Radio Futures

Steve Hamley finds out what's in the Green Paper

What is a Green Paper?

A Green Paper is a report that looks at whether there is a need for future changes in the law, and what those changes should be. It is a consultative document: once published the Government invites individuals and groups to comment upon its findings and give their own views. In the case of the Green Paper on radio, people have up till 30 June to respond.

Taking into account the responses that have been received, a White Paper is then drawn up, which sets out the Government's intentions. If they decide to proceed further (and they don't always do so) then the White Paper is turned into a Bill, which is put before Parliament.

This gets extensively discussed and debated. Additions are made, parts are removed or amended, and eventually it becomes an Act. After the Queen sticks her paw-print on it, the Act finally becomes law. The whole process is extremely slow, maybe taking a couple of years or more from start to finish. That is, unless the Government decides it's a priority and rushes it through.

What is in the Green Paper?

The Green Paper looked at two main areas: national and local (including community) radio. Many people expected it to deal primarily with local radio and the inclusion of a big national element was a surprise. This is also likely to slow down its progress to becoming law.

The basic proposals are as follows:

Up to three new national commercial stations, which would provide increased competition for BBC National Radio.
A new tier of community radio services: both neighbourhood stations and community of interest.
A new radio authority, which would regulate both independent and community stations. Both would be subject to a minimum of regulations, and would be free to decide their own programming policies. (Currently, Independent Radio stations have to submit their programming plans to the IBA and have certain quotas for news, religion, etc.)

Let's look in more detail at the individual proposals:

National Radio

Currently we have o course four national radio services provided by the BBC. The Green Paper proposes that three national independent stations are set up as competition. However, as it stands, there aren't enough frequencies available for all these services, so the Paper proposes giving space currently used by the BBC to these new stations. This would mean that, say, Radio Two which can currently be received on both Medium Wave and VHF might only be on VHF, with a new station on its old MW frequencies.

These new stations would be allowed to choose for themselves what sort of programming they wished to carry, and wouldn't have to conform to current ideas about 'Public Service Broadcasting'. Whereas even Radio One has to carry out certain duties such as news, documentaries, information campaigns (Action Special, AIDS, etc.), the new stations would be free to just play the Top Forty continuously — much like Laser. Quite what effect this would have on Aunty Beeb we'll have to wait and see...

Local Radio

Like their new national counterparts, local stations would be free to do as they want programme-wise, as well as now owning their own transmission equipment and being released from various financial restrictions.

Community Radio

The Green Paper proposes the licensing of hundreds of new community stations (yippee!) around the country, depending upon available frequencies. The Government wants to see a wide variety of different radio services, from neighbourhood stations serving a small locality to specialist music stations, ethnic stations or other new forms of radio.

Community stations would be free to pick thejr own programming, but they would have to deliver the service they promised when they were granted their licence. No good applying to be a folk music station thinking you'll get a licence if really you're planning on going Top Forty cos they won't have it! This is also necessary to ensure there is a real choice, and a station with a genuinely different format isn't being kept of the air while several with the same format have been licensed. The only major restriction on programme content is that stations must be 'impartial' in their news coverage, and mustn't allow particular views to dominate.

Stations are expected to be self-supporting, most obviously through advertising. A possible restriction for community-access stations hoping to pe funded by local authority grants is that stations would not be allowed to be dependent upon one major source of income.

Overall the Green Paper is good news for the future of radio. It should give listeners a much greater choice in radio listening from a wide variety of different kinds of stations. The only major problem is the long wait there will be before the first stations are given their licence. Everyone seems to have generally agreed that it will be 1990 by that time, always supposing that we don't get a change in Government at the next election. The other parties would obviously have different ideas about the future of radio.