Written evidence submitted by KM Group
I am writing to thank you and the members of
the Culture, Media and Sport Committee for giving me the opportunity
to give evidence to your inquiry on local and regional media last
Tuesday 27 October. I am aware that Andrew Harrison of the
Radio Centre has already written to you and thought that it may
be useful if I echo some of his points that we feel are important:
(1) That Commercial Radio is facing its greatest
ever financial challenges, with revenues and profitability declining
due to a combination of high fixed costs, structural change and
recession.
(2) There is an urgent need for regulatory relief
and legislative change for the industry. The focus must be on
securing viable local services that provide the output that listeners
want, rather than measuring quotas of hours or prescribing where
content is made. The Digital Economy Bill is central to achieving
this new framework, along with reform of Ofcom's rules on localness
and music formats.
(3) Commercial Radio's difficulties are exacerbated
by the strength and size of the BBC. In particular, commercial
stations are finding it difficult to compete against the BBC's
national pop music stations (Radio 1 and 2) that are targeting
their heartland audience of 15-44 year olds. In addition,
the sheer scale of the BBC's radio budget, and the nature by which
it procures programming inputs such as exclusive sports rights,
is squeezing commercial stations out of the radio market.
For us at KM this is an issue across all our
media—I attach for your information a press release sent
out by the BBC Trust which shows that the BBC are committed to
strengthening their local news service—I believe this initiative
alone will cost £49.7 million over the next three years.
I look forward to seeing your final report on
the future of local media and if there is anything further I can
do for the Committee please let me know.
Steve Fountain
Head of Radio
November 2009
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