RADIO IN BRITAIN COMMERCIAL SERVICE AS ALTERNATIVE TO PIRATES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 16

RADIO IN BRITAIN COMMERCIAL SERVICE AS ALTERNATIVE TO PIRATES

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SHEILA BLACK

:n the "Financial Timei">

(Reprinted from the "Financial Times" bp arrangement)

“More than three-quarters of the population never or hardly ever listen to the pirate radio stations.” This statement was made by the 8.8. C. recently when it revealed survey findings that attributed a regular daily listening percentage to pirate radio of only 16 pei’ cent of the sample questioned. The findings also stressed that 69 per cent listen to the Light programme and 38 per cent to the Home Service.

However, coverage of Britain by the 8.8. C. is far wider than that of pirate stations. Also the 8.8. C. has considerably greater signal strength to give better reception—to say nothing of the fact that the 8.8. C. has been so long established. There have been other surveys which give pirate radio a listening audience of more than 18 million people—albeit concentrated in certain areas, which presumably accounts for why the figure so disagrees with a percentage of a national sample. Government’s Plans

Within the next four to six weeks, we shall know the Government’s alternative to the closing of the pirate stations. The PostmasterGeneral, Mr Edward Short, has admitted that there must be an alternative, providing similar entertainment. He has also agreed that such an enterprise would have to be commercial, supported by advertising revenue. His proposals are likely to be variations on one of two broad patterns. He could choose a commercial "channel” operated by the 8.8. C. and regionalised into anything up to 80 areas. This kind of scheme is likely to be the more acceptable, if doctrinaire, solution to legalising commercial radio. The second scheme might be less popular with the anti-commercial brigade, which is a strong one, but would probably be more widely popular with listeners and advertisers and, therefore, more viable. It would be based on a system, similar to the American, where local commercial radio stations are run by companies under the surveillance of an authority comparable to the Independent Television Authority. There are. some 400 or so local radio station names already registered by companies ranging from the “News of the World” to the Thomson Organisation, from the Rank Organisation to Radio Rentals, from British Lion to Pye, and any number of local newspapers, either individually or in groups. About 100 of these companies have formed themselves into the Local Radio Association, which has put forward outline schemes showing how some 276 United Kingdom 10-mile radius centres of anything from a 50,000 to a

250.000 population could be served by local stations. The stations would use medium wave-lengths of exceptionally low power covering an area of little more than 10 miles radius. This would obviate either interference with present powerful wave-lengths and it would conform with international agreements. Local Life i The hub of the matter lies in this concentration of local life, in the ability of the station to make listeners feel part of their community. If it engenders this spirit, a local station can command a high listening fidelity—as Manx Radio listening shows. In fact, Manx Radio is the closest legal commercial ra-

dio to Britain; and it is for this reason that the published report of this experiment by the Isle of Man Broadcasting Company chairman, Mr Richard Meyer, has become something of a blueprint for other potential entrepreneurs. Meyer, who is linked with Pye in Manx Radio, has a backlog of experience with Forces broadcasting. Radios Normandy and Luxembourg, Rhodesia Television and the profitable Lourenco Marques Radio. The Manx station runs with a permanent staff of about 14 people, two of them part-time. Four full-time announcers take on other duties, sales staff deal with local contracts, and national advertising contracts are dealt with through a specialist firm in London. Annual working cost, is between £25,000 and £26,000 “without allowance for depreciation.” Almost one half of operational expenditure is accounted for by salaries; programme expenses come to about 20 per cent. Mr Meyer stresses that there might in time be some shift in emphasis on certain categories of expenditure, but the proportions have been fairly stable so far (the company was formed in 1960). Transmission is from 6.50 a.m. through to 8 p.m. or thereabouts—some 90 hours a week. A longer “day” would add slightly to operating costs—say £30,000 a year in all for 18 hours daily. Setting up a station would run to between £15,000 and £20,000 —specifically designed local radio equipment is readily tracked down in Canada and the United States. Some cities and towns might be unable to manage on such a low budget. Independent estimates for operation on the 8.8. C. provisional proposals for five to six hours a day are about double that annual figure at over £50,000. Local Promotions Initially, in the U.S. and with Manx Radio too, listening audiences expand as the station integrates itself with local life. Now, almost every set in the island is turned to Manx Radio at some time in the week, while three-quarters of the population listen at least five days a week. This is in spite of competition from a pirate operating four miles

off Ramsey at 10 times the signal strength as well as from the three 8.8. C. programmes. On the whole, advertisers are in favour of a strongly localised system. There is the general feeling that national advertisers are already bombarded with an embarrassment of media and are having to spread their budgets rather thinly as it is. Apart from the wish of national advertisers to concentrate periodically on local promotions, there are also believed to be a considerable number of purely local advertisers longing for a medium they can afford that will reach a precisely defined public—retailers are a particular example. 1 have seen, in the U.S., examples of how

local shopping precincts come to life when retailers cooperate to attract personalities or to set up entertainment for shoppers and publicise these events on local radio as they happen.

Local radio should be able to offer flexibility, since bookings can be made singly and at short notice—or at least in small numbers—while local cinema and network television bookings are normally long-term contracts. Thus there may be more potential advertising in wait for a strictly localised than a loosely localised system. Among opposition arguments is the one that contends programmes would necessarily be of poor standard because of lack of money. However. Manx Radio ranges over sport, local youth clubs and scouting, pets, transport, leaders'and views on the news, sport and<Uock market summaries as weir’as presenting household hints, recipes, what’s new in the shops, Gaelic classes, film reviews and the like. Religion gets its share as do many live discussion programmes, while listeners actively enjoy such service features as “Lost and Found” and “Police Messages.” Packaged Programmes However, local stations will not be entirely dependent on their own resources if a reasonable national system comes into being. Already some companies in entertainment fields are laying plans for packaged programmes into which national or local advertisements could be slotted. “No local station could buy Malcolm Muggeridge or Cliff Richard,” claims A.T.V.’s Lew Grade. “But many might be able to afford local rights in such shows made by a central organisation, which could also handle sales to national advertisers and the little developed art of sound commercials, so spreading some of the costs.”

Ironically, since the idea is being mulled by the chairman of A.T.V., such a service might easily find a customer in 8.8. C.-operated commercial radio, in view of the 8.8.C.’s lack of experience in commercial techniques. Apparently a case, for some, of heads they win and tails they won’t lose.