Tony Blackburn once said national radio did not work because “why do you want to know there are delays on the M25 when you live in Newcastle?” Now there are fears the local news and information role of local radio may become a thing of the past as six stations in the South West merge their news operations.
Plymouth Sound, part of the GWR group, has won the approval of the Radio Authority to carry out a six-month experiment that will see its news programmes - and those of five sister stations in the south west - assembled at a single "news hub" and then relayed back to individual stations. Critics say the move will inevitably reduce each station’s ability to report on local stores, and will no doubt lead to redundancies amongst the news team.
Many fear news will go the same way as music policy at many local stations. The music played on stations owned by the major radio groups is normally programmed at national headquarters rather than by local DJs. This means local radio has lost the ability to pick up on new, and especially local, music talent.
Tony Stoller, chief executive of the radio authority, recently reflected these fears when he called for clear guidelines over what constitutes "local" programming if stations are going to be programmed from "7,000 miles away".
His comments were a thinly veiled reference to the ambitions of US radio giant Clear Channel, who hope to take advantage of new media legislation which will enable them to move into the UK radio market. When the group moved into Australia it was accused of programming the stations from its Texas headquarters – allegations the group deny. "It is extremely difficult to define exactly what 'local' is," Stoller continued. "The regulator and the industry will need to draw up a code together. The code should not be interpreted as a regulator meddling; rather it is a backstop power to maintain certain levels of standards."