Is the RA killing commercial radio?

The Radio Authority has been accused of behaving like a dictator and “nannying” commercial stations over compliance with programming formats.

The scathing attack has come from GWR chief executive Ralph Bernard, whose company owns Classic FM and a number of local radio stations including Plymouth Sound and Minster Sound, in York.

Yet Bernard has been alone in his outburst. Unsurprisingly, few other commercial radio operators have dared ruffle the feathers of the very body that decides whether or not an independent station’s programme format complies with the terms of its licence.

At a seminar held last week to debate Access Radio – a new sector of non-commercial private radio services – hosted by the Radio Authority (MW last week), Bernard issued a warning that commercial radio will continue to lose audience share to the BBC if it is not allowed to change its programming.

In the past few years, the self-regulated BBC has changed much of the format of its programming – most noticeably on Radio 1 and Radio 2 – and as a consequence has enjoyed an increase in audience. Things are not so simple in the commercial radio sector.

When applying for a standard seven-year licence, a commercial radio operator usually agrees the terms of the format with the Radio Authority. But companies like GWR, which grow mainly through acquisition, inherit formats which have been set in stone by the previous owners and the Radio Authority some years before.

It would not be perceived as fair if, every time a station was acquired, a radio company was allowed to rejig the format which has been put in place by the Radio Authority to protect the interests of listeners. But Bernard argues that the regulator must allow for some leeway.

Bernard says: “The regulator [the Radio Authority] believes it always knows best and nannies independent radio from the cradle of creativity to the graveyard of the bland.”

Radio company insiders, who refuse to go on the record, claim programming is so tightly regulated that if the Radio Authority hears so much as a station playing an artist it believes does not fall within the licence format, it will raise it as an issue. The Radio Authority is understood to have complained when artists such as teen pop idol Britney Spears have featured on the websites of radio stations that cater for an adult contemporary audience.

Although Bernard’s concerns are privately shared by most commercial radio companies, none will comment publicly on the matter, leaving Bernard to fight his battle alone.

Even trade body the Commercial Radio Companies Association is cautious. Paul Brown, chief executive of the CRCA, is tight-lipped on the subject and will only say: “Commercial radio stations are bound to be frustrated if they feel they aren’t being listened to [by the Radio Authority].”

Howard Bareham, head of radio at media agency MindShare, sympathises with Bernard’s cause, and believes regulation must be lighter: “We live in a commercial world and, in order to attract advertisers, stations have to be allowed to adapt their programming to suit the changes in their audiences.”

Bareham thinks companies like GWR are at a disadvantage to the BBC, and that the Radio Authority’s strict code of practice makes it difficult to make money out of some of the smaller regional stations.

But Phil Riley, chief executive of Chrysalis Group, the company that owns London’s Heart FM and the various Galaxy stations, rallies to the defence of the Radio Authority. “In a personal capacity I disagree with Ralph. He owns a company that has been around for 25 years and was regulated under the old Radio Authority. Our company, on the other hand, is very much a product of the new [already lighter-regulated] Radio Authority.”

Riley adds that, even though the Radio Authority has a board which consists of people that are “disinterested amateurs”, they represent the views of the “common man.”

Riley also says Bernard’s jibes at the Radio Authority’s lack of experience in radio are unfair as people such as chief executive Tony Stoller are, in his opinion, extremely experienced. Stoller himself worked at the IBA as head of radio programming in the Seventies.

Yet the Radio Authority’s days are numbered. Proposals contained in the Government’s Communications White Paper hand responsibility for radio to a new regulatory body, Ofcom. Ofcom will encompass the roles of the nine regulators including the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the Radio Authority, Oftel and the Independent Television Commission.

But the BBC seems likely to regulate itself for the foreseeable future and will not have to report to the new regulatory body.

Bernard is a frustrated man. GWR has reached the limit in terms of the number of UK stations it can own. If ownership rules are not relaxed under legislation introduced on the back of the Communications White Paper, one of the few ways left open for GWR to grow is to increase advertising revenue. This, of course, can only be done by attracting more listeners with the aid of a broader format.