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This time I outline a scenario that may occur in the future. Imagine a world where you are the licensee of a community radio station and you have just heard the news that any financial limitations placed on your station no longer exist. You may earn as much as you like, even make a earnings if you wish. Feel free to run your station as a private business and do what you need to do commercially to make your station viable at least and successful at best. The down side of course is you cannot seek or assert any funds from the government and you must conform to all requirements placed on you in relation to tax and so on. In this scenario you are on your own and the success or failure of your radio station is down to you and not anyone else. Some may say this is an improbable scenario. I disagree. It is almost sure to happen, if not without delay then it is reasonable to suggest that this scenario may become a reality within the next ten years. If you look at the authorities controlling the medium of radio over the last twenty years, the nature and form of that authority has changed beyond recognition. There was the IBA, The Radio Authority and now OFCOM. Even though the name changed, the functions of the authority seemed to modify too. Not only that the move to relax the rules of radio broadcasting, driven by those who worked and managed the industry. The pace of change accumulated so much momentum that local mercantile radio has become an wholly dissimilar beast to the animal it was twenty years ago. I am not saying it is a bad thing, but you have to confess that the dropping of localness in mercantile radio has invented a product that has no local value anymore. If the procedure and the pace of alter proceeds over the next ten years at the rate it has done in the past it is reasonable to suggest that the relaxation of rules governing community radio will occur too. Change is inevitable I believe this will be driven completely by mercantile reasons in the sector. I have come to comprehend that community radio licensees are humans who have a social conscience, believe in the moral reasons why community radio ought to subsist and believe in social gain. The fact is that cash or making cash it is not what they are about. It is not share of their brief and with the exception of the very few don’t genuinely make cash from a radio station… why? They don’t recognise how to. How a great deal of times do you listen described the person who runs or owns the community radio station you work at or listen to is ‘a very nice person’? So much so that it is occasionally employed as an pardon to cover the limitations of that persons’ capacity to in truth run a business. I listen it all the time. The fact is community radio licensees are good at encouraging the social function their community station is attempting to achieve. But, a good deal of plainly have no idea how to make a station sound good or how to make cash from the product they have. The social ideals of community radio and a little business that makes cash are not reciprocally exclusive. You may be both. If you look at mercantile radio you will find experts in each facet of the business who recognise how to manipulate the population the broadcast to. You may not agree with their schemes or policies but at least they’ve got schemes and policies. They have years of experience in scheduling music persons like to listen to, designing advertising campaigns that work, constructing news bulletins, building promotions that listeners will love and so on. They put their psychological result of perception learning and reasoning to good use and focus on what they want to be, what they want to achieve and disregard any pressure to try anything that will get in their way of achieving their goals. They run their stations as a businesses and the product they manufacture has got to be the best. It is exceedingly hard work and they won’t be successful all the time, but that does not stop them. They proceed to construct and evolve over time adapting, altering and building on what they have done before. Mr nice guy Community radio on the other hand, does not. ‘The nice guy’ who manages the station has it very easy really. He may get just sufficient publicity to fund his own position and may raise cash through the community radio fund too. Most of his team, if not all work for free and he may use his station to publicize other cash raising activenesses to compensate the day-to-day bills…nice work if you may get it. That being the case it may come as a rather frightening, or merely scary idea that he might have to run his station as a business at a great deal of time in the future with no financial support other than his capacity to trade advert space. I do not believe the majority of community radio stations would survive in a rigorously mercantile market place. I do believe they may survive if the just get their act together. It is plainly not good sufficient to rest on their laurels now and carry on in a haphazard and messy way which will leave them wholly unprepared for any potential changes in regulation. Community radio licensees need to manage their stations. Being a ‘figurehead’ or ‘Mr nice guy’ is not going to make any station work. That person needs to be a multi-skilled person with a lot of psychological result of perception learning and reasoning of branding/product management, finance, sales, retail and humane resources management at the very least. It would be interesting to carry out a review of the current status of an person community radio station. Looking with objectivity at output, resources and finance to see how well the station is performing all over the board. This is a routine that is regularly carried out in successful businesses both big and little and has two benefits. It provides a snapshot of how the station stands at the time and provide manager with the capacity to see things that need to be dealt with or they might harm the business in future. Know where you are The most essential thing to do in this regard is to get an independent view from someone who has no vested interest in the station, someone who will be honorable and forthright with you. This could be a local successful businessman or an experienced radio manager (…there are lots of those about). Instruct them to tell you how they see it without keeping anything back and get them to structure their determinations by reporting on strengths, weaknesses chances and threats. They will without delay know what you mean as that is what running a business means. Build on your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, act on chances available and be conscious of and act to fight threats that will harm your business. You will be very astonished at the results and I promise you that the determinations will be a real ‘eye opener’ Finally, don’t wait for the rules to change, run your station as if it is a private business with the aim of making a profit. Keep your community/local values, they fit well and will help you succeed. Do not wait for the rules to change. If you do you may not be in a position to survive in a rigorously mercantile marketplace and your challengers will do everything to see you don’t. |
