RA Issues Consultation On National Licence Renewals

The Radio Authority has issued a consultation paper which sets out the methodology and procedure which, subject to consultation, it intends to follow when renewing national commercial radio licences.

At the moment these licence holders pay sums annually to the Government in the form of an agreed lump sum and a percentage of revenue. The approach proposed is to project the returns that an efficient licence holder might reasonably expect to generate, focusing especially on future trends in advertising and within this the likely performance of the station.

Importantly, the costs to the licence holders in launching a digital service will not be taken into account in the calculations, although allowance will be made for the expected migration of the radio audience from analogue to digital services.

This methodology has already been the subject of consultation with those parties most directly affected and the new paper is aimed at extending this further.

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