Trevor Dann on Global-GMG

I hardly think so. Talk about comparing apples and oranges. BBC was under political pressure to make change to Radio 1, and very unfair political pressure. No government should ever be allowed to blackmail the BBC by threatening privatisation. That was way below the belt and they knew it.

By contrast, Global Radio is allowed to do anything they want even though they are broadcasting on the same frequency spectrum on the public airwaves, and broadcasting to exactly the same audience as the BBC, yet they’re allowed to do anything they want to with it???

That’s not a level playing field, not in this millenium or any other.

And Trevor Dann does understand the situation perfectly well. Such a shame the “Global Radio infatuators” are so blinded by what they like about Heart, Gold, Capital that they cannot see the damage that has been done, and on the flip side the “Anti-Global” brigade are so blinded by their hate, they cannot see that Global have been played the marketing game to perfection, must like VHS and Sky before them.

Sky? Format wars? How much were BSB and those Squarials losing? That particular merger HAD to happen. It doesn’t matter how much you hate Murdoch or his newspapers, you cannot take away what he’s done for multichannel television in the UK.

Err, James, how much money was News Corp losing before that merger too? It’s no secret that the parent company News Corp was right on the edge of bankruptcy before the merger so they were as desperate for it to happen as BSB’s owners were

Quite frankly, I don’t know what you were reading in my post to come back at me with a pro-BSB/Sky merger rant. There was nothing in my post that was anti-Sky, in fact I was praising them for their marketing, mostly around the 1992-1997 era, when they weren’t going up against BSB, but rather cable.

I know this is a shock to the system, but recognising that Sky played the marketing game to perfection, actually has nothing to do with whether I like or dislike Rupert Murdoch. In the same way, recognising that Global Radio have played the marketing game well with regards to Heart and Capital, is unrelated to whether I think Heart is a good product or not, and also unrelated to whether or not I like Global Radio, Ashley Tabor or Charles Allen.

I know that this idea that you can dislike a person or company and yet acknowledge that they’ve done something good or right or even well, is a totally alien concept to many people, but it can be done.

By contrast, Global Radio is allowed to do anything they want even though they are broadcasting on the same frequency spectrum on the public airwaves, and broadcasting to exactly the same audience as the BBC

“Anything they want”, except they’re tightly controlled in terms of networking, local content and regulation.

“Broadcasting on the same frequency spectrum”, except unlike the BBC’s protected spectrum (“97-99FM”), Global Radio has to make do with a patchwork of local radio transmitters that are much harder to market, and don’t consistently cover many parts of the UK.

“to exactly the same audience as the BBC”, except Global actually have to get a demographically-attractive audience for advertisers, rather than simply ensure that there’s something for everyone (which is the BBC’s remit).

Since the Digital Economy Act 2010 there now are commercial stations operating the same service over separately licensed transmitters and this can stop a community radio license being made available if the area is covered by one the transmitters that has a MCA of 50,000 or less.

Let us take the example of East Yorkshire.

This area of Yorkshire, including Bridlington, is covered by four commercial stations – KCFM, Magic 1161, Viking FM and Yorkshire Coast Radio. Each of the FM stations promotes themselves in Bridlington. There are community radio stations in Market Weighton, Thorne-Moorends and Withernsea but the largest town in the area of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council – Bridlington – appears to be banned from having a community radio station because the town is covered by a separately licensed transmitter belonging to one of the commercial FM radio stations.

I would suggest that the commercial radio operators need to be free to consolidate their licences where a common service is being provided over separately licensed transmitters.

An example of this could be in Devon.

The Heart service in Devon broadcasts across separately FM licensed transmitters that were previously known as Barnstable (Lantern), Exeter (Gemini), Ivybridge/Totnes (South Hams), and Plymouth (Plymouth Sound). In addition their service is on the Devon DAB multiplex (10C & 11C). This could easily be consolidated into one licence.

As a quid pro quo for the consolidation of these separate local commercial radio licenses into large local/regional commercial radio licences then all community radio stations should be freed from on-air advertising restrictions in order to remove their reliance on grant funding. In addition community stations should be allowed to set-up in areas where they were previously restricted from operating due to possible conflict with a commercial radio operator.

All this could be easily done by a combination of using some of the current broadcasting legislation and by the tweaking by DCMS of the Community Radio regulations. Any other changes could be incorporated into the new broadcasting and communications legislation due in this parliament.

Since the Digital Economy Act 2010 there now are commercial stations operating the same service over separately licensed transmitters and this can stop a community radio license being made available if the area is covered by one the transmitters that has a MCA of 50,000 or less.

This is inaccurate, and has been since the Community Radio (Amendment) Order 2010. There are now no restrictions on licensing a community radio service which overlaps a commercial radio service with an MCA of <50,000.

The advertising ban remains, for community stations overlapping commercial stations with an MCA <150,000, for now.

“Anything they want”, except they’re tightly controlled in terms of networking, local content and regulation.

Hmm. I guess the operative word there is “tightly”.

Exactly how tightly controlled is the networking of a local radio licence in, say, Oxford or Leicester, if none of its content is unique and local – with every minute of its content rebroadcast from the neighbouring licence and three quarters of it from a networked London studio?

The only other solution to this is to issue more licences for local stations. You could get Ofcom to issue a date to switch all multiplexes up and down the country at the same time to DAB+ to increase capacity.

“Anything they want”, except they’re tightly controlled in terms of networking, local content and regulation.

Except that the regulations are not being applied. The 10 hour minimum for local programming has not been revoked, but OFCOM has allowed Heart and other stations to ignore that. Now, that might well have been the right decision given the economic situation, but it doesn’t say that they’ll be any more inclined to apply the regulations once we’re out of this double dip recession.

“Broadcasting on the same frequency spectrum”, except unlike the BBC’s protected spectrum (“97-99FM”), Global Radio has to make do with a patchwork of local radio transmitters that are much harder to market, and don’t consistently cover many parts of the UK.

And that is exactly the same playing field for all the other commercial radio operators, and Global have done a very good job of marketing their stations. Some stations had just 1 or 2 frequencies pretty close to each other, and for whatever reason, maybe they thought just being local was enough and they wouldn’t have to market, or they thought the website and social media would be all they’d have to do, either way, stations were not properly marketed in their local areas, and they failed. And now we have a branded station, The Breeze, which seems to have fallen for the same trap, they haven’t properly marketed, they’re not getting the listeners, and now they are having to stop transmissions on some DAB multiplexes, because they’re not making enough money to be able to afford them. If you don’t do the marketing, you don’t get the listeners; then advertisers avoid you, means little income, you get the idea. We’ve seen this happen multiple times in the past 10 years. All the technological excuses about transmission areas and DAB listening is just plain bullcrap. You don’t market yourselves successfully, you don’t survive and thrive. It’s just that simple.

“to exactly the same audience as the BBC”, except Global actually have to get a demographically-attractive audience for advertisers, rather than simply ensure that there’s something for everyone (which is the BBC’s remit).

Where’s the evidence that commercial broadcasting actually has to get a ‘demographically-attractive’ audience for advertisers, especially since Global goes after the C2DE end of the demographic spectrum for Heart, which is not the money end, by any stretch. A broader demographic spectrum of BC1C2D would actually be more attractive to advertisers, but a lot of commercial radio has gone after the downmarket demo, leaving the BBC almost free to hoover up the ABC1’s

Also, no matter how well you think you’ve targetted something towards a particular demographic, the real world is nowhere as predictable and even within your target demographic there are so many variations that your best hope is only to reach somewhere between 20% and 50% of your target demographic. By going for a broader 15+ audience, you will still only reach somewhere between 20% and 50% of that audience, but of course, in real terms that’s a far bigger number. So in my view, demographic targetting is a fool’s game.

The 10 hour minimum for local programming has not been revoked, but OFCOM has allowed Heart and other stations to ignore that.

I think you’ll find the rules have changed:

Ofcom Localness Guidelines

Generally, each FM station should produce a minimum of 10 hours a day of locally-made programmes during weekday daytimes (this should include breakfast).

However, where an FM station provides an enhanced news service, of local news at least hourly during daytime on weekdays and at weekend peak times, that station should produce a minimum of 7 hours a day of locally-made programmes during weekday daytimes (this should include breakfast).