Easy target
Cut local shows, say radio giants
Radio in general is currently doing rather well in terms of the number of listeners despite the onslaught from alternatives such as personal music players and the internet, but the commercial stations are still under a fair deal of pressure in terms of declining advertising revenue because of competition from other sources for this revenue.
However it doesn't automatically follow that advertising revenue problems should dictate what should be provided at a local level, especially since local advertising for local radio stations may be less affected by changes in national advertising expenditure.
One significant problem is that commercial radio is primarily driven by market surveys which sometimes give little guidance beyond the fact that when a fair number of people switch on the radio they often prefer to listen to specific 'tried and tested' music tracks, so if you're getting tired of hearing the same tunes repeated you can blame the surveys for that one.
Therefore it's of little surprise that when a small local commercial station wants a mainstream target audience (ie. the most profitable) and wants to sound professional, it inevitably ends up sounding like a poor clone of a BBC station with token local content that plays a predictable and safe set of music tracks.
One problem that superficially appears to be the case with the Ofcom proposals - and indeed the looser restrictions being lobbyed for by various major commercial radio broadcasters - is that they don't seem to take into account the local needs of a specific geographical area and the number of competing stations; they seem to be based solely on audience numbers.
Slavishly permitting a greater percentage of networked content may make the station sound a bit more professional but it kills off the local advantage; in some areas such as the GCap (ex-GWR) dominated Avon/Somerset area you could theoretically end up with minimal listening choice as many stations slavishly adopt networked programming.
Some large radio groups need to realise that radio is far more than just imposing a prescribed formula onto a small local radio station, as Star Stroud (plus others) have discovered to their cost. Very small stations can be (and are) successful with 100% local content but they are usually run on a local community basis as opposed to just scaling down a larger operation.
