A Community Radio Station For Wincanton And Surrounding Villages
Are you interested in your community? Are you involved in a community group?
If you are involved in any form of community group in the Wincanton area, or community issues at any level, then this should be of interest to you.
Ofcom, the broadcast licencing authority within the UK, have announced that they will be accepting additional applications for the establishment of Community Radio stations, over and above those already accepted in the Phase 3 applications, which were closed last spring.
I have had some initial discussions with Ofcom and I am in the initial phases of putting a formal application together to set up "PRIORY RADIO", a community radio station to broadcast to Wincanton and the surrounding villages.
Community radio is a separate tier of radio broadcasting; different from both commercial radio and BBC radio, and each station is separately owned.
Community radio stations are radio services which provide community benefits and run on a not-for-profit basis.
A community radio station is NOT just about providing entertainment, it is about filling in gaps in the services provided by main stream media, and more importantly, about being an educational and training resource for the local community to develop and make use of.
Generally stations are focused on broadcasting to and involving their own particular community - either everyone in the broadcast area or a specific community of interest such as a particular ethnic group, age group or interest group within the broadcast area.
Stations involve local volunteers and groups in providing the service, and bring community benefits such as training and community news and focused discussion as well as general entertainment programming, a reasonable proportion of which should be locally produced and feature local artists.
Community radio stations are the mouth piece of a community and are intended to reflect community life.
The broadcast areas covered by community stations are specifically limited, since they are designed to address a specific community and its needs. They are typically within a 5km radius of the central location, within urban areas.
However, in rural areas such as ours, this limit may well be extended to 10km, due to the lower density of the population.
The following diagram, gives a rough guide as to what could be the primary broadcast coverage areas at both 5 and 10km.
Community Radio Stations are licensed against a specific set of criteria. To be eligible for a community radio licence, a proposed service must:
- Be provided primarily for the good of members of the public or of particular communities and in order to deliver social gain, rather than primarily for commercial reasons or for the financial or other material gain of the individuals providing the service.
- Be intended primarily to serve one or more communities (whether or not it also serves other members of the public). (A community is defined as either people who live or work or undergo education or training in a particular area or locality, or people who have one or more interests or characteristics in common).
- Not be provided in order to make a financial profit, and uses any profit produced wholly and exclusively to secure or improve the future provision of the service or for the delivery of social gain to members of the public or the target community.
- Offer members of the target community opportunities to participate in the operation and management of the service.
- Be accountable to the target community.
The application for a Community Radio licence is judged against:
- The ability of the applicants for the licence to maintain, through the period for which the licence would be in force, the service which they proposes to provide.
- The extent to which any proposed service would cater for the tastes and interests of persons comprising the relevant community, and, where it is proposed to cater for any particular tastes and interests of such persons, the extent to which the service would cater for those tastes and interests.
- The extent to which any proposed service would broaden the range of programmes available by way of local services to persons living in the area or locality in which it would be provided, and, in particular, the extent to which the service would be of a nature or have a content distinct from that of any other local service the licence for which would overlap the licence for the proposed service.
- The extent to which there is evidence that amongst persons living in that area or locality, there is a demand for, or support for, the provision of the proposed service.
- The extent to which the provision of any such proposed service would result in the delivery of social gain to the public or relevant community.
- The provision that the applicant proposes to make in order to be accountable to the relevant community in respect of the provision of the proposed service.
- The provision that the applicant proposes to make to allow for access by members of the relevant community to the facilities to be used for the provision of the service and for their training in the use of those facilities.
With regard to funding such a service, most stations can carry some advertising and sponsorship, but there is a strict limit on how much income stations can take from this source. Funding also comes from the training and educational commitment, community fundraising events, and donations, etc.
Many stations cover a significant proportion of their set up cost through grants from the National Lottery.
The history of Wincanton is rich with individuals who have had imagination, drive and ability, such as those individuals, who on 5th November 1605 organised the towns first Carnival. Or those who were involved in bringing the benefits of fresh water supply pipes into Wincanton in the early 1720s and gas lighting in 1836.
I would like to think that the imagination and drive shown by these and many other individuals from Wincanton over time has not been lost and that the community as a whole will perceive the benefits that a Community Radio Station could bring.
The choice of the proposed station name, "Priory Radio", is a reflection of part of the town's recently lost history.
Day by day Wincanton and its surrounding area, with its growing population, is becoming a more culturally diverse environment, enriching the long established existing community with fresh ideas, resources and culture.
I feel that the Wincanton area would significantly benefit from a Community Radio Station able to not only interact on a real time basis with the local population, but to also significantly involve them in its management and programming.
As I indicated above, Ofcom, have announced this willingness to accept additional applications. However, this appears to be a very narrow window of opportunity, with formally completed applications apparently needing to be submitted by early Autumn, and licences being issued in the Spring of 2014.
If this project proposal is to move forward, then time is of the essence.
Therefore, I would like to initially obtain feedback to my proposal, from interested individuals, representatives of community groups, the local council, plus local industry and business.
This will enable me to measure the level of support such a Community Radio Station project would receive and thus decide upon the viability of pursuing the project further.
I may be contacted via: .
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Reply #1 on : Sat May 11, 2013, 09:57:27
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Reply #2 on : Wed May 22, 2013, 21:28:45
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Reply #3 on : Fri May 31, 2013, 09:51:03
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