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Didn't know where to fit this so figured it might be worth starting off a new thread.
The 'new' BRMB - which coincidentally 'celebrated' the 50th anniversary of the original station last month - has been given a £1200 penalty for the numerous breaches of its broadcast licence when it was operating as Big City Radio.
www.ofcom.org.uk
The full 22-page judgement goes into a lot of legalities - and looks at precedent cases - but it does suggest that even management weren't sure if they were responsible for what was going out (and bearing in mind, this is the same ownership as the commercial Sunshine Radio)
www.ofcom.org.uk
I'm still not sure if they're being entirely truthful - there's only one 'specialist' local show on the schedule (the licence states it's meant to focus on the ethnic communities around Aston) and there's still a few identifiable syndicated shows at weekends.
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A lot of the recent bulletins about this sort of thing see Ofcom pulling up all these community stations because they promise the earth and deliver only most of it, then go cap in hand to Ofcom to get those promises reduced because they can't manage them. I think a lot of the community stations run on volunteers and that's why their promises go to crap.
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Another community station - this one in Swansea - is attempting to go down the BRMB route of sorts.
Radio Tircoed, very much the definition of small-town radio (it serves a few villages in the Swansea Valley) is rebranding and relaunching in September as 'Swansea Live Radio' and bringing in 12 former presenters from Swansea Sound and The Wave.
Tircoed's studios are being retained - as apparently are some of the presenters (though by the sounds of it, they'll be mostly doing the specialist output)
www.swansealiveradio.co.uk
As grand as their plans sound, one can't help but feel that a potential hyper-local service will be lost in favour of yet another attempt at reviving 'glory day' ILR radio.
Hampering them further still is they'll be on an FM licence which barely covers the Swansea Valley, let alone the city - and their ambition of getting onto small-scale DAB might be a while off yet, too.
The multiplex was awarded, then it was revoked because they couldn't go live within 18 months and only recently, has it been readvertised.
Add to that you've got Nation on their umpteenth attempt to make their Swansea FM licence work with yet another Swansea Bay Radio revival (featuring a couple of ex-SS/Wave presenters)
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(11-06-2024, 12:15 AM)lookoutwales Wrote: As grand as their plans sound, one can't help but feel that a potential hyper-local service will be lost in favour of yet another attempt at reviving 'glory day' ILR radio.
Hampering them further still is they'll be on an FM licence which barely covers the Swansea Valley, let alone the city - and their ambition of getting onto small-scale DAB might be a while off yet, too.
The multiplex was awarded, then it was revoked because they couldn't go live within 18 months and only recently, has it been readvertised.
Add to that you've got Nation on their umpteenth attempt to make their Swansea FM licence work with yet another Swansea Bay Radio revival (featuring a couple of ex-SS/Wave presenters)
Laughable they think they'll get any traction with the signal not covering the city itself, although they might have been planning this on the assumption the SSDAB mux was on track to launch.
To be fair to Nation, their poaching of ex ILR DJs seems to be a lot more successful, especially with recent hire Kev Johns being as popular as he is in the region. Been hearing a lot more of Swansea Bay Radio playing in local businesses since theirs and The Wave's respective relaunches. Seems they might actually be on the right track with the licence this time around.
I will be fair to the new guys and give them a listen, but I've heard Tircoed before and I'm not counting on it being much better even with experienced DJs at the helm.
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(20-03-2024, 02:30 PM)lookoutwales Wrote: I'm still not sure if they're being entirely truthful - there's only one 'specialist' local show on the schedule (the licence states it's meant to focus on the ethnic communities around Aston) and there's still a few identifiable syndicated shows at weekends.
I do have sympathy over the issue of syndicated programmes. Thing is that even though they're not 'original programming' they still might serve the community better than something local. Most community stations I know of have hours of music played from their automation, especially overnight. Why not use better produced syndicated programming to fill the gaps?
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