Ofcom calls for regulatory changes to ensure future of commercial radio
Ofcom has called for regulatory and legislative changes to secure the future of commercial and local radio stations.
In its submission to the government, following Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, the media regulator suggests restructuring “both the analogue and digital radio landscapes, in order to secure the future of commercial and community radio in the face of increasing financial and competitive pressures”.
Ofcom’s report said: “At UK-wide and larger local levels, the commercial radio sector complements the BBC’s radio services, but also has an important role providing competition, diversity of genres and plurality of voices, given the BBC’s share of the radio audience.
“At smaller local levels, commercial and community radio makes a unique contribution of local content and community benefits not duplicated elsewhere.”
Ofcom’s submission comes just days after the industry body for commercial radio, RadioCentre, pushed for a commercial radio review, amid fears of more station closures and redundancies (see RadioCentre pushes for commercial radio review).
Last month, Enders Analysis founder Claire Enders warned the industry that commercial radio in its current form could disappear within the next 15 years (see Commercial radio under threat, warns Enders founder).
Enders said a combination of arduous radio regulations and the ways in which media consumption habits are changing poses a risk for the future of commercial radio.
Ofcom said there is an “urgent need” for the regulator and the Government to address questions over the radio industry.
“In a world where financial pressures on commercial stations are increasing, but localness is still valued by listeners, what regulatory and legislative changes should be made now to strike an appropriate balance between public interest in localness and financial viability of commercial radio?,” Ofcom asked.
On a UK-wide level, Ofcom recommends facilitating the creation of new commercial radio stations to create a consumer proposition similar to that of Freeview.
The government would need to allow existing analogue regional stations to become UK-wide digital stations, in effect by dropping their local programming remit, and allow existing regional multiplexes to be merged and expanded to create a second regionalised UK-wide commercial DAB multiplex, for that to go ahead.
At a local level, Ofcom suggests amending “legislation and regulation to ensure the continuation of a viable tier of commercial services, large enough and sufficiently well resourced to provide local news and other content in every part of the UK”.
Ofcom’s submission to the government also encourages the continued growth of DAB and said it is vital to “overcome some of the obstacle that might hinder any future digital migration”.
“Digital technologies offer consumers great control, quality and – with very little spectrum available for new analogue radio services – potentially greater choice,” according to Ofcom.
The regulator agrees with the Digital Radio Working Group in proposing a government policy that DAB should be the primary distribution platform for UK-wide and large local radio stations, and calls for a migration of listening to DAB over the next 10 years.
Ofcom said it shares the government’s vision of DAB as the primary digital radio platform because DAB’s technology is best placed to provide “free-to-access universal provision of digital radio services, across the country, via affordable portable and mobile devices”.
However, the media regulator argues that “regulation and legislation will need to change to facilitate the continued growth of the DAB platform”.
Ofcom also said that “these changes alone will not be sufficient: action by industry stakeholders, both BBC and commercial will also be necessary, notably improvements of coverage and reception, a more consistent offering of high quality content, and greater use of the other consumer benefits DAB can offer in terms of programme guides, text and data services”.
In the latest RAJAR release, for Q4 2008, listening via DAB was up from 114 million hours to 116 million period on period (see DAB enjoys rise in listening hours).
DAB radio also increased its share of listening on digital platforms, from an 11.3% share in Q3 to an 11.4% share in Q4 2008.
In what was a good quarter for digital radio, DAB’s weekly reach rose 1.1 percentage points period on period to 18.9%, while ownership of DAB sets was up one percentage point period on period, to 29.7%.
In the same period, Commercial radio enjoyed a year on year increase in weekly reach, although its average hours per listener figures were down (see Weekly reach increase for commercial radio).
All Commercial radio’s weekly reach now stands at 31.2 million listeners following a year on year rise of 1.6%.
All Local Commercial radio was also up year on year, by 2%, taking its reach to 25.1 million, while All National Commercial remained relatively static year on year, at 13.6 million, despite a 2% dip period on period.