The Radio Handbook

Carole Fleming

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415445078, 9780415445078
• eBook ISBN: 9781135258108
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Radio Handbook is a comprehensiveguide to radio broadcasting in Britain. Featuringtwo entirely new chapters for this edition, You Radio and Sport on Radio, thistext offers a thorough introduction to radio in the twenty-first century. Using new examples, case studies and illustrations, it examines the various components that make radio, from music selection to news presentation, and from phone-ins to sport programmes. Discussing a variety of new media such as podcasts, digital radio and web-linked radio stations, Carole Fleming explores the place of radio today, the extraordinary growth of commercial radio andthe importance of community radio.

The Radio Handbook shows how communication theory informs everyday broadcasts and encourages a critical approach to radio listening and to radio practice. Addressing issues of regulation, accountability and representation, it offers advice on working in radio and outlines the skills needed for a career in the industry.

1 The Renaissance of radio

In the age of an abundance of media it might come as a surprise that oldest means of mass broadcasting – radio – is still holding its own with almost 90 per cent of the UK population tuning in for an average of 22.5 hours every week (RAJAR 2008a: Q2). Radio is everywhere. There are a total of 397 unique stations available on analogue (AM and FM) and DAB radio (Ofcom 2008a: 4:2:1), over 150 community radio stations, over 80 student radio stations and of course hundreds of internet radio stations.

One of the reasons for such an abundance of radio is that technological advances mean that radio is now available on a range of platforms. As well as the platforms already mentioned above, there were around 80 stations broadcasting on digital satellite in July 2008, with a further 27 stations on Freeview and 34 on cable, although most of these were simulcasts of existing stations (Ofcom 2008a: 4:2:1). And while listening via a mobile phone is still in a minority with only 4 per cent of listeners using it on a weekly basis (ibid.: 4:3:3) there are signs that this will change. Early in 2008 GCap (now Global Radio) announced a deal with Apple whereby it streams its stations live to the iPod touch MP3 player and iPhone. Using wireless broadband, listeners can stream GCap stations, access podcasts, buy music tracks from iTunes or a whole CD from Amazon, with GCap getting a slice of the retail price (Allen: 2008). A month later GCap bought a majority share in the social networking site welovelocal.com announcing that they ‘hope to develop online communities around station brands’ (Ofcom 2008a: 260). Other developments include WiFi radio with over 40 companies now making WiFi radios. WiFi radio devices link to the web addresses of radio stations without the use of a PC to access an estimated 10,000 stations. Ofcom research in July 2008 showed that only 6 per cent of people have a WiFi radio, but the increasing importance of the internet to radio suggests that this platform will grow.

What this means is that radio is no longer confined to coming from a traditional radio receiver as the director of the Radio Academy Trevor Dann¹ explains:

A number of people are listening to radio in a number of different ways in their listening pattern. I mean, I wake up to DAB radio, then I listen to FM in the bathroom, then I get in the car and usually listen to 5Live on AM then I get on the train and plug in my iPod and start listening to podcasts, then sometimes at work I’ll use the ‘Listen Again’ service on the BBC. So I’m consuming radio from all kinds of different delivery systems. I think that’s the modern vision.

In theory more radio stations and different platforms of delivery should provide a variety of different kinds of radio, but in practice the majority of stations have a similar format that is dominated by music, and many people are unaware that some stations broadcast a range of programmes including soaps, drama and comedy. This is shown in the Ofcom report into the Communications Market for 2008, which found that ‘the largest share of revenue by station format continues to be held by the Chart-Led and Adult Mainstream genres, which together accounted for 65 per cent of commercial analogue net broadcasting revenue in Q1 2008’ (Ofcom 2008a: 249). And despite having so many speech-based stations, even the BBC broadcasts a majority of music on its radio stations with over half the hours broadcast – 51.6 per cent – being music (ibid.: 257).

The reasons people listen to radio will be examined later in this chapter, and the following chapter looks at different kinds of radio. However, given that most people still listen to ‘mainstream’ radio, that is professionally produced radio for a mass audience broadcast on AM or FM, it is important to begin by examining those stations.

Figure 1.1 Trevor Dann, director of the Radio Academy

Broadly speaking, mainstream British radio falls into two categories: the BBC’s public service broadcasting and Independent Radio’s commercial broadcasting. This division is not a clear-cut one however, and the term ‘public service broadcasting’ is particularly problematic.

Although the BBC is publicly funded, it still needs to attract audiences to justify its licence fee and its very existence. Since early 2000 the BBC has dominated radio listening in the UK, and in the second quarter of 2008 it held a 55.5 per cent share of listening compared to 42.4 per cent for all commercial radio listening (RAJAR 2008a: Q2). Many commercial radio bosses feel that this is because the corporation is increasingly adopting an aggressive marketing stance and using licence fee money to pay top presenters huge salaries that commercial radio cannot match.

Commercial radio bosses also point out that because a station operates to make a profit that does not preclude it from providing a service to the public. They say that in 2007 commercial radio dedicated over 13,000 hours of air time to community news in What’s On bulletins and raised over £17 million for charity (RadioCentre 2008:7).

For these reasons it is worth a closer examination of the two types of broadcasting and a discussion of public service broadcasting.

Public service broadcasting

For the first 50 years of its existence radio broadcasting in Britain was synonymous with the BBC. Originally a commercial company, the British Broadcasting Corporation was created in January 1927 by Royal Charter as a publicly funded organisation with sole responsibility for the provision of broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Its position as a monopoly with assured finance through the licence fee gave its first director general, John Reith, the time and resources to develop it free from commercial pressures, and its charter provided it with full editorial independence (Crisell 1994:21).

But being publicly funded also brought a responsibility for the BBC to ‘serve’ the public: its output had to inform and educate listeners as well as entertain them. According to the latest Royal Charter, which came into effect in January 2007 and runs to the end of December 2016, ‘the BBC exists to serve the public’ (Royal Charter: 3(1)). So although it is independent from the government, it has to justify its programming and spending to it in order to continue to receive public money. The government sets the cost of the licence and what proportion of it is given to the BBC, and ultimately it can decide to discontinue it altogether. For this reason it is important to the BBC that they are seen as the country’s public service broadcaster.

The problem is that there is no absolute definition of public service broadcasting² (PSB) although the Peacock Commission into broadcasting in 1986 came up with eight principles of ‘the public service idea’:

Geographical universality of provision and reception; the aim of providing for all tastes and interests; catering for minorities; having a concern for national identity and community; keeping broadcasting independent from government and vested interests; having some element of direct funding from the public (thus not only from advertisers); encouraging competition in programmes and not just for audiences; and encouraging the freedom of broadcasters.

(McQuail 1994:126)

However, the media landscape has changed dramatically since 1986 with many more stations now available, and it could be argued that apart from ‘direct funding from the public’ commercial radio, taken as a whole, embraces these ideas as much as the BBC. Moreover, public backing for the licence fee appears to be diminishing. In a survey by Ipsos Mori for the MediaGuardian in 2008, 41 per cent agreed that the licence fee was the most appropriate way to fund the BBC but 47 per cent felt that it was not good value for money:

Just as worrying is that many appear not to buy the BBC’s argument that it provides programming unavailable elsewhere – and for all the attempts to broaden the justification for the licence fee this remains a key plank of the argument to retain the licence fee, particularly among politicians.

(Gibson 2008a)

But under the latest Royal Charter the BBC was restructured with an Executive Board headed by the director general to deal with the day-to-day running of the corporation, and the BBC Trust to represent the public interest. In the Trust’s first annual report in 2007, the chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, said the Trust has three key aims. The first is to ensure the independence of the BBC, the second is to deliver ‘distinctive, high-quality services to all the people and all the communities of the United Kingdom’ and the third is to ‘ensure that the BBC makes a very important contribution to the social, economic and civic life of the UK’ (BBC Annual Report 2006/07:2). As can be seen, these aims are similar to the public service ideas put forward by the Peacock Commission.

Indeed, perhaps because of the debate around the continuation of the licence fee, the BBC Trust is keen to stress that it represents the public:

The Trust works for the public who pay for the BBC. We listen to a wide range of voices, seeking to understand all opinions and expectations to inform our judgements. We ensure the BBC is independent, innovative and efficient; a creative and economic force for good in the UK, and for the UK internationally.

(BBC Annual Report 2006/07:9)

In order to achieve this, the Royal Charter laid down six public purposes that govern the way the BBC operates. They are:

(a) sustaining citizenship and civil society;

(b) promoting education and learning;

(c) stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;

(d) representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities;

(e) bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK;

(f) in promoting its other purposes, helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and, in addition, taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.

(Royal Charter: 4)

To make it clear how these public purposes work on each of its stations, the Trust publishes a ‘purpose remit’ that sets out how the performance of each station will be judged, and it issues service licences based on those remits. Each BBC service has a detailed licence that clearly sets out what is required of it and links those requirements to the public purposes. For example, the service licence for Radio 1 states that in order for the station to contribute towards the public purpose of ‘stimulating creativity and cultural excellence’ the stations must:

• Broadcast at least 60 hours of specialist music each week.
• Ensure at least 40 per cent of the music in daytime is from UK acts each year.
• Ensure at least 45 per cent of the music in daytime is new each year.
• Broadcast from around 25 major live events and festivals in the UK and abroad each year.
• Broadcast at least 250 new sessions each year.
• Contribute to BBC Radio’s commitment to commission at least 10 per cent of eligible hours of output from independent producers.

(Radio 1 Service Licence issued 7 April 2008)

The Trust is also responsible for carrying out Public Value Tests that assess proposals to launch any new service or changes to an existing one. The first part of the process is a ‘public value assessment’ undertaken by the BBC Trust that looks at the value of the proposals to licence fee payers and includes a public consultation. The second part is a ‘market impact assessment’ carried out by or for Ofcom to ‘measure the likely effect of the proposed changes on other players in the market’ (BBC Annual Report 2006/07:36). This new system should please commercial broadcasters who have long complained that while they are bound by Ofcom regulations about their performance, the BBC could make changes with no outside consultation. In particular, commercial radio was badly hit by changes to Radio 2 in 1998 when younger presenters and a new playlist were implemented seemingly overnight to attract what many felt was the key commercial radio audience. Moreover the changes worked and Radio 2 is the most listened-to station in the country with over a quarter (27 per cent) of adult listeners (13.6 million) tuning in every week in the first quarter of 2008 (Ofcom 2008a: 256).

Figure 1.2 Antony Bellekom, managing editor of BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music

Antony Bellekom,³ the managing editor of Radio 2 and 6 Music, says one of the reasons for the popularity of Radio 2 is that it has a broad approach with something for everyone from veteran broadcasters like David Jacobs and Terry Wogan, to newer ones like Russell Brand⁴ and Chris Evans, to specialist music shows and documentaries. He feels this is what the BBC should be doing:

At the end of the day commercial radio has to be successful at reaching a target audience because it has advertisers who need to do precisely that. The responsibility of the licence fee is to be broader – not to be niche radio but much broader in our approach and that gives us the platform to allow individual passions and insights to turn into really interesting radio.

Indeed, one of the conditions of the station’s service licence is that it should ‘broadcast a broader range of music than any other major UK radio station with over 1,100 hours of specialist music programming each year’ (Radio 2 Service Licence 2008). Although Radio 2 may have broad appeal it is fair to say that some BBC stations are quite niche, but overall the BBC provides for all listeners through what Stephen Barnard calls ‘complementarity’. ‘Complementarity in radio services means the provision of radio programming which dovetails, rather than directly competes, with that of other stations’ (Barnard 2000:32). In other words, the BBC designs each of its radio services with a distinct audience in mind so that every interest can be catered for within the BBC family, something Antony Bellekom acknowledges. ‘I think Radio 2 takes part of the Radio 1 audience when they feel it’s time for them to move on. There’s a relationship between all the networks in passing the audience along and that’s why the stations need to be separate.’

Providing this stable of radio stations is not cheap and Ofcom say ‘BBC expenditure continues to form the largest single source of funding for the radio industry’ (Ofcom 2008a: 248). For 2007/08 the total expenditure on radio services was £598.4 million, with £460 million spent on radio content (ibid.: 257) despite the fact that over half of the hours it broadcasts have music content that is recognised as being less expensive to produce than speech.

The BBC’s approach to radio shows that while audiences are important to it, it is equally important for it to embrace the public service idea of encouraging competition in programmes and not just for audiences. The remit for Radio 4, for example, is to be a ‘mixed speech service, offering in-depth news and current affairs and a wide range of other speech output including drama, readings, comedy, factual and magazine programmes’ (Radio 4 Service Licence 2008). This should include at least 2,500 hours of news and current affairs each year, 600 hours of original drama and readings, and 180 hours of original comedy (ibid.). So despite audiences of 9.6 million adults for the first quarter of 2008 (Ofcom 2008a: 256) it has a service budget of £86 million and its programmes are the most expensive on BBC radio costing £9,900 per hour to produce (ibid.: 258).

The high cost of speech radio is also shown in by the second most expensive station in the BBC being 5 Live. Its service licence describes it as the ‘home of continuous news and live sports coverage. It should aim to bring its audience major news stories and sports events as they happen, and provide context through wide-ranging analysis and discussion’ (Radio 5 Live Service Licence 2008). It is listened to by 12 per cent of the population, with a third of those tuning in via digital radio rather than its unreliable AM frequency, and it costs £6,300 per hour to produce (Ofcom 2008a: 258).

As well as the network stations the BBC has four digital-only stations: 1Xtra, 5 Live Sports Extra, 6 Music and BBC Radio 7. The most popular of these is BBC Radio 7, which is a speech-based entertainment channel designed as the home of children’s speech radio from the BBC. In line with most digital-only stations, Radio 7 has a very small audience reaching just 1.6 per cent of the population (RAJAR 2008a: Q1), but because most of its output comes from BBC archives it is one of the cheapest with programming costing £600 per hour (Ofcom 2008a: 258).

Surprisingly the cheapest programming done by BBC radio is its local stations, which cost just £400 per hour to produce, and when the 38 local stations are combined with the three nations’ stations – BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Ulster – they have a reach of 20.4 per cent (ibid.). The local stations have a 60/40 speech/music ratio so it is surprising that they cost so much less than a station like the Asian Network⁵, which has a 50:50 speech/music split and costs over three times as much with programming costing £1,300 per hour.

But while the big network stations are the glamorous side of the BBC, it is the local/nations’ stations that people really connect to whether as part of their target audience of over-50-year-olds, or as a schoolchild growing up and recognising that BBC Scotland, BBC Newcastle, BBC Guernsey are not only part of this distant and powerful organisation – the BBC – but also part of your community. ‘The BBC local/nations’ stations reach around one in five UK adults a week (10.3 million listeners); for 2.8 million people their local BBC station is the only BBC station they listen to (ibid.: 256).

And although it might not give financial recognition to local stations, the BBC is aware that they are important, not least because they help fulfil one of the BBC Trust’s public purposes of ‘representing the UK its nations, regions and communities’. One of the BBC Local Radio service licence conditions is that it should produce at least 85 hours of original, locally-made programming each week (BBC Local Radio Service Licence 2008). The licence also stresses the need for station...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The renaissance of radio
• 2 Radio revolution
• 3 You radio
• 4 Radio style
• 5 The voice of the station
• 6 The role of news
• 7 The tools of broadcasting
• 8 Types of programming
• 9 Sport on radio
• 10 Accountability
• 11 Getting started in radio
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography