[CMA] Community Radio strategy

[Leslie Bunder]

Trevor and all

 

As a member and somewhat lurker of the list, thought I would add a couple of
things. Hopefully now I shall do less reading of posts and adding a few more
of my own.

 

First of all, avoid Business Link at all cost. We used them a few years ago
and the advice is geared towards them helping you write a business plan,
great if you want that but not very useful if what you are looking for is
help and support on marketing.  Far better to get a mentor, then use
Business Link.  They have recently relaunched (at least here in London), so
maybe now the service is better.

 

And the second point with Community Radio, associate yourself with local
community websites that cover similar interests to you. There are some good
potential partnerships there. Many websites are also developing podcasting
services which can be just as important as FM/AM/Digital radio.

 

As someone who has been involved in community new media for over a decade,
I'm looking forward to seeing how new media and traditional community media
can work together and support each other.

 

It's all about making sure people understand how partnerships can work and
not be afraid to do so.

 

Cheers

 

Leslie

 

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Leslie Bunder, editor and co-founder
SomethingJewish
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tel: 07976 220 273
e-mail: leslie at somethingjewish.co.uk

 

SomethingJewish is published by JMT Ventures Limited.

 

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-----Original Message-----
From: cma-l-bounces at commedia.org.uk [mailto:cma-l-bounces at commedia.org.uk]
On Behalf Of Trevor Lockwood
Sent: 28 November 2006 11:12
To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk
Subject: [CMA] Community Radio strategy

 

Javed is right - we do need a coherent policy with a strategy that is
clearly defined and recognisable.

Community radio serves specific sectors, and is ideally placed to do so. It
should have no real concern for audience numbers, particularly now when
broadcasts can be archived and made available in different ways; as
podcasts, streaming from sites, downloads - and can be distributed in
several different ways.

It's this flexibility which provides the key to the future, which when it is
combined with the energy that comes from a small group of people working
together to achieve an objective, will bring recognition and listeners. 

We can straddle the two camps: conventional radio has passive listeners to
content put together by professionals. We can bring together and assist
those people who now just listen but want to broadcast by bringing a
professionalism not found elsewhere, or only rarely, and we can be
identified as stations that provide a certain range of content, whether that
be by ethnicity, language, interest, geography or whatever.

I've just been talking to a Business Link (part of the East of England
Development Association) Business Advisor. He couldn't understand the
concept of community radio. He suggested we should persuade BBC presenter
Libby Purves (who lives a few miles away) to make programmes for us. He said
advertisers would not be interested - that they wanted large audiences. I
disagree, as I believe that the radio broadcasts and the web sites, and the
reach out into the local community with events covered by us will encourage
local advertisers, who get very poor return for expensive display adverts in
local newspapers and magazines.

We can't make good programmes all the time - but we should be prepared to
air those made by other CR stations. Perhaps we need an annual awards
ceremony (sponsored) for the 'Best of ....'

Cooperation agreements with the BBC will only be fruitful when they start
broadcasting our material, and perhaps we need a marketing and promotional
agency that can take the best of our work and sell it to the world.

It's democracy at work, but unfortunately we have a society that only
understands profit in monetary terms. We must sell quality instead.

Trevor Lockwood
Ipswich Community Radio www.icrfm.co.uk
and the fledgling Felixstowe Radio www.felixstoweradio.co.uk

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