LNR have announced that they plan to take on most of LBC's journalists, but do not expect to employ any of its star presenters.

Third INR To Be Advertised In December

The Radio Authority will advertise the licence for the third Independent National Radio station in December. The winner will be announced in Summer 1994 and start broadcasting in early 1995 on the frequencies currently used by Radio One on AM. INR 3 is for a primarily speech based station and the winner will be decided by cash bid. LBC, ITN and the London Radio Consortium are among likely contenders.

New Broadcasting Legislation On The Way

The Government has announced that it will publish its white paper on the future of the BBC early next year. Heritage Secretary Peter Brooke has said that the BBC cannot necessarily rely on its current charter being renewed. Speaking to the Television Society he said that there was still a need for greater accountability and improved efficiency.

As well as dealing with the charter renewal, the Paper is also expected to propose some changes to the 1990 Broadcasting Act. In particular, the Government is reported to be considering a new watchdog body for radio and television. This would take the place of the Broadcasting Standards Council and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and aim to extend the citizen's charter into broadcasting. It has also been suggested that this new body could carry out some of the monitoring functions currently carried out by the Radio Authority, the Independent Television Commission and the BBC Govenors.

Liquidated Sunset Re-Applies For Licence

Manchester dance station Sunset Radio has gone into liquidation. In May the Radio Authority made a decision to prematurely terminate Sunset's licence, accusing the station of providing inaccurate information about its financial and management affairs. In August the station had its transmission facilities withdrawn by NTL for non-payment. Following a brief return to the air Stephen Quinn of BDO Binder Hamlyn was appointed liquidator and Sunset's frequency fell silent. He hopes to sell the station as a going concern and re-applied on its behalf for its recently re-advertised licence.

Further Changes At Radio Three

Radio Three is to make further changes to its format to try and increase its popularity. In future the breakfast show will be hosted by just one regular presenter, Andrew McGregor, rather than having a different member of a small team of presenters each day. Various specialist programmes are to be moved to make it easier to know what to expect at each time of the day and others are to be given new names. A new 15 minute slot will aim to introduce young people to classical music. Radio Three's promotions will also be emphasising the live relays of concerts that it carries, in contrast to the largely recorded output of Classic FM.

Local Licences

The Radio Authority say they may licence an extra four stations to broadcast in London from 1995. Two on FM and one on AM had previously been announced.

A new licence for Fort William in Scotland has been advertised. Closing date for applications is December 7th.

A licence for a travel information service to cover the M20 between Maidstone and Dover has been advertised.

A new AM licence for Birmingham will be on offer in October.

The local licence for South London has been re-advertised. It is currently held by black music station Choice FM.

17 groups have applied for the two licences on offer in Manchester. 4 groups have applied for the new AM licence and 13 groups for the FM licence, until recently occupied by Sunset FM.

North East Community Radio were the sole applicant for the new ILR licence for Inverurie in Aberdeenshire.

Two groups have applied for the Stockport FM licence currently held by Signal Cheshire. The challenger is Stockport Choice FM.

Two groups have applied for the new licence for Harrogate: Ridings Radio and Stray FM.

Restricted Service Radio

Ice FM have a 28 day restricted service licence for Newcastle, broadcasting dance music to the area from October 2nd.

People

Virgin 1215's late night phone-in host Nick Abbott was suspended from the station for two days and fined UKP 1,000 after hurling abuse at LBC live on air. He rang up a rival phone-in on LBC, apparently to make fun of it for losing its licence, but was recognised by the switchboard operator who put the phone down on him. He then launched into a rant attacking the talk station and the operator, who he called a bitch.

Tony Blackburn is the most recognised deejay in London, according to a poll by the capital's commercial stations. Chris Tarrant came in at number two, followed by Radio Two's Jimmy Young. Radio One's younger generation of deejays were significantly behind the older generation who had previously worked on the station.

Sally O'Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Good Housekeeping magazine, is to take over from Anne Robinson as presenter of Radio Two's Saturday morning magazine show.

Radio One's John Peel has begun a new weekly column in the Radio Times.

Norman Jay has resigned from Kiss FM, apparently after differences with the station. Kiss have made a number of changes to their evening and weekend schedules, including the introduction of newcomer Fat Freddy M with a new street soul and swing show.

Advertising And Promotions

Classic FM has launched a new scheme to try and boost the appreciation of classical music amongst young people. This will involve work in schools linked to a new one hour programme on the station aimed at a younger audience. Cross and Blackwell are to sponsor the UKP 2.2 million Classic Masterclass project, which will run over 2 years.

ILR stations are to launch a new twice-daily news and entertainment programme to be networked across the country. The programme comes as part of a push by Independent Local Radio to try and increase its use by national advertisers.

14 ILR stations are to carry a prize giveaway called the Bank of Beyond, in association with Castlemaine lager.

According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, revenue from spot advertising has risen by 20 percent over the previous six months. Income from sponsorship and other promotions has doubled in the same period.

Financial News

Transworld Communications reported a pre-tax profit of UKP 254,000 for the first half of 1993. This was down from UKP 395,000 for the same period the previous year. Turnover was up slightly from UKP 5.69 million to UKP 5.71 million.

Classic FM earned UKP 11 million worth of advertising revenue in its first year on air. It originally anticipated earning UKP 8 million and hopes to break the UKP 1 million a month barrier this month.

Island FM, broadcasting to the Channel Islands, made a profit of UKP 44,000 in its first six months on air.

Bits

The BBC has begun test transmissions of Digital Audio Broadcasting from its Crystal Palace transmitter. This is the first set of tests to be carried out on the actual frequencies which will be used by DAB when it comes into service later this decade.

London Country Radio have been giving details of their new Country station which will be on the air in London from January. The station expects to have a mix of traditional country and new country during peak hours along with a sprinkling of rock and roll. Specialist programmes will cover cajun, bluegrass, Tex-Mex, country folk and even gospel.

The Voice of Peace, an offshore radio station broadcasting to Israel, has closed down following the signing of the new Israel-PLO peace accord. Owner Abie Nathan now plans to turn the ship into a peace museum. Over its 20 year life, The Voice of Peace acted as a training ground for a number of British broadcasters.

BBC Network Radio has been asked to make further savings of 10 percent in next year's budgets.

Record producer Pete Waterman has accused other record companies of hiring teams to go out and buy up records to hype them into the singles chart. In a session at the In The City music business convention in Manchester, he called for an independent body to oversee the pop charts and stamp out malpractices.

The Association of Independent Radio Contractors is to review its structure. The organisation has seen a number of clashes between its members recently, particularly with the arrival of the Independent National Radio stations.

Copyright 1993 TQM Communications / 2001 amfm.org.uk. All rights reserved.