Commercial radio body The Radio Centre has called on media regulator OfCom to be a whole lot more "radical" when it comes to deregulating the radio industry. The call comes in The Radio Centre's submission to OfCom's Future Of Radio consultation. The trade body asks for OfCom to be clearer about its long term plans for radio in the UK, and to quickly get rid of restrictive rules, such as those governing radio station ownership and quotas for local content. On the latter the Centre points to its own previously reported audience research programme, the Big Listen, in which listeners apparently said they thought commercial radio should no longer be subject to quotas for locally produced programming, which sounds to me like some seriously loaded questions were asked, but whatever.
Centre chief Andrew Harrison says: "With new technologies and demands on consumers' time continuing to emerge, commercial radio is continuing to invest in inspiring content and multi-platform presence to win audience and revenues. We need Ofcom to play its part in enabling that investment by reducing commercial radio's regulatory burden. [Meanwhile] in the absence of a road map we are being forced to think about our future without knowing what the endgame will be. We are urging Ofcom to be bold".