London radio in difficulty

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33442, 25 January 1974, Page 19

London radio in difficulty

(N.Z P.A. StaU Correspondent)

LONDON. January 24.

London Broadcasting, the lirst British private radio station to go on the air, has entered a new phase in its short, strife-torn life with the announcement that more money will be invested by shareholders in an effort to bolster its finances.

! The all-news station, which has a number of Com{monwealth broadcasters and journalists, including some New Zealanders, among its i staff, went on the air on October 8. It has not attracted widespread advertising support, [and the ambitious news- ' gathering concept behind the [station soon brought the journalistic staff into conflict [with management, accusations being made that the type of programmes being planned were not backed by the necessary resources. The regional managingdirector and editor have both left, and today it was announced that the chairman, Sir Charles Trinder, had resigned, and would be replaced by the deputy-chair-man, the former editor of the “Financial Times,” Sir Gordon Newton. A condition of today’s! developments is that plans' to scrap existing feature programmes, and to replace them with 11 hours of news' and information programmes, I II hours of “phone-in’’ shows, and two hours of; music be proceeded with. This will require the consent of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. There is also a question of proposed staff redundancies.

mainly involving journalists, to be resolved. The journalists claim that they are the only profit-mak-ing division of London Broadcasting: a subsidiary company, Independent Radio News, draws a fat fee from London Broadcasting for the services it renders. Eventually London Broadcasting will be supplying news to a wide network o( new private stations, but, by being on the air first, and with a slow-developing market to supply, its prospects of early profitability are nonexistent.