OFCOM Consultations and Digital Britain

Having waited the majority of my year as Development Officer for some OFCOM consultations to respond to, two have come along at once.

Earlier this month, the consultation on Access and Inclusion closed: I’ve written a response on behalf of the SRA, which will be published shortly.

Yesterday, OFCOM launched a Broadcast Review: we’ll also be responding to it in due course.

Part of our response will be based on the Digital Britain final report, which was published earlier today. 

Our response for the Access and Inclusion consultation stated that we believe the 2Mbps broadband speed targeted as the minimum for 2012 is acceptable but requested that OFCOM clarify their position on Digital Radio.

To a large extent, that question was answered with the publication of the Digital Britain Final Report today.  The proposals indicate that commercial radio should move from both FM and MW solely to DAB, by a date no later than 2015, with at least 2 years notice and only if 50% of radio consumption is via DAB.

It also suggests that “ultra-local” commercial and community stations should be allowed to either retain existing spectrum, orto be provided with FM frequencies as they are vacated.  MW will be phased out.

I see this as very good news for student radio, as many stations have the necessary equipment to broadcast on FM, but can’t due to lack of available spectrum.  However, costs need to be limited for FM spectrum and I won’t be surprised if the number of pirate stations increases: that remains my main concern from the proposals.

The OFCOM Broadcasting Review is, I think, a very radical document from OFCOM.  It proposes allowing community radio to not be restricted by the current 50% limit of funding from any one source and suggests allowing Outside Broadcasts to be sponsored by the venue.

I’ll publish my thoughts in full once we’ve submitted our response.

As always, get in touch with any thoughts.

Winding down…

As some of you may be aware, I’m standing down from my position as Development Officer of the Student Radio Association.

As of today, we’re entering the handover month: effectively I’ll be job sharing with my successor, Sejal Kansara, for the month. I’ll leave the post at the end of June.

It’s been a hugely productive year for the SRA: starting with a major rebrand and new website (which is now constantly being improved) to arguably the best awards night in the event’s 13 year history and the biggest student radio conference ever held.

For me, it brings to a close nearly 6 years of student radio and close to a quarter of my life working towards improving student radio in Birmingham and nationally… starting with a last minute (and drunken) decision to present a Sunday afternoon show on October 26th 2003, to the antics of Southampton, York and ending with the exhausting long weekend that was the Leeds conference.

I’d like to take the opportunity to wish the next executive the best of success for the coming year.

As for this blog, I’ll keep it open and updated as best as I can, though the focus and content will move away from my own work to my thoughts on how industry movements will affect student radio.

Cheers,
Ian

Student Radio Conference 2009

A quick post about the conference in Leeds.

It’s been a mental week: starting on Friday with loads of non-radio based travelling to Cardiff, Bristol and finally Swansea…

…leading to the CMA conference in Leicester on Saturday: which provided some useful infomation, particularly with regards to grant funding which I’m sure will be of use to student radio.

Sunday was a massive trip up north to Leeds for the SRA conference… there’s far FAR too much that happened to explain in full here but it was arguably the best ever (so says our previous Secretary)!

Having said that, I wasn’t re-elected to my position of Development Officer: the only low-light of the last week. Therefore I’ll be leaving my position by the summer.

I’ll keep this blog open as there’s still plenty to talk about, so keep checking back for more info on the industry and how student radio can go forward and improve.

Also, thanks to Mark, Matt, Tim, Sarah and Kate for the last year: it’s been an immense privilege working with all of you, and a year I won’t forget.

Ian

Heartification: round 2

I’ll cover this in more detail via this blog within the next week but thought it would be a good idea to do a quick update on Heartification, the name given to Global Radio’s major rebranding of the majority of it’s heritage stations to the Heart name and format.

At 6am today 12 heritage stations owned by Global Radio were rebranded using the Heart name and format, bringing the total to 24. There are a further 9 stations that will lose their heritage names and join the Heart network later this year.

Round 2 affects stations in the South and South West of England, roughly covering the M4/M5 corridor from Reading to Plymouth (the only South Wales station owned by Global Radio, Red Dragon FM, is retaining it’s heritage name).

You can find the full map that covers all affected stations here.

All Heart network stations promote the same website on-air: Heart.co.uk (with helpful links for finding the station by it’s former heritage name).

Expect more on this in the next few days…

Busy busy week….

It’s been a very busy week….

It’s all go with the Student Radio Conference just two weeks away but we still had the opportunity to have a meeting in Reading earlier today regarding the constitution… I can’t go into the specifics yet but five hours at the Upin Arms in Reading was enough to go through the entire document… there’ll be more on this at the conference in two weeks time.

This following two meetings on Wednesday, one being the quarterly RIDG meeting, the other being with PPL… I’ll post a full update on those in the next few days.

New Websites

Earlier today we launched our all new homepage and Student Radio Chart website.

We’ve been working on them for the last six months after deciding last summer that the existing site was no longer suitable and needed replacing (the old design being 5+ years old).  We also wanted to simplify the registration process: I have no fewer than 4 different usernames and passwords for the old website as features had been added over several years but with the necessity to create a new user account: this will become one with the new design.  It also allows us to introduce RSS feeds (which will be added at a later date).

At the AGM in Bath the idea of a new brand became central to the campaigns of both Marketing Officer candidates: after running a competition last summer we’re also officially launching the new brand with the new website, though you may have already seen our intentions at the Student Radio Awards or via the awards website.

Both sites are very new so some features may not work. It has been thoroughly tested though we may still have missed some problems.

Also, neither are complete: we’ll be adding new features to both websites over the coming months (including the aforementioned RSS feeds).

I know that we have many visitors to the site thanks to the old forums: these have been archived and will be available again in the near future but on a view only basis as we’ve created a new set of forums for the new site (for anyone interested the new forums use phpBB).

Please leave any comments you have on them below.

BurnFM.com in the papers

The station that kicked off my radio career, BurnFM.com, was in the papers last month thanks to a story about two presenters and a claim they made about Kristina O’Connor (Des O’Connor’s daughter, also a final year student at Birmingham University).

I can’t really make much comment about this for the time being, other than to say the comments in question were made in reference to this article printed in the student newspaper at Birmingham University, Redbrick (note that the article is incomplete and missing the relevant images referred to by the media). In addition, contrary to some reports, It was only broadcast online and in October, not December as reported.

What I can do is provide the links: The original story, published in print on p11 of the Thursday edition of the Daily Mail on December 18th is available here.

There was a follow-up article published on the 22nd, which you can find here.

It was also reported online by:

The Telegraph.

The Sun.

The Metro.

The Birmingham Post.

The Birmingham Mail.

The Sunday Mercury.

The Daily Sport also ran the story as the frontpage of their 19th December issue, along with a fuller panel on page 15 (which is not available online).

If you’ve got any comments about what happened, please leave them below.

Student Radio Awards 2008 Feedback…

…is being sent out.  It’s being sent out automatically, so please allow a few days to receive it as the mailserver may take its time to send out the several hundred emails of feedback.

Any queries get in touch with Mark (though please wait until Thursday): I’ll also forward on any enquiries.

Student Radio Awards/SBES 2008 & more

Now that I’ve fully recovered from a 50+ hour week of SRA work and events, it’s time to write about it!

As you’ll know from previous posts, while the other exec members have been focusing on the awards night held on Thursday, I dealt with organising the SBES 2008 SRA stand.

Having had to blast up the M5 to Birmingham to make the 5:30 registration deadline (arriving at a timely 5:29) I had the chance to find our stand and register properly.  From there to Staples, to print out some posters (which weren’t cheap, but a reasonable price and on good quality paper).  A quick pizza and frantic mobile top-up (I’m still using PAYG!) I headed to Oxford for the night.

The Wednesday on the exhibition floor of the NEC Pavilion was very interesting: I’ll be interested to see the visitor numbers compared to last year, as it certainly felt quieter than 2007.  However we still had the opportunity to promote student radio and the new I Love Student Radio campaign: more on that soon.

So to Thursday… and to the Student Radio Awards 2008.

As I’ve said before my involvement was minimal at best, predominantly focused on digitising the nominated entries to ease the judging process… I can now add filling the Global Radio attendee bags and going to the Global Radio tour of their Leicester Square studios (they’re doing some very impressive work there).

Onto the night itself… very impressed with the work Kate and Tim have done over the last few months and all credit to them for pulling off one of, if not THE best Student Radio Awards in its 13 year history.  Mark’s speech to the VIPs seemed to go down well… as did the appearance of Jason Donovan thanks to Global Radio!

I can’t remember everyone I spoke to during the afterparty, though I’m particular pleased by the enthusiasm shown by both Nick Wallis (former SRA Chair) and Huw Stevens (the Awards Chair and Radio 1 presenter) towards the awards night and my plans for the next few months.  I’m also pleased to have spoken to several students at the night: though my apologies if I missed you.

So following a 60+ hour week (working for dad on Monday driving around Gloucestershire, SBES and the awards… Newport-Birmingham-Oxford-Birmingham-Oxford-Reading & a 30min walk to the station-London-Reading-Birmingham-Newport over 6 days), I’m now back at working on some possible motions for our General Meeting next month and some alterations to our membership forms: all memberships expire on 31st December, so there’s some work to be done on sorting them out.

And I’m now in a position to work further on the factsheets, Survival Guide and a new project I’ll be launching at our next General Meeting.  A few weeks back I had the opportunity to read every file I acquired from the previous Development Officer and Secretary.  There’s eight years of ideas to consider and I’ve already listed the best of those… I’ll be working on those but I’m after more… I’ll explain how that’ll work once I’ve announced my plans and fully discussed them with the exec.

Awards Entry digitising, SBES, Nominations Parties, a few online comments… and the conference

It’s been a busy 2 weeks since my last post so it’s time to fill you in.

To cut a long story short the majority of my SRA time has been needed to digitise the nominated entries for the Student Radio Awards 2008: as of Monday that’s completed, so I can focus on my main work for the next 2 weeks… and will allow the final judging rounds to take place.

While the exec are in the final throws of organising the Student Radio Awards 2008, my input (other than the entry digitising) has been fairly minimal: simply as my responsibilities don’t directly cover the organising of the awards night (essentially I spend time on the awards as and when it’s needed… so mainly the digitising of entries described above; the awards sorting and the redux)) .  However, it’s not the only event we’ll have a presence at on November 6th…

…as we’ll be exhibiting everything Student Radio at SBES 2008, held at the NEC in Birmingham.  Currently I’m organising our stand for the 2 days (5/6th November) so that’s my primary focus for the next fortnight.  It’s free to attend though you do need to register in advance here. It’s the ideal event to find out more about radio, especially if you like your equipment.

Talking of fortnights, a fortnight ago we had the Nominations Parties across the UK in Stirling, Leeds, Salford, Leicester, Bath and London.  I’m fairly pleased with the outcome of the day, particularly the training sessions in Salford and the announcements in Leeds.  There are areas we need to work on for next year but knowing what they are should make a big difference… especially as I’ve got plenty of feedback from some of the regions.

I’ve also got plenty of recommendations for the exec, which I’ll be discussing with them in due course.

Now onto comments about the nominations… and we’ve had plenty of them!

The nominations announcements always bring out some interesting comments from the community; in particular because some people are annoyed/disappointed/aggrieved at not being nominated. 

This year has seen some interesting emails/blog posts/forum posts based on the size of stations, levels of funding and the possibility of creating new awards based on the size of a station (like the Sony Radio Awards), along with the suggestion that we under-represent “small” stations.

The problem is how to define a small station.  I’ve read many ideas from the community about this but no one specific definition: and it’s difficult to define station size, for the simple reason that the community is too diverse to accurately do so.  Financial support? Turnover? Membership size? Number of Listeners? Age? University population? Number of awards won? Those that have radio courses?

Having considered this over the last 2 weeks, I’m inclined to think that comparing any 2 of the above would produce a significantly different definition of a “small” station… and listener numbers are subject to interpretation, especially for stations with FM/AM licenses as it’s nearly impossible to measure numbers (RAJAR can’t be used as you have to register a permanent address… something students don’t usually have when at university).

I feel though that I have to address some of the comments I’ve read in the last 2 weeks:

• Judging is simply based on the quality of the content submitted and any bias that a judge might have favouring their former station simply can’t happen: there are at least 2 judges for each round (the number of rounds varies on the category) and they have to agree on which are the better entries.
• Judges come across all parts of the industry, from BBC to Global to independents.  Many are student radio alumni and judge simply because they respect and love the community.  So the chances of one organisation favouring certain aspects of an entry will be minimal.
• The judges are usually able to eliminate a significant number of entries very quickly for the simple reason that the quality of the content isn’t good enough and they decide using the same guidelines that entrants have prior to entering.
• The SRA exec have absolutely no involvement with the judging of the awards, other than to sort them into categories for distribution to the judges and to process payments: the process is completely independent of the exec and we therefore have no influence over the results.
• Different stations approach the awards differently: there is very little the SRA itself can do to change this.
• The same applies for funding: we can’t realistically insist that entrants have to pay from their own pocket to entry, especially as cheating could be easily achieved without our knowledge.
• However there is always going to be some interpretation about what good/bad radio is and there always will be. But it’s the best people who judge, people at the very top of their game: which is as fair as we can get.
• And finally: there’s little correlation to the number of entries a station submits and the number of nominations gained.  Obviously a station that submits 3 entries won’t get 10 nominations.  Other stations have and will submit 40+ entries in a single year: some with one or 2 good enough to be nominated, some with more than 10.  The difference is simply down to the main reason good radio succeeds: Content Is King.

Our members are always welcome to contact us with ANY queries they have. I can’t highlight the importance of this enough: we’re always happy to help with any request for information but it’s discouraging when very few are received.  My job is predominately about helping members and improving the association: I can’t do that if people don’t directly contact me with their comments, opinions or suggestions.

I’ve also read that some of the information we have on our members is incorrect.  We’re well aware of that but for accurate information we need member stations to regularly update the details… something that definitely doesn’t happen with the majority, even when we ask.

If you want to update your details, either request your log-on for our members database to edit it, or provide us with the details we need to make them accurate. 

And why do we have the information? So we know how our members operate and to act in the best interests of as many as possible: which applies to all aspects of our work.  Not having access to that data makes it far more difficult to do our work.

Finally, the exec have chosen the host of the 2009 Student Radio Conference, which we’ll be announcing very soon. I can’t say much more about if now… that’s for next time.