LONDON: The UK's commercial radio sector has asked media regulator Ofcom to relax rules governing the amount of locally-generated programme content it must include in its schedules. Such a change would facilitate competition against the publicly-funded BBC, believes marketing body The Radio Centre.
It wants the watchdog to introduce a system that will allow bigger stations to fulfil a seven-hour daily local quota and smaller stations just three.
A letter from the Radio Centre board, on which sit such radio luminaries as Ralph Bernard, ceo of GCap Media, and Alun Cathcart, chairman of Emap Radio, argues the industry's case ...
"The only way we can hope to compete effectively with the BBC's content and deliver localness as a compelling point of distinction, is to have the flexibility to concentrate our resources."
Data sourced from Financial Times online; additional content by WARC staff
