Yes, James, it is.

Completely bonkers, but what a massive saving…..

Which makes sense given the number of commercial stations doing similar things…. tho obviously not on such a grand scale….

It’s an excellent idea, but it’s probably a step too far for many managers who would see them devolving control to “the regions”.

I’d love to see a pilot though – perhaps Scotland would be a place to give it a go?

If all the BBC Networks became sustaining services that any non-profit could opt in and out of, I’d be happier still.

J

The BBC are the only large scale radio broadcaster who continues to broadcast proper, useful local programming to their TSA and you want that to be removed and a couple of opt-outs put onto Radio 4. Absolutely ludicrous.

sort of ok in principal… however I can see a small drawback with this..

Local Sport – how does this fit in..

eg. in east yorkshire, coverage of rl is huge, but in your blueprint, this doesn’t fit in…

Hello James,

It’s a nice thought but ignores one major thing – the local radio audience is very different to the Radio 4 audience. A generalisation – but the R4 audience is social class a/b, whereas the local radio audience is mostly c2/d/e. Most of those audiences, I think would be lost to the BBC entirely – and wouldn’t necessarily have anywhere else to go. Again generalising, they are mostly older (not served by the Heart network etc) – and mostly unloved by advertisers. But they do love their local areas – and their BBC local radio stations.

I’m not convinced it would safeguard BBC Journalists’ jobs either. Instead, I suspect it’d be more likely used as an excuse to downsize hugely – and the quality standards of BBC Radio 4 not maintained due to a lower number of experienced production staff available for each hour’s radio.

I’m not saying there aren’t savings to be made in the BBC – of course there are, as there are with any creative organisation – but local radio is, given the amount of audio created for full-speech breakfast (and now an hour of drive) programmes – not exactly awash with money.

One final thing. Where do the next generation of ‘the best broadcast journalists’ train?

After that essay, time for a cup of tea. Ta!

Another model that works well outside the UK is this: a local station exercises total editorial control but chooses at will certain “network” programmes from the BBC World Service and other broadcasters which are formatted to allow for local clock-start opts.

That way, only those network programmes that add genuine value to the local audience get aired. Very audience-driven and much better value for the network providers than operating their own transmitters 24/7 in many places.

Oh, and just in case Tim or Gwyneth are reading, of course I disagree with everything James suggests. Always. On principle.

And John Collins who suggests “perhaps Scotland would be a place to give it a go” has clearly forgotten the poll tax.

and if the local river bursts its banks and floods the region they can opt out and radio 4 is still on LW & digital as your plan was FM transmission/programming condensing.

it would have to pass the listeners staff unions board trust government. but debate is healthy.

your sub regional local Scottish idea is already a reality in NI with Ulster & Foyle but with last years cuts Radio Foyle is now radio tin foil.

This could save local from boring morning anchor phone-ins which are popular but very lowest common denominator programming, merely a vox pop with out having to bother leaving the warm studio.

bonkers yes. would it work maybe. would it be let, no.

The one thing I’d add to this plan is a local part time ‘extra’ station that could cover events from Mela to Pride as well as local sports too. Giving people, in a flash, more listening benefits by moving to digital.

…or of course, do this plan with 5Live rather than Radio 4. Probably more output similarities and lots of them already take 5Live overnight.

if there was DRM in use there could be a sub channel opt out. I hate the way 5 live sports extra is such a waste as a loop announcement. Sport is not 24/7. temporary provision on opt out and if really local is needed the ground wave of DRM on 26MHz would keep it in the city limits.

Not such a bonkers Idea James, your idea has been well thought out. I would rather see Radio Three undergo a major transmission re-structuring, or partial closedown perhaps?… after all I believe it’s the BBCs most least listened to network, or am I way off beam here? However, closing Radio Three would give Radio Four an oportunity to expand and encompass some of Radio three’s more popular programming as well. Briefly, I would like to see Radio Four re-named “The Home Service” as it was prior to 1967 and the network re-working/re-naming. The New Home Service would be as it always was in those days, regional with opt-out programming in different regions. The New look Home service could have the vacated Radio Three frequencies as it’s general entertainment service, with programming such as The Archers, afternoon plays and comedy shows… Whilst the existing Radio Four frequencies could be vacated for another national commercial network or some local commercial stations. A rolling national/local news, documentary and entertainment version of Radio 4 (New Home Service 2), could then be carried via the network of local BBC stations across the UK. It would be set up so that a standard national feed from each country would be the default service and then this would give local areas and their transmitters an opt-out for different parts of a region for more localized news and local entertaiment as and when they desired it. After all, most of the BBC local stations are only local from 7am until 7pm before some link up for semi-regionalized output until midnight. Such is the case here in the East of England. So, with sensible BBC planning along similar lines to your suggestions James I think you have come up with something worth considering here.

Any idea that would mean “You and Yours” coming off the air is worthy of consideration. And indeed, Radio Scotland already operates a system that’s a little bit like this, with opt-outs in some parts of Scotland for (I think) 9 minutes at 0650 and 0750)

But James Wickham does makes some excellent points. I have a couple of others.

The first is operational. What happens on the morning that, say, Hebden Bridge is beset by disastrous flooding? Does Andrew Edwards (who is indeed excellent, and for full disclosure purposes, was one of my journalism tutors) over-ride the Today programme and stay on air? And what does the BBC then say to people in Wakefield (for example) who are not able to get their fix of Humphrys and Naughtie that morning? (Or would “proper” R4 continue on LW? Or DAB?)

The second is political. Most of the politicians who want the BBC cut down to size want to retain its core public service output. Ask any of them what this means, and they’ll probably mention Radio 3 and local radio in the same breath. MPs love bigging up their BBC local radio station on the floor of the Commons, or in select committees. So this plan, while it has some merit, is just not the thing that would curry favour with MPs (who are not supposed to have any sway over what the BBC does. But they do.)

Nope – you can’t bolt one audience on to another – bit like mixing Lego with Meccano. But you do highlight that much of BBC Local Radio is toe-curlingly bad. It often fails to serve its local audience – listened to by only the waiting-for-god brigade. I wonder if they should do a Heart and use Radio 2 as a sustaining service with local breakfast and drive, local news and traffic throughout the day???

Totally agree with you James – but don’t stop there. If the BBC is genuinely supposed to provide exclusive content that’s not catered for adequately by the commercial sector then its UK radio portfolio should consist of:
- a music station showcasing new and emerging artists, plus festivals and live events
- an arts/culture/comedy station
- a news/documentary station

Things the BBC doesn’t need to do:
- broadcast pop music
- broadcast phone-ins
- get into bidding wars over sports rights

There will always be people who will argue against the closure of bits of the BBC they hold dear – but as you say, there isn’t the money to keep all of it. Start the cull now.

Matt Deegan and James Wickham have written what I was going to write, but I’m going to write it anyway:

If you were contemplating a move like this, the obvious candidate to do it to would be Five Live, which is far closer in style and tone to local radio, and lends itself – with the move to Salford – to imaginative integration with “the regions”.

Nice thoughts. It’s what we had many years ago when I joined Beeb. We did local opt outs on R4. Got to go still job hunting after 18 months!

Do MPs love their local BBC radio station primarily because they give them airtime?

@Andy I suspect that is one of the reasons

Andy. That is the reason local radio will always be heavily defended by MP’s. Even the worst MP can get on local radio, and constituents always kick up a fuss if a change is in the air.

A few flaws of sorts with your plan.

You’ll certainly get the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembley coming down on you like a ton of bricks if you removed their sole national services. Don’t forget, even Newsnight has a pointless opt-out in Scotland to assuage local feelings (NB. “Pointless” in the sense that a local broadcast should follow Newsnight, not interrupt it).

And as James Wickham says, the audience for Radio 4 and BBC Local Radio are very different.

As I like to let the numbers do the talking for me, I’ve just done a little run:

BBC Local Radio and BBC Radio 4 reach roughly similar numbers of adults 15+ – about 10 million each. But only, 2.5 million listen to both services. And in the main that’s because they’re very different and serving completely different audiences.

A simplistic analysis would reveal that both have a mean age of 55, and both are marginally more male than female. But after that, the differences become clearer. Radio 4 is 75% ABC1 while BBC Local Radio is only 52% ABC1 (the population is 55% to put that in perspective). 32% of BBC Local Radio listeners read a red-top tabloid compared with just 12% Radio 4 listeners. Whereas 37% of Radio 4 listeners read a broadsheet compared with 24% of BBC Local Radio audiences. Radio 4 audiences are more digital – 53% having a DAB radio at home compared with 38% of BBC Local Radio listeners. And while 30% of BBC Local Radio listeners never use the internet, just 18% of BBC Radio 4 users don’t use it.

So BBC Local Radio is basically serving a slightly downmarket elderly audience compared with Radio 4′s resolutely upmarket listenership. They’re very different people who want very differnt things from their radio.

Given that the population is aging substantially, and commercial radio woefully underserves the elderly demographic (advertisers just aren’t interested for the most part), reducing the choice of older listeners doesn’t seem to be the right thing to do.

And of course you play with the Radio 4 audience at your peril. If you think a 6 Music audience can get mobilised, wait until the station of the middle classes gets tinkered with. When there questions in Parliament surrounding the abolition of a piece of music played at 5.30am, I’d dread to think what would happen if you substantially altered Radio 4′s remit.

With true ILR services becoming a distant memory, you’ve actually reduced all local radio. 20 minutes an hour during Today and a couple of other programmes really doesn’t cut it.

The listener who enjoys Beswich at Breakfast in Manchester or Tony Snell in Liverpool, probably isn’t going to want to hear John Humphries for two thirds of the time instead. They’re very different shows for very different audiences.

And you’re obviously not a fan of radio drama, as weekday and weekend afternoons, which you suggest are possible times for regional/local opt-outs, are pretty much the only times that drama goes out on radio.

I think as far as savings go, BBC Three, which is well catered for in the commercial marketplace, and whose audience comes from narrative repeats of major BBC1 programmes, would be a stronger target. It costs £119m pa, and wouldn’t leave hundreds more people in the radio industry out of work as your effective closure of significant chunks of BBC Local Radio would.

Of course regional services opting out of the national service is how it all started back in the 1920s…. and I still recall living in Cornwall in 1982 when (prior to Radios Devon and Cornwall) “Morning South West” did indeed opt out of the Today programme!

At Radio Leeds I recall us taking the 1800 news from R4 (and I think The World At One too) which was branded BBC .. not “BBC Radio 4 ” as it is today.

Provacative as your post is, it raises the question of “what questions should be asked”… so here are a few more…

Why does BBC Radio News make 5 Live Breakfast and Today (Tv stopped doubling up ages ago), Why do we have Five Drive and Eddie Mair’s PM? Surely its time to put the R4 sequences on 5 live freeing up R4s hours for other material?

Or why dont we do what you suggest .. but with Five Live on local radio FM instead? Again local radios breakfast out perform Five Live breakfast in most TSAs so local breakfast and mid morning .. with Five Live afterwards. Local opts for the footy with the big alterantive national game on 5 extra.

Or why dont we just close Radio One and Three as the former is just like commercial radio and statistically no one listens to the latter.

OR (and this is my favourite) just scale back TV a little bit which will more than pay for keeping the radio servives that the vast majority of people in the UK tune into every week.

Others have made the point about the different in audience profiles between BBC Local and BBC Radio 4. I am not a fan of You and Yours, but phone-ins like Money Box live are an example where it makes sense to deal with a topic on a national basis. I would tinker with some of the programmes, but not the mash-up that James suggests.

NPR does indeed manage to mix local with national programming. That sounds great in Chicago and SFO where they have high quality local NPR station. I remember KQED saying they have a budget of 55 million dollars for both radio and TV, but its the local radio audience of 35-55 year olds who donate the lions share of that funding. However, when the local NPR affiliate is poor, the opt ins sound more like you have changed channels. All Things Considered in Tampa Florida sounds very different than in a major US market. In Australia, with its vast distances (6 hr flight from Sydney to Darwin) the mix between Radio National and local ABC stations makes a lot more sense.

I would look to trim Radio 3, have much closer links between Radio 5 and local stations, and see what elements of programming on BBC World Service would merit airing on Radio 4. Programmes like The Interview are really superb.

May be it is time to look at a new style Pick of the Week where more elements from BBC Local Radio and BBC World Service are used, rather than bits from Radio 4. Its the sort of Amazon recommendation engine approach….

Was reading down the comments with interest waiting for someone to suggest what I’ve always thought – glad it took as great a radio legend as David Lloyd to suggest putting 5 Live on FM with local drives & opt-outs through the day for news travel etc. as I’ve always thought it should have been. Maybe even a consistent strand of programming such as ‘You and Yours’, focussing on national and local consumer issues in the same way that Sunday Lunchtime Politics Show works on BBC1. The 1967 plan that was hatched in a hurry has stood the test of time surprisingly well, but it’s time for a proper review.

This is certainly the boldest suggestion I’ve seen.

My first reaction was shock (& the “no, wait, it gets better” was definitely required) but then great sadness. I only hope that the person sitting holding the purse strings isn’t looking.

BBC local radio is important. I am part of the last new LR launched in 2005. A station which existed 10 yrs previously but was closed from full broadcasting & given local opts/some progs from the regional hub. Presumably as a cost cutting measure. Listeners locally felt let down when their local BBC ‘left’. Nearly 10 years later, the decision was reversed & a brand new local BBC radio station was relaunched with full team, programmes & resources.
I remember reading in the last 6 months or so, an article about how commercial radio had merged/networked so much that they had lost their local identity & were losing listeners as a result.
I can certainly see the benefits of your plan but wouldn’t it potentially be repeating past mistakes?

I am immensely proud to be working for the BBC & particularly in local radio. I feel we connect with so many who do not engage with other BBC services (as James & others put earlier, not R4′s demographic). Local radio can be incredibly creative & can work as a catalyst at the grass roots of a community.

I think that we often forget how important it is to our listeners that we know the patch, each road, junction, shop & pub. We try desperately hard to be a part of the community, to engage, inform & celebrate.

Good local radio is more than a radio station, or an FM frequency it is a community.

I’ve spoken to many listeners who remember the merger 15 years ago & said how disengaged & isolated it made them feel. I only have great sadness that it should ever happen again.

I’m a David Lloyd not the legendary one !

But he’ll have even better ideas !

@John Tyndall
The argument that the BBC should solely provide market failure output is flawed; what value for money do you feel the licence fee payer would get if there was no popular or populist content?

Furthermore: if the BBC stopped producing EastEnders and shut down daytime Radio 2, what do you think would happen to the quality of commercial media’s soap operas and pop music radio stations?

David Lloyd’s more or less said it already – just shows if you wait long enough, everything comes back: the Home Service had regional opts until the opening of local radio; Morning Sou’west was the immediate predecessor of Radio Devon until 1983; similarly with Radios Scotland, Wales, and Ulster. It’d be like the 1980s and 90s never happened. Wonder if you’d advocate the return of full service commercial stations as well?

Now, if you’d suggested scrapping Something Understood and just putting out tone instead, you might have been on to something.

Tom…I know many an engineer who be orgasmic if they just put out tone. Bloody broadcasters !

It’s crackpot…but I like it.

I recognised the US/Canada model in there – and any model that produces shows like This American Life or allows for daily documentaries at 8.30 every morning has got my vote.

I saw another commenter, also called Adam, say “The BBC are the only large scale radio broadcaster who continues to broadcast proper, useful local programming to their TSA”

If repetitive bland pieces about Asparagus, or regurgitated GNS 2-ways count as “useful local programming” then we’re in trouble.

Great idea James, thanks for sharing

I’ve been thinking about this some more. Adam Bowie and Siobhan make excellent points, which has leant more towards thinking “maybe they should combine 5live and local radio a bit more instead”.

And then I thought: “Hang on. They’re about to move 5live to Salford. That involves relocating many, many staff who are making the move with perhaps a bit of reluctance. There’s also going to be pressure on 5Live to sound good once it moves.”

So perhaps making changes to 5L — which would be cuts, let’s not muck about here — would not be the smartest thing for the BBC to do.

Crumbs, this management mullarkey is awfully difficult, isn’t it?

I can’t help feel that what’s really needed at the BBC is a complete root-and-branch overhaul of its staffing levels.

I blogged about this last year, following a chance remark by James on his blog.

http://pauleaston.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-many-people-does-it-take.html

This morning, James C tweeted, “Interesting. http://muk.fm/q25 – most “disagree” are from BBC IP addresses or BBC people; most “agree” is from commercial radio types.”

As @nickwallis says, it’s not hugely surprising. Maybe, though, it should be. I’ve always believed that the old concept of the battle being commercial radio v BBC radio is outdated.

Again, I’m afraid I must generalise, but I hope you take the concept rather than possibly individual examples. I think I work in one of the few places in the country where, to my knowledge, the local commercial station could genuinely be felt to be ‘competition’ to the BBC Local offering – Lincolnshire. The excellent Lincs FM know their audience inside out, genuinely serve their local area – and produce local, relevant content.

Hold your breath, but I’d like to suggest that for much of the rest of the country, the opposition to commercial radio (like, for want of a better example, Heart) is not in fact BBC Local – but Spotify, iTunes, cds, other commercial radio stations and (for some of the day at least) BBC Radio 2.

Simply, the offerings are very different. Again generalising hugely, although there are some hugely talented people working in commercial radio (some of whom I’ve lived and/or worked with), and a few stations broadcasting genuinely interesting content, much is, let’s be honest, essentially a jukebox.

That’s not a criticism. It’s entirely understandable – it’s what appeals best to the audience for which you want to attract advertisers.

But I think although the method of broadcast may be the same, the manner in which people listen is very different indeed.

The key is in making sure the radio sector generally is in rude health. That means a strong BBC, which broadcasts both specialist, public-service broadcasting that can’t be catered for by the commercial sector – as well as popular broadcasting which maintains a high level of quality in both the BBC & Commercial sectors – and just as crucially, a strong commercial sector.
By that I mean a commercial sector which offers genuine choice – stations broadcasting original, produced content – and stations broadcasting, essentially, music for the masses – and having the financial capability and understanding of the nature of risk – and willingness occasionally to take it – to do so.

So how do we achieve this? Um… don’t really know. I’m not experienced enough, I don’t have enough knowledge of the commercial sector and I don’t know enough about regulatory structures to have the answers. But I don’t think getting rid of BBC Local Radio will help. The key is in making sure the two offerings are different enough to offer choice to the listener – but still appealing.

Just one thing before I let this second essay go. I’m not criticising commercial radio. Please don’t take this as evidence of that. What I’m suggesting is that the old ideas of commercial v BBC need looking at before we can understand whether or not the ‘radio’ sector is in trouble or not – or indeed, whether or not ‘the radio sector’ still exists at all.

(For full disclosure – and I apologise I didn’t write this earlier -I’m a journalist & presenter at BBC Lincolnshire – and have recently spent 9 months or so reporting for GNS (the bit of the BBC that provides reporters for local radio on national news stories. Needless to say, these opinions are mine and not theirs. But then you knew that, didn’t you?)

I don’t work in the media, but know plenty of people who do and so I’m an interested observer, and consumer. I am not in favour of this suggestion at all.

The beauty of Radios Four and 5 Live (my own favourite) is that they are national and international in focus – if I wanted to listen to local content I would go to my local stations, but that doesn’t interest me. I like the fact that I can listen to phone-in opinions from Exeter and Cardiff and Manchester and Aberdeen and Newcastle and Norwich. I like the fact that my 5 Live day starts with news stories and comment from around the country and around the world. I like the fact that I’m kept abreast of those stories throughout the day, right through to the early evening. I don’t really need to know about local traffic or weather conditions all day long – and on the occasions that I do I will tune away to my local station. Similarly, I don’t particularly want to know about local issues, and if I do I can find out about them in the local paper – things rarely move so fast that a weekly round-up is inadequate. Again, if there is a really big local story I’ll tune away from 5 Live for the duration to catch the details and updates, but those occasions are few and far between.

I know that the current mantra is “localness”, but for those us who like a national and international dimension to our day Radios Four and 5 Live provide the right mix of news (and sport) and comment on the whole. Axing dedicated local BBC stations and instead including local programming as part of the national stations’ output would dilute both elements of the service, and probably end up frustrating more listeners than it would truly satisfy.

May be the mantra should be “relevance” rather than localness. Are radio stations broadcasting enough relevant material to draw in their target audience? I think money can certainly be saved by sharing more raw material between stations. You can never eliminate duplication, but you can encourage co-operation between non-competing networks. There are gems across the entire BBC offering which would benefit from being used in a different context instead of resorting to pointless phone-ins. Reminds me of an interview I did with the late John V. Russell about how he programmed BRMB in the early days – making local stories relevant to the audience was a big part of the plan. http://www.vimeo.com/7042033 for those interested.

Hmm

“You’ve created radio for West Yorkshire.”

If I know James, that bit of text dynamically changes depending on the location of the reader.

Does it, James? Does it?

It sounds very much like the original pre World War 2 Home Service? Regional output with a core service from London.

BBC Television follow this format already, with a national service that “opts” out occasionally for regional programming… and I doubt you’ll find anyone who says that BBC television adequately serves the local population.

But then cutbacks are cutbacks…

[...] BBC: how to save 25% by making radio better | Blog index [...]

Crazy and inspired well and poorly informed brilliant and yet just a little daft and managing at the same time to underline all the indications that London never quite ‘got’ Nations radio. An amalgamation of Radio 4 and Nations radio would be retrograde; I actually remember the pompous tones of the Northern Ireland Home Service – not unlike the proposition here.

There might be a stronger argument to amalgamate Nations and Regions radio with Radio 2.

But hold on a minute! Why’s this guy picking on Radio? Sure savings could be made, but, come on, TV is pretty crap, really (and because of constant cost cutting and over stretching hours and channels, increasingly so).

James – you know radio – you really do – but I’m not sure you have a grasp of the breath of needs and tastes of all of the whole UK audience. Just for one moment the required crash of gears moving Today into a mini-GMU is ear-boggling. On the other hand, if it got rid of that horrible, horrible news stab …

But congratulations on opening an important debate – suppose I have to follow your blog now.

Ooh. Maybe James is incredibly prescient: From @mikebettison (Editor, R Nottingham) on Twitter: “BBC #radio #nottingham staff told today that a merger with Five Live is ‘under consideration’.”

It’s amazing how these keep coming back round. I can see the logic of using of 5Live as a base for this, as it means they can turn MW off and use lovely FM for those without DAB. Effectively, it pulls 5Live as a sustainer into daytime. It cuts local radio costs (all speech? bye bye PRS) and actually solves the problem of giving local radio an identity that audiences understand. Effectively, you could mirror BBC Breakfast/News Channel on radio. Campbell and Forgarty do their bit each day, with local opts (as on TV but longer) with sport on National DAB.
The bonus is you’ve then got more cohesive reporting teams on the ground, working to one editor and one deadline. The listeners win and the BBc dodges the bullet on what to do with an AM network (if anywhere is being turned off it’s that) when FM is full and no-one is really buying into DAB in a big way.

You’d never get Radio 4 cut back – the audience are too close to the decision makers. Personally, I’d turn off Radio 3 FM. Get rid of Sports Extra and use the extra capacity to crank up the bitrate to keep the classical music buffs happy.

Richard:

1. Turning off “Parliament” on DAB would be a good way of increasing audio quality. Sadly, they missed that opportunity for Radio 4 Extra.

2. The most listened-to radio station on DAB from the BBC, as a percentage of audience? Radio 5 Live (er, I assume, cough). What do you think the second highest is? I can’t tell you that. But wouldn’t it be amusing if it was, consistently, a station always cited by audiophiles as awful quality?

3. “No-one is really buying into DAB in a big way”: rather have DAB’s audience than internet radio (which is a fifth the size)…

With reference to James’ second point above, you could always look at page 221 of last year’s Ofcom Annual Communications report (PDF). Fig 3.34 is what you’re looking for.

The data’s a little out of date, but nonetheless…

As for merging Local with Five Live? It’d be an incredible shame. With co-location and the removal of restrictions on locally produced programming that have led to networks like Heart, Capital and Kiss, only some relatively small areas would be left with any kind of significant radio for their area.

And this at a time when the much more expensive TV is going local…

Ok I have worked in commercial radio and have seen how the networking of mid morning worked. Most days it worked fine, it’s a music station not a news station and it’s not trying to be, so who cares about localness!

However, the problem comes after staffing shrinks because on most days you don’t need many local staff…then all the schools are shut because of severe snow, or there’s a very important local press conference called at the last minute. It’s very difficult to scramble all of the staff you need at the drop of a hat and quickly get presenters to stay on or on or opt back into network programming. Who are we serving? How important is localness? What would be the selling point of this new combined station?