Privatising BBC Radio One would “be bad for commercial radio”

Privatising BBC Radio One would be bad for the commercial radio sector, according to today’s MediaTel Group ‘Future of Radio’ seminar.

Radio futurologist James Cridland, who worked for the BBC on its iPlayer for radio service, said that he “could not think of anything worse for the commercial radio industry”.

“Radio One is a very expensive station to run,” he said. “You would not be able to run it with the revenues out there without getting rid of a lot of content.”

He added: “I am happy commercial radio is not applying for top-sliced licence fee money as it brings with it a lot of obligations.”

Rather than privatising Radio One, Cridland said that the next government needs to look at industry regulation.

Fellow panellist Jonathan Gillespie, GMG Radio’s group commercial director, agreed with Cridland that – for GMG Radio at least – top-slicing the licence fee is not needed.

“We’re not interested in top-slicing,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with strong competition.”

However, he said that “we need clarity on what we’re allowed to do and we need clarity on what the BBC is allowed to do”.

From an advertiser’s point-of-view, of course, the privatisation of Radio One would not necessarily be a bad thing. Autoglass marketing director David Meliveo said that he would love to advertise on the station. When asked where the money would come from his answer was unequivocal, “I would increase my spend if I could increase my reach”.

MediaTel Group’s Future of Radio seminar was sponsored by Ipsos MediaCT