In radio stations up and down the country, radio station bosses have been examining their RAJAR results last night and……

This “networking is the future” is bilge. Partial networking is fine, but Ofcom have taken it WAY too far with the 10 hour rule.

Rant over.

Why did that LOCAL FM get it’s “local” licence in the first place?
Because Radio Authority decided that there was enough demand in that particular area to justify it getting its own “local” radio station.
In many cases, a few RSL’s in the area would have been run, encouraging listeners to write into Radio Authority to say “We want our own local station”
The TSA then gets its own radio station. Great. Its what the good people of that town asked for.

Then later on, when the network kicks in, this misleads the listener who helped make the station, thinking it is their local station when it has turned into a semi-national.

With TOO MANY RADIO STATIONS, localness is a key differentiator..

With the consolidation of groups in radio, with the OFCOM relaxation of the rules re daytime and weekend network, all groups will follow with complete disregard for the reason of their existence. This now means most TLRC stations will have 4 hours of local programming on Saturdays and Sundays. If I tune in after 2 on my local station, I wont get local traffic, local sports results. If a major incident happens, I’ll have to tune in from Monday morning to find out why.

And will the on air network jock mention he is not actually located in the “local” studios? Will he mention he is on 20, 30, 50 other radio stations at the same time? No! Totally misleading the listener as to why they are tuning into their local station. They might as well tune in to Radio 2. It is just as local. I agree with the comments here it is a national station with a local opt out.

And taking on board that the quality of a network jock is better than a local one, this is not the issue, the issue is that Ofcom say FM stations can ave local programming now - only 10 hours per day weekdays, and 4 hours per day weekends. If they were the best local presenter in the world, they would still lose their job. There are only limited network shows available for the jocks that will be losing their jobs.

Back in the old days the “new boy” would be given some swing overnight shifts or evening shifts to learn the trade. With so much networking, it is sad to say that the new boy often does his first shift on drivetime. Any potential “new boys” reading this, give up and do something more fruitful.

Within groups there are stations with good RAJAR results, good sales results that could easily sustain live local presenters financially, but with the relaxation of the localness format, they can now reduce their costs to help pay for their non performing sister stations in the group. If it aint broke, don’t fix it.

The reason this has come about is part of the Ofcom - Future Of Radio exercise. Radio is suffering commerically so Ofcom need to relax the rules so that stations survive. Only around 50% of commerical radio stations make profit.

So what Ofcom are providing is protectionism.

If I start my own business and the market reduces, or my performance struggles, the business folds. This is what needs to happen in radio. There are TOO MANY RADIO STATIONS in the UK doing the same thing. This mess is the fault of Ofcom in the first place. This now means that local radio stations can run their station on two presenters. Is that ethically acceptable to the stakeholders of the station? Ofcom seem to think that listeners are ignorant.

More stations = more competition. This is one of the reasons why radios are not performing financially.

More stations does not mean more listening choice.

When several stations cover the same TSA, the smaller local “sally” station has to be local to differentiate and survive. Networking will not allow this. I predict daytime and weekend network will take a hit on the hours, which will domino then onto the advertising revenue - a downwards spiral.

With more consolidation soon the radio industry will be owned by two or three groups - This is called an oligopoly. I’m suprised that the MMC allowed the Global acquisition of GCAP. To be honest, we don’t need a regulatory body anymore with such giants.

If the radio industry can not sustain live local programming, particularly in peak hours during the day, then OFCOM should not have given the licences out in the first place. I think theys should stop awarding new licences.

In some parts of the country overpopulated by TLRC or GCAP regions, this now gives no localness and no choice to the listener. If they start to search on their radio, they get the same Clone FM. I don’t know why they don’t change the name of the stations to the same and be done with it. GCAP Radio, TLRC Radio. Why pretend it is Minster FM? It’s not. It’s one thing to be playing the same songs and have a similar station sound with production. It’s something else having the same presenter not saying anything about the locality.

TLRC = The LOCAL Radio Company! Pah!

I’m also sick and tired of being told to text in now to win a car but texts cost £1.50. The quality of the programming says to me that even the local stuff is network / group initiatives. With stunts like this (taxing the stupid), the quality of programming network or local is poor anyhow. Liner card local radio.

And lets get this clear, I am not someone who has lost his job due to networking. There are no sour grapes on my side. The passion in my email is to highlight that this is misleading, maybe we should get the Trading Standards in. It’s my local station and it’s not local anymore. It’s a total farce. If a local station can not survive being local, it should close down, and Ofcom are to blame for this.

Look at the loyalty on certain daytime shows - Bauer’s Big City Network daytime local shows are living proof of this - and GCap will be kicking themselves for not realizing this.

I really think Matt Lissack should do this show, if only because he’s an underused GCap network presenter, and he’s good at his job.

At a tangent, for me, it would seem obvious that what you lose from not being local, you try and gain back by being *a better show*. That would require, in my opinion, a name presenter, big guests, and a sense of *daily event* - a kind of younger, cooler Steve Wright if you like. The fact that this new show is being launched on the smaller stations first suggests that it’s not going to be that at all, but just a generic daytime music sequence hosted by some reliable GCap nobody.

Look at the big national performers. Evans, Moyles and Mills. They all started on overnight shifts on local commercial stations. Those shifts are long gone.

In the next few months new talent won’t even be able to try-out on weekends. The opportunities to bring new talent into the business will be few and far between.

The whole thing is short sighted and fails to address the main issue commercial radio has - falling REVENUE. Turn that around rather than this death by 1000 cuts approach!