AM/FM #6 — December 1992

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

Green Paper On BBC Future Published

The Government has published its Green Paper on the future of the BBC. The consultative document lays out a number of possible alternatives for the Corporation, but stops short of a radical shake-up. Launching the paper, Heritage Secretary Peter Brooke emphasised the need for the BBC to become more efficient and to guarantee that it will put the needs of its audiences first.

The Green Paper suggests that there should be some rationalisation of radio services, with the BBC no longer putting out such a wide range of different programming. It questions the continued existance of Radios One and Two and BBC Local Radio when it says commercial stations are already putting out similar services. The BBC would save 140 million UKP a year by axing those services. The paper recommends that the television licence fee should stay, but with possible changes such as one licence per set rather than per household and a tax on car radios.

The BBC has responded with its own document giving its own vision of its future. It expects that the Corporation will have a smaller audience share than at present, with a slightly narrower range of high quality programmes which the rest of the market does not provide. Although the BBC's Radio Three and Four networks remain safe, it does not give any long-term commitment to Radio One and Radio Two. It also backs the creation of a new 24-hour a day news channel to operate on Radio Four's existing Long Wave frequency.

'The BBC's Role in the New Broadcasting Age' is available from many newsagents and BBC shops, or direct from BBC, Broadcasting House, London, W1A 1AA priced UKP 2.95. 'The Future of the BBC — A Consultation Document' is available from HMSO, priced UKP 7.10.

Rescue Talks For LBC

Dame Shirley Porter, controversial former leader of Westminster Council, is involved in talks with LBC which could save the London talk station. Chelverton, a property and venture capital company owned by her family, is considering investing 2 million UKP in LBC. This would help stabilise the station's financial position and see it through to its licence renewal this summer.

Although LBC has been reasonably successful financially, it has been hit by problems caused by its parent company, Crown Communications. These included massive losses by Crown's French station RFM. The new deal would involve a major restructuring of the company, including its banks exchanging debt for a shareholding. After the sale of its remaining assetts, Crown Communications would be left as a minority shareholder in the new company.

Capital Profits Down

Pre-tax profits at Capital Radio, Britain's largest radio group, fell by 1 million UKP to 8.84 million for the year ending the 30th September. Turnover was down only slightly, from 32.5 million to 32.3 million pounds. Turnover continued to be hit by the slump in advertising caused by the recession. Increased advertising and promotions to counter the competition in the increasingly tough London radio market took a hit on profits. The costs of fighting a demand for increased royalties from record companies also took their toll.

BSC Says Ebeneezer Goode Should Not Have Been Aired

The BBC have been criticised by the Broadcasting Standards Council for playing Ebeneezer Goode by the Shamen on Jakki Bramble's lunchtime Radio One show. The BBC had said they considered the drug references in the programme to be sufficiently ambiguous and had to offset banning the record with the greater publicity it would get as a result. The BSC accepted they had a 'dilemma' in doing this, but considered the drug references in the song to be not as ambiguous as they had been led to believe. In the same report, a complaint was upheld over comments made about the Duchess of York's breasts by Steve Allan, late night presenter on Scotland's Moray Firth Radio.

85 Crackers For Christmas

A network of 85 Radio Cracker restricted service stations will be on the air from November 28th up until Christmas. The stations will also carry some networked programming this year, distributed via a sub-carrier on the Astra satellite. Run primarily by youth groups, Radio Cracker will raise money for the third world.

BBC Celebrates Birthday

The BBC celebrated its seventieth birthday on 14th of November. The British Broadcasting Company, set up by an alliance of eight radio manufacturers, transmitted its first news bulletin from the top of the Marconi building in the Strand, London, at 6pm on November 14th, 1922. Transmissions from Manchester and Birmingham followed the next day.

New Rules Following Rape

The Radio Authority is considering new rules on radio stations giving out personal information following the alleged rape of a caller to a South London station. The 17 year old had called black music station Choice FM saying she was lonely. When she called back later she was given the telephone number of a man who had called enquiring after her, along with a recommendation to "be careful". The station says the woman was given appropriate advice by the presenter and has passed on information about the caller to the police. The Authority believes that media criticism over this case would have been less had it been print media rather than radio that was involved.

Sponsorship Revenue Up

According to a new survey by radio marketing company Curtis Hoy, sponsorship now accounts for between 20-35% of revenue at Independent stations. The same survey showed that more than half of the marketing, promotions and sponsorship managers interviewed wanted Radio One to lose its public funding and go commercial. One quarter wanted the BBC station to be forbidden from competing for sponsorship cash, and the rest wanted it closed.

Call For New Regulator For All Radio

James Gordon, boss of Glasgow's Radio Clyde, has called on the Government to create one body to look after all radio — both BBC and Independent. A number of ILR directors are keen for this to happen to prevent what they see as the BBC being able to re-target its radio services to compete with whatever new Independent services are launched.

Local Licences

The Radio Authority has re-advertised the licences of Aire FM and its sister Magic-828 in Leeds. Aire is the largest station so far to have its licence up for renewal.

Essex Radio, which has also just had its licence re-advertised, has begun splitting its AM and FM news services at peak times.

Regent Radio has won the ILR license for Dorchester in Dorset. The main investors will be Somerset's Orchard FM and Radio Investments.

Wales' Radio Ceredigion has postponed its launch to December 14th. It has discovered that one of its transmitter sites is unsuitable and it will take a while for clearance to be given for the use of a new site.

ITN have announced that they plan to bid for LBC's FM licence when it is advertised next Spring.

XFM claims to have broken even after its second 28 day stretch broadcasting to North London under a restricted service station licence. The indie-music station is hoping for a future full-time licence to broadcast Londonwide.

London Christian Radio is in talks with church groups over applying for one of the new Londonwide licences on offer in 1993.

People

Michael Checkland, Managing Director of the BBC, is to leave the organisation early after all. He will make way at the end of December for John Birt, two months before his contract officially finishes.

Award winning Radio Four comedy programme On The Hour is to be turned into a new BBC 2 television programme to be called The Day Today. The programme will be produced the creators of the spoof radio news show, Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris.

Radio Authority Chief Executive Peter Baldwin has had his contract extended to run for another two years. He will now leave at the end of 1995.

Tony Snell, breakfast deejay on Liverpool's Radio City, is back on air after a temporary suspension from the station. He lost his temper with a caller who had phoned up to complain about his jibes about the industrial town of Ellesmere Port, a running-gag on the programme. After she kept talking over him he got fed up, told her to shut her face and cut her off. Unhappy at his behaviour, station management sent in a security guard to remove Tony from the air and escort him off the premises. The last thing listeners heard from the deejay was an appeal for someone to take over for the final 20 minutes of his programme.

Financial News

Allied Radio has announced a loss of one million pounds for the last financial year. The company owns stations in Southern England, including Invicta Radio, Southern Sound, Radio Mercury and County Sound.

The company behind satellite broadcaster Quality Europe FM has gone into voluntary liquidation. The move had been expected for some time. The station is now operating under a new company name from the premises of former satellite station Radio Nova in Camberley, Surrey.

Capital Radio has sold Riviera Radio, which broadcasts in English on the Cote d'Azur to David and Frederick Barclay, owners of The European newspaper.

Bits

The Radio Authority are to amend their codes of conduct to tighten up on 'personal view' political programming. This has been one of the largest areas of complaints to the Authority since its formation.

Classic FM is to hold a workshop for advertising agency staff to try and encourage them to produce better radio ads.

Essex ILR station Mellow 1557 has increased its weekly reach to 26% and is now second to Radio One in its transmission area, according to new research from the station.

Focal Press have published a new book called Local Radio Journalism, co-written by Paul Chantler, who set up Chiltern's Network News service, and freelance Sim Harris.

RMF FM, Poland's first private radio station, has taken a sub-carrier on the Astra 1a satellite.

Classic FM have axed two of their advertising sales staff. Sales Director Nigel Reeve says this brings the team back to its intended number of seven. However, insiders at the station say that selling advertising on the station has been tougher than expected.

Radio One and Radio Five linked up for a joint campaign to warn young people about the dangers of solvent abuse, as part of European Drug Prevention Week.

The Daily Express and Capital FM have linked up again to repeat their joint Face The Forfeit game.

IRN has completed its move to its new headquarters in ITN's building in Grays Inn Road in Central London. The station had been operating out of makeshift facilities following its move from Crown Communications in October.

The Radio Authority is considering axing its advertising levy on the third Independent National Radio licence in a bid to make the speech format station more attractive to applicants.

On average, Europeans spend 194 minutes a day listening to the radio, compared with 207 minutes watching TV, according to a new survey by media group IP.