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12.15 pm
The Minister of State, Department of National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat): I truly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) on the vigour and persistence with which he has followed this important cause. We have had many meetings, debates and questions and much
correspondence, and I hope that his constituents are as grateful to him for his hard work on this matter as they should be.
I thank my hon. Friend for this opportunity to reaffirm that the Government recognise the value of the BBC's local radio services. As he knows, last year, we published a White Paper about the BBC's future. It said that it was especially important that the BBC should continue to provide news and current affairs programmes on its local radio services. It did not, however, commit the BBC to a specific number of local stations.
On 27 November this year, we published drafts of the BBC's new charter and agreement. Those documents give effect to the Government's policies in the White Paper and provide the necessary formal framework for the BBC's future role, including local radio services provision.
I know that, since he came to the House, my hon. Friend has been pursuing this matter for many months, indeed years, and I have congratulated him sincerely on that. I sympathise with those of his constituents who are unable to receive the BBC's local radio service. Some of them will have had the benefit of receiving Radio Gloucestershire's programmes when they were broadcast on medium wave--AM--between 1988 and 1992. Others in Gloucestershire may not yet have been able to hear the service due to their living beyond the range of the station's transmitters.
My hon. Friend knows that considerable practical difficulties exist in providing good broadcast reception in the Cotswolds. That is not a unique position: many regions have problems relating to their reception of broadcasting services. I know that he is aware of the fundamental characteristics of broadcasting transmission, but, perhaps for the benefit of others, it may be valuable if, for the record, I set out some of essential features to put this matter in context.
Radio reception on the FM waveband, as for television reception on the ultra high frequency, relies primarily on a clear line of sight between the transmitter and the receiving aerial. Reception is impaired and can be blocked by obstacles interrupting the signal path. In built-up regions, such obstacles are usually man-made, such as tall buildings or large reflective structures. In rural regions, it is more common for the obstacles to be naturally occurring features such as hills and trees. Despite those complications, broadcasters have achieved more than 99 per cent. coverage for their television and radio services in the United Kingdom, from several thousand transmitters.
It should be remembered that each service requires a different frequency, and that each frequency has to be separate from those in use at each neighbouring transmitter to avoid interference. Unfortunately, it is generally the most beautiful areas of the country with forests and hills for which transmitters are needed, and I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that Gloucestershire fits that description.
Broadcasters reach 99.4 per cent. of the population with television signals. That is a considerable engineering achievement, but it means that perhaps some 300,000 people are without a television service. The situation is similar for radio. The BBC currently estimates that its coverage of its national FM networks is 99 per cent. That
means that there would still be many transmitters to build at considerable expense if full coverage were ever to be achieved.
There is no obligation on the BBC to provide everyone with satisfactory access to all its services. The Annan committee recognised in 1977 that such an obligation would be wholly impracticable, in view of the small and scattered nature of many communities and because of the difficulty of matching transmitter coverage to the local geography.
I return to the specific problems in Gloucestershire that were raised by my hon. Friend. It may be helpful briefly to set out some of the background to the difficulty, and to explain how we have arrived at the current position.
BBC Radio Gloucestershire started broadcasting in October 1988, when most radio stations were providing a simulcast service on both the FM and AM wavebands. It had recently been established that this was a wasteful use of the frequency spectrum, and that simulcasting should be reduced to a minimum. Nevertheless, permission was given to the BBC to introduce its new Radio Gloucestershire service on both wavebands for a limited period. That was an exceptional and temporary measure, to help the new service to establish itself.
At the end of the agreed period, the BBC was to close its AM service, and Radio Gloucestershire was to broadcast on FM only. The BBC subsequently suggested that there would be little to gain by turning off the AM service before the frequency was needed for an alternative purpose. We agreed to that proposition, and extended the temporary transmission period until such time as the Radio Authority might need the FM frequency for developing independent radio.
On 31 January 1992, following a request from the Radio Authority, the AM transmitter was turned off and the frequency was reassigned to the authority for an independent radio service. The frequency is now used by the independent local radio service based in Cheltenham called Boss 603 Radio.
I should add, while mentioning independent local radio, that the Radio Authority has announced plans to advertise a licence for a service catering for listeners in the north-east of the county. That should feature among the licences that it aims to advertise from the middle of 1996 onwards. We welcome this extension of programme choice for listeners in parts of Gloucestershire.
However, we also recognise that some developments of this nature have adverse effects on listeners in other areas. The consequence of the BBC losing an AM frequency is that those listeners lose a service altogether, because FM and AM coverage of an area is rarely identical. Several areas, including Gloucestershire, have experienced a similar outcome.
A number of communities which had relied on signals from the AM transmitter could not receive the FM signals. The BBC generally hoped that, where possible, it might be able to build new FM transmitters to restore the service to such areas. However, its ability to do that depends on a number of factors, including the availability of frequencies and suitable transmitter sites. The BBC also has to take account of a variety of other pressing demands on its resources when determining its engineering priorities.
In Gloucestershire, the BBC has identified nine areas for which new transmitters are needed. It estimates that the total cost of providing FM facilities for each of those
communities would exceed £1 million. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury drew that information from the letter that he received from the chairman of the BBC. It is by no means clear at this stage that suitable sites and frequencies will be available, and, as transmitter installation is not a simple task, the operation would take some time to complete, even if the resources were available.
I do not want to sound too dispiriting to my hon. Friend. As he knows, the BBC has not given up on Gloucestershire. It has been looking for alternative ways to resolve the problem, and one possibility might be to provide an AM service for the area. Understandably, my hon. Friend may feel--although, charitably, he did not put it in such serrated language--that this could take us back to first base.
I appreciate that the affected communities might believe that such a solution, if it proved workable, would show that they have been inconvenienced unnecessarily. However, it must be remembered that the Radio Authority had few spare frequencies at its disposal when it opened for business in 1991. Simulcasting the same programme service over an area on two wavebands remains a wasteful activity, which we discourage, and it was appropriate to give the new service, which had, of necessity, to operate on the poor AM waveband, the best frequency that was available.
From the beginning of this year, the Radio Authority has had access to new FM frequencies in the 105 to 108 Mhz sub-band. Accordingly, its need for AM frequencies has diminished, and it is appropriate for the BBC again to take its potential use into consideration. It is too early to know whether the BBC will find that a viable way to sort out the problem for my hon. Friend's constituents, but I assure him that the BBC is working on it, and that the Department of National Heritage will look at any proposal as sympathetically as possible for my hon. Friend.
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
As the Minister and I have said, the FM solution would cost about £1 million, but would still not give adequate overall coverage, whereas the AM solution, providing one transmitter, would cost £10,000 to
£20,000, and would provide reasonable overall coverage for Gloucestershire. I hope that my hon. Friend will opt for the second of his two solutions, and push hard for the BBC to be allowed an AM frequency.
Mr. Sproat:
That certainly adds an element of realism to the sympathy that I have already promised my hon. Friend, and we shall take that important fact fully into account.
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