Ethos Public Relations Manchester

Local radio must be safeguarded

by John Walding, Honorary Secretary, CIPR North West Group

In an industry where many organisations value the importance of local coverage, our BBC Local Radio stations provide an important and vital platform for people to promote our events, our expertise and our successes, something that could change under the proposed changes to Local Radio outlined in Mark Thompson's 'Delivering Quality First'.

Nearly 400 jobs are set to go in local broadcasting across England as part of the BBC's plan to reduce its budget by 20% over the next five years. 280 of the posts under threat are from BBC Local Radio across England, with potentially almost a quarter of the workforce under threat at BBC Radio Manchester. There will also be a move towards stations sharing some afternoon, evening and weekend programmes - with one pan-England programme from 19:00 until 22:00.

Local Radio is being asked to find savings of 12% (10% after re-investment). The BBC as a whole has been tasked with making savings of between 16-20% – so Local Radio has been relatively protected. However this does feel higher because the cost of buildings and technology which are required to broadcast in 40 locations and means that the cuts inevitably fall on the people who make the programmes.

Love it or loathe it our BBC Local Radio Stations provide vital information on what is going on and an opportunity to tune in and listen at length to the people, issues and events that affect and shape our localities. It provides us as communicators with an unrivalled local channel with which to speak in our local community. Without it we will find the local broadcast landscape an even more challenging place in which to be heard.

When our regions face challenging times be it weather, riots, or times of great tragedy it’s often our local BBC station we turn to give us up to date news and analysis of what is going on. It is hard to see how commercial radio can devote the same time and resource to this, and the BBC stations will retain the ability to stay local when people depend on them most.

Local radio has also been the training ground for a whole host of our broadcasting talent, many who have gone on to become household names after cutting their teeth reporting on the people and issues affecting our regions. Will it still be the same post cuts?

We realise that the BBC is facing some tough challenges in responding to the impact on its budgets but it is vital that we ensure that local radio is left in a position to deliver the quality of programming that our regions deserve. We can all make our voices heard by taking part in the current consultation into the BBC’s Delivering Quality First proposals which runs until 21 December.

All too often we have watched as cuts have changed the nature of our local news and programming. Let's make our voices heard to help safeguard the potential threat to yet another.

Posted at 3:26pm on 13^th December 2011