30 July 2025

Givin’ up Free! for funk (radio) : 1989-1991 : Free! magazine / Touch magazine, KISS FM, London

 August 1989. There was a momentary lull in the usually frenetic activity at the [former London pirate radio station] ‘KISS FM’ office, whilst we awaited the next Independent Broadcasting Authority [IBA] announcement that would give specific details of the application procedure for the two new London FM [commercial radio] licences on offer. [KISS FM co-founder] Gordon McNamee turned his attention to other matters, since he understood that there was still no guarantee of KISS FM winning the licence, even on its second attempt.

On several occasions, I had mentioned to McNamee my belief that there existed significant untapped commercial potential in KISS FM’s magazine, ‘The Written Word.’ A year earlier, the publication had started life as a single A3 sheet newsletter, entitled ‘94,’ that had been produced on a word processor and had been printed without photographs. At that time, it had been intended solely as an update for the station’s fans and its main feature had been the KISS FM programme schedule. As the station’s mailing list increased in size, so too had the content of the magazine. By the final issue of The Written Word, the thirty-two pages had included lots of photos, record reviews, interviews and information about the London dance music scene. There were also several pages of paid-for advertisements which had helped to defray the increasing costs of printing and postage.

For several years, I had been fascinated by the proliferation of free magazines in London, with weekly titles such as ‘Ms London,’ ‘Girl About Town’ and ‘Midweek’ handed out during the morning rush hour to thousands of commuters at London’s railway and underground stations. For revenue, these magazines depended entirely upon the advertising space they sold, but their distribution costs were low and their print runs were huge. An increasing number of more specialist magazines were being produced and financed in this way. Travelling through Waterloo railway station one day, I had been handed a free entertainment and what’s on magazine that was aimed specifically at high earning commuters living in the suburbs. In my area of Northwest London, I regularly received a free copy of a general interest, colour magazine aimed at homeowners in the locality.

One of the problems KISS FM had encountered with The Written Word was the huge cost of sending out thousands of copies of each issue individually to every person on the station’s growing mailing list. I believed that these expenses could be reduced dramatically by distributing the magazine as a free giveaway to a wider readership that would pick it up from dance music record shops, music venues and clubs in London. Many more copies would have to be printed to circulate the magazine in this way, but the advertising space within it could be sold at a much higher price, since it would be reaching many more readers. Instead of being solely a KISS FM publicity vehicle, the enlarged publication could be London’s first giveaway magazine to be aimed specifically at the city’s dance music community.

McNamee liked my idea and could see the potential it offered him to earn much needed revenue to cover the overheads of running the KISS FM office. After several weeks discussing with him my proposal for the magazine, McNamee asked if I would like to launch the project and be its editor. I had experience in this field, having been editor of the student newspaper [‘Palatinate’] and student handbook whilst at university, and having launched an independent music magazine [‘N.E.’] in Northeast England. I accepted McNamee’s job offer and handed in my notice to the record company where I had worked during the last two years. McNamee said he would pay me £100 for three days’ work each week, plus eight per cent of the net profits generated by the magazine. Although this worked out to be less money than I had earned from the record company, I believed that the new job would improve my career prospects and provide an opportunity to be more closely involved with KISS FM.

Besides, my recent experiences with the record company had left me frustrated and eager to explore a new work opportunity. Back in 1985, whilst working in Israel, I had discovered a female singer named Ofra Haza whose music, a kind of ‘Middle East meets West’ sound, I believed would be marketable in Europe. Since then, I had worked hard promoting her music and had succeeded in achieving airplay on national radio in the UK and positive press coverage. By 1989, one of the Ofra Haza songs I had found in Israel four years earlier had reached number fifteen in the UK singles chart. It was released by the independent record company for which I had been working. I asked the company for some compensation towards all the work I had done to make this artist a success, including a UK artist interview tour I had arranged in early 1989. The directors had met and decided to offer me a cheque for £200. I felt insulted by this amount, particularly as my years of work had given the company its biggest chart hit in a long time. Worse, the credit for Ofra Haza’s chart success was being taken in press interviews by someone else working at the record label. Now, all I wanted to do was quit the company, having earned almost nothing from four years of work having created Israel’s biggest international pop music star, and yet not having even gained any recognition.

I started work at the Blackstock Mews office on 22 August 1989, the first occasion I had earned money from KISS FM, despite having been involved in the business since the beginning of the year. I had been spending more and more time in the office, working with the other staff, but had never been offered remuneration. I looked forward to becoming a proper employee, although the one person in the organisation who did not seem to welcome my appointment as editor of the new publication was Lindsay Wesker [son of playwright Sir Arnold Wesker]. He had been editor of The Written Word, until its recent closure, and he probably felt that this experience, combined with his previous work for the ‘Black Echoesmusic paper, should have made him the ideal candidate for this new post. McNamee told me privately that he was well aware of Wesker’s antipathy towards my appointment, but assured me that he wanted fresh blood to be in charge of the project.

The day after I handed in my notice to the record company, I convened an evening meeting at the KISS FM office to discuss the new magazine. After a considerable amount of brain-storming, [co-worker] Heddi Greenwood suggested it could be titled ‘Free!’ reflecting not only the fact that it was to be a giveaway magazine, but also the notion of personal freedom to which dance music fans would be able to relate. Her suggestion was accepted unanimously. It was agreed that the first monthly issue would be published at the beginning of October 1989, that the print run would be around 30,000, and that the magazine should divorce itself entirely from the KISS FM campaign for a radio licence that had dominated The Written Word. Everyone felt that it was most important for the magazine to be viewed as an authoritative, independent guide to the London dance music scene. Heddi Greenwood would handle the advertising sales for the magazine, and McNamee had appointed Lindsay Wesker its deputy editor in a gesture of reconciliation. I set to work writing a substantial business plan that outlined the magazine’s purpose and ethos, which would also be used in presentations to potential advertisers. Over several pages, I defined the editorial content of Free!, its intended readership and the reasons I believed it would prove so successful.

Now that I had become the fifth paid worker in the KISS FM office, McNamee arranged a second-hand desk and phone extension for my arrival. I was now working at Blackstock Mews on a regular basis, from which I gained a greater insight into the way in which the members of the KISS FM team worked and their respective roles within the organisation.

I was busy putting together the blueprint for the new Free! magazine. I visited a cheap photo-typesetting company in Brighton, commissioned quotes from printing companies, called meetings in the office of potential contributors, and commissioned a logo design. McNamee was becoming increasingly enthused about the potential profit offered by the new magazine, and so he quickly became more involved in its day-to-day running. He had almost stopped talking about KISS FM altogether and, despite our awareness that the new London FM licences were in the pipeline, McNamee directed the whole office’s efforts into this new publishing venture.

One extremely hot and sunny weekend in late August, the KISS FM staff spent the whole of Saturday and Sunday transforming the hitherto unused downstairs room at Blackstock Mews into an office for Free! All the accumulated rubbish was completely cleared out and the dark, dreary room was repainted – ceiling, walls, floor, everything. McNamee bought a job lot of small second-hand desks, which were moved outside to the Mews for us to paint in gloss black. The office stereo system was rigged up outdoors to provide us with musical entertainment, and McNamee dug out some old cassette recordings of programmes from KISS FM’s pirate days, which he had kept in his desk drawers, to entertain everyone.

Some brand-new shelves and storage units were purchased from the IKEA furniture store, which McNamee and I assembled in the new downstairs office. There was one piece of furniture with which McNamee became obsessed: the construction of a huge, rectangular glass-topped table, more than six feet in length. It was the closest he could achieve, for now, to the impressive pieces of furniture he had admired in the opulent boardrooms of KISS FM’s new, corporate shareholders. Between the clear glass table top and its felt underlay, McNamee spent hours carefully positioning press articles about KISS FM and pages from The Written Word magazine, along with some of the station’s publicity materials. Once the glass top had been screwed down to the base, the whole thing looked remarkably like a personal shrine to the KISS FM pirate radio station that McNamee used to run and to the commercial radio business to which he aspired.

One chapter in his business career now having ended, McNamee seemed determined to bury the deep disappointment of the failed [first] KISS FM licence bid and, instead, to put all his energies into turning my idea for Free! magazine into the money-spinner he longed for. The dream of KISS FM radio was very quickly being forgotten.

When I had accepted the job of editor, McNamee had promised that I would also be spending some of my time working on the second licence application, but the launch of Free! was proving to be very demanding and there was still little sign of action within the organisation about the radio licence. 

McNamee hardly ever mentioned KISS FM any more, and the only aspect of the second licence application that seemed to occupy him was satisfying the chairman’s desire to assemble an advisory committee. Since the failure of the first bid, there had not been a single office meeting to discuss what had gone well or badly in the previous campaign, or to analyse what had been the good and bad points of the application. Whenever I broached the subject of the second licence bid with McNamee, he would shrug it off and change the subject to the potential success of Free! magazine, which had overtaken KISS FM as his pet project. This state of affairs frustrated me immensely, because it seemed as if McNamee had lost interest in making a second licence bid at all. He had already discarded KISS FM’s past and the possibility of winning second time around. In fact, McNamee had confided in a close friend, Joe Strong, manager of Dingwalls venue in Camden, that losing the licence had left him “absolutely devastated” and “absolutely inconsolable.”

I was perplexed. I arranged to meet a fellow journalist and radio worker, Daniel Nathan, whom I had known since moving to London in 1986, and with whom I felt I could discuss this problem. As the two of us walked across Blackheath one weekend, I ranted to Nathan about how incredibly close I thought KISS FM was to winning a licence on this second occasion, and how frustrating it was that McNamee seemed intent on wasting the opportunity. I had been the only member of the KISS FM team to attend the IBA press conference announcing ‘London Jazz Radio’s win (Nathan had been there too) and it was obvious to me how much enthusiasm some of the IBA staff had shown towards KISS FM’s bid. This time, there was likely to be a similar number of applicants for the two new licences and, unless KISS FM could submit an almost perfect application, the IBA would feel duty bound to award licences to other groups who proved that they were better organised.

Talking to Nathan clarified, in my own mind, the gravity of the situation. These two new London licences were likely to be the last on offer until sometime in the mid-1990’s. To throw away the chance of winning a black music station for radio listeners in London at this stage would be utterly crazy, particularly after so many people had campaigned for so many years in the hope of just such an eventuality. I decided that, even if McNamee was prepared to remain slumped despondently in his office chair, consigning KISS FM to a space in his glorious past, I certainly was not. If he wanted to wallow in his own despair, that was fine with me. He could carry on playing nostalgic tapes of his old KISS FM shows to everyone in the office, as he had been during recent weeks, but I was determined to do something more positive about winning the station a licence.

On returning to work the following week, at the first opportune moment, I confronted McNamee across his desk in the open plan KISS FM office. Why was he not doing anything about the second licence bid? Did he not believe KISS FM could win? If everyone else still had faith in KISS FM, was he not letting them all down? Was any work being done on a revised application? Was not Free! magazine merely a short-term distraction? Almost anyone could start a new magazine, but how many people could win a radio licence? Why had he slumped into total inaction? As I questioned McNamee, I could sense the other staff at their desks in the office trying to bury their heads in work and look as if they were not listening to our conversation. I explained to McNamee that I thought he was throwing away the biggest business opportunity he was ever likely to encounter in his life. I told him that, of the people within the KISS FM office, I seemed to be the best qualified person to organise and co-ordinate the second licence application [having previously researched and written successful project applications to Durham University, Manpower Services Commission, Northern Arts and Princes Trust]. For the moment, that work seemed to me to be a far more appropriate use of my skills than editing Free!, particularly as nobody else seemed to be doing anything about the KISS FM bid.

I suggested to McNamee that someone else should be brought in to edit Free! magazine while I devoted my full attention to re-working the KISS FM licence application. I had already prepared the groundwork for the new magazine during the last month, and the project could easily be handed over to another editor at this stage. On the other hand, if we did not act on the KISS FM bid now, we would never be offered another chance.

During this monologue, McNamee listened to me, smiled a lot, but said virtually nothing in reply. I could sense that, deep inside, he was incredibly angry that anyone should even dare to challenge his authority in this way. I had seen him act this way before, but only when directing his anger towards others who had displeased him. Instead of showing any response of anger or emotion, McNamee just glowered at you and clammed up. It was his usual cold shoulder treatment – ex-communication rather than confrontation – and you had to wonder whether he was already plotting some ghastly revenge to extract upon you in the future for your supposed crime. McNamee continued to be wholly unresponsive to my questions, so I told him that I planned to start work immediately on KISS FM’s application and that, initially, I planned to do some research in the comparative peace of my home. I promised I would willingly explain and hand over all the tasks I had completed on Free! magazine to whomsoever he wished. After all my suggestions, McNamee still offered me no response, so I gathered together my work and left the office.

After that ‘meeting,’ it was almost a week before I heard anything at all from McNamee. I had been busy working at home, as I had planned, and although I had regular telephone conversations with the other staff in the KISS FM office, McNamee had carefully avoided any contact with me. To me, this sort of behaviour appeared incredibly childish – McNamee seemed to be putting the vanity of his own ego above the need for his radio station to win a licence. Then, late one evening, he phoned me from home. He offered no explanation or apology for his attitude towards me that day in the office, and he gave no reason as to why he had failed to contact me at all during the intervening week. Our conversation was unemotional and business-like. He told me that, from now on, he would pay me £100 for spending three days each week working on the KISS FM licence application. He said he wanted more of my time, but I explained that I had other work commitments during the week on which I could not renege. He made it sound as if this arrangement had just come to him in a flash of inspiration, and that his offer was obviously too good for anyone to turn down.

He also told me that I would no longer be involved in Free! magazine in any capacity. He wanted me to visit the office and hand over all my paperwork to the newly appointed editor, who would be Lindsay Wesker. Finally, he disclosed the caveat that must have taken him almost a week to concoct. When my work on the licence application ended in November, I would no longer be paid by KISS FM, and neither could I resume the editorship of Free! magazine. In essence, I was being allowed to have my own way in the short term but, in the end, I had been made to sacrifice a permanent job at KISS FM. I would be forced to look elsewhere for work once the licence application process was over. This did not worry me excessively because I sincerely believed that KISS FM could win the licence this time around, whereas McNamee seemed already to have resigned himself to failing on the second occasion. This new arrangement cut my pay to a basic £100 per week, because I would no longer draw the percentage of profit that McNamee had previously agreed I would derive from Free! magazine. I was not told the details of the deal that McNamee had struck with Wesker to take over editorship of Free!, but Wesker could not hide his delight at assuming the position he must have felt he had always deserved.

However, when the much delayed first issue of Free! was eventually published at the beginning of November, Wesker’s tendency to indulge himself shone from the inside of the magazine. He contributed one page of his own photos and three and a half pages of his record reviews to the beginning of that first edition. These reviews included glowing critiques of a single released by KISS FM’s own label ‘Graphic Records’ and of a track recorded by Wesker’s partner, Claudette Patterson. I was no longer allowed any involvement in Free! and my name was deleted from the magazine’s masthead, in disregard of my work developing the original idea and setting the project in motion. Free! had been my ‘baby’ and I had had to sacrifice it for KISS FM. From then on, Wesker spent most of his time in the downstairs Free! office at Blackstock Mews, while the rest of us continued to work upstairs on the business of KISS FM and Goodfoot Promotions [Limited].

Personally, I was very disappointed to no longer be involved in the launch and organisation of Free! magazine. However, I firmly believed that KISS FM would win the London licence if I could come up with the necessary facts and figures in this second version of the application form. There would always be another opportunity in the future for me to launch a new publishing project. Right now, this might be the last opportunity I would have to win London a black music radio station. The hard work had only just begun, and a lot of responsibility was suddenly resting upon my shoulders.

February 1990. During recent months […], Lindsay Wesker had become totally absorbed in his role as editor of the monthly magazine Free! and he was now spending little time on KISS FM matters. The February 1990 edition of the magazine presented the first opportunity for KISS FM to explain, in its own words, exactly how it had won its [second application for a] radio licence. Wesker wanted to write the article, but McNamee intervened and insisted that I should pen the two-page feature. Despite the magazine having been my original idea, this was the only occasion I was asked to contribute to Free!, and then only because McNamee had insisted. Wesker seemed incredibly territorial about the project he now viewed as ‘his baby,’ and he appeared to like to do as much of the work on the magazine himself as was possible.

June 1990. The next job appointment I needed to make was the station’s record librarian, who would be supervised by KISS FM’s head of music, Lindsay Wesker. Since taking over the editorship of Free! magazine from me the previous year, Wesker had had little involvement in the re-launch of KISS FM. He seemed almost obsessed with the monthly magazine, spending many late nights in the ground floor office writing articles and reviewing records. Since Wesker had no prior commercial radio experience to contribute, I had not been particularly worried by his absence. However, the person appointed as record librarian would report to Wesker, which is why it was vital for him to be involved in their selection. I loaned Wesker a large folder of all the applications I had received for this job [I had advertised in ‘The Guardian’ newspaper] and I asked his opinion of which might be the most suitable to interview.

The next day, Wesker returned the folder to me, having marked the handful of candidates he felt were most suitable. I looked through his selection and was puzzled by his choices. I asked him why he had chosen those particular applicants, none of whom had previous library experience. He explained that there were two qualities he had been looking for – the candidates had to demonstrate knowledge of dance music, and they had to be female. At first, I thought he was joking, but I quickly discovered that he was not. Wesker explained to me his theory that a record librarian had to be a woman, and stated that he was not interested in working with someone who was not a proven expert in dance music. I was shocked that Wesker could be so irrational in choosing a suitable person for the job. His method of appointing staff was proving to be as bizarre as that of McNamee.

February 1991. Gordon McNamee [now KISS 100 FM managing director] suddenly announced that the station would no longer publish Free! magazine after the January 1991 issue. I was proud to have created the idea for the magazine a year and a half earlier. Although I was no longer associated with its editorial team, I was sad to see Free! close just as KISS FM was proving to be a success with listeners. McNamee explained that the magazine was no longer earning sufficient revenues from advertising to cover its printing costs. However, there were rumours of other reasons for the closure. It was alleged that two KISS FM directors wanted to close Free! because it clashed with their publishing interests. Tony Prince owned the monthly ‘MixMag’ magazine which had recently switched from subscription-only to retail sales. Free! would be a direct competitor. It was also alleged that KISS FM shareholder EMAP [plc] planned to launch its own monthly dance music magazine. Free! would be a direct competitor. Fortunately, Free! found an alternative financial backer and was reborn [under new ownership] as ‘Touch’ magazine, which published similar editorial content.

Once Free! had moved out, the large downstairs room on the ground floor of the [KISS 100 FM] Holloway Road building suddenly looked very empty. I spent an evening picking through the debris left in the office of the magazine that had started life as ‘94’ in July 1988, and which had been such an important part of the pirate station’s campaign to win a licence. Free!’s sudden closure was a bad omen. Staff in the building started whispering about further cuts that might be made to save the company money.

FREE!, nos. 1-15 (November 1989 - January 1991), London.

[Excerpt from ‘KISS FM: From Radical Radio To Big Business: The Inside Story Of A London Pirate Radio Station’s Path To Success’ by Grant Goddard, Radio Books, 2011, 528 pages]

POSTSCRIPT

Having purchased my first soul record (‘Time Is Tight’, Booker T & the MG’s, Stax 119) in 1969, I had been thrilled in 1973 to find a new homegrown monthly colour magazine ‘Black Music’ on the shelves of my local newsagent. I devoured every issue cover-to-cover until its closure in 1984 and wrote to many of its advertisers selling soul and reggae records. I could never have imagined then that, almost two decades hence, I would become the founder of Britain’s longest running monthly black music magazine, created as ‘Free!’ and renamed ‘Touch’ until its closure in 2001.

KISS FM boss Gordon McNamee’s cruel obliteration of my name from the magazine’s history has since empowered his long-time colleague Lindsay Wesker to claim online I created a magazine called free! and to have created free! Magazine and Created free! Magazine and created free! Magazine. I am reminded of the iconic Norman Whitfield soul song ‘It Should Have Been Me’. Evidently, history is written by the vipers.

23 July 2025

The birth and near death of licensed black music radio in London : 2010 : Choice FM, London

 31 March 1990 was the memorable day when London‘s first licensed [South London community of interest] black music station, ‘Choice 96.9 FM’, arrived on-air. Until then, the availability of black music on legal radio had been limited to a handful of specialist music shows, even though about half of the singles sales chart was filled with black music. The decision by then regulator the Independent Broadcasting Authority [IBA] to license a London black music station was part of a huge government ‘carrot and stick’ campaign to rid the country of pirate radio. On the one hand, new draconian laws had been introduced that made it a criminal offence even to wear a pirate radio tee-shirt or display a pirate radio car sticker. On the other hand, the establishment knew that some kind of olive branch had to be offered to the pirate stations and their large, loyal listenership.

Many pirate stations, having voluntarily closed down in the hope of becoming legitimate, were incensed when the IBA instead selected Choice FM for the new South London FM license. Its backers had no previous experience in the London pirate radio business, but had previously published ‘Rootmagazine for the black community in the 1970’s. Although it was impossible for one station to fill the gap left by the many pirates, Choice FM tried very hard to create a format that combined soul and reggae music with news for South London’s black community, which was precisely what its licence required. The station attracted a growing listenership and it brought a significant new audience to commercial radio that had hitherto been ignored by established stations. With Choice FM, the regulator succeeded in fulfilling two aspects of public broadcasting policy: widening the choice of stations available to the public; and filling gaps in the market for content that only pirate radio had supplied until then.

In 2000, Choice FM won a further licence to cover North London with an additional transmitter. For the first time, the station was now properly audible across the whole capital and had access to more listeners and more potential advertising revenues. Its listening doubled and, at its peak in 2006, Choice FM achieved a 2.8% share, placing it ahead of ‘TalkSport’ and ‘BBC London’ in the capital. Choice FM had no direct competitor in London, although indirectly some of its music had always overlapped ‘KISS FM’. The station’s future looked rosy.

However, the Choice FM shareholders must have realised just how much their little South London station was worth, at a time when commercial radio licences were being acquired at inflated prices. Already, in 1995, Choice FM shareholders had won a second licence in Birmingham, but had then sold the station in 1998 for £6m to the Chrysalis plc group, who turned it into another local outlet for its network dance music station ‘Galaxy FM’. At a stroke, the black community in Birmingham had lost a station that the regulator had awarded to serve them. Black radio in Birmingham was dead. The die was cast.

The then regulator, the Radio Authority, had rubber-stamped this acquisition, stating that it would not operate against the public interest. The Authority requested some token assurances: at least one Afro-Caribbean member on the station’s board; an academy for training young people, especially from the black community, in radio skills; and market research about the impact of the format change on the black community. None of these made any difference to what came out the loudspeaker. Birmingham’s black community was sold down the river.

Changes in UK media ownership rules were on the horizon that would soon allow commercial radio groups to own many more stations within a local market. As a result, in 2001, the UK’s then largest radio group, Capital Radio plc, acquired 19% of Choice FM’s London station for £3.3m with an option to acquire the rest. In 2003, it bought the remaining 81% for £11.7m in shares, valuing the London station at £14.4m. The Choice FM shareholders had cashed in their chips over a five-year period and had generated £21m from three radio licences. What would happen to Choice FM London now?

Graham Bryce, managing director of Capital Radio’s London rock station ‘Xfm’ (which Capital had acquired in 1998 for £12.6m), said then:

"Our vision is to build Choice into London's leading urban music station, becoming the number one choice for young urban Londoners. Longer term, we intend to fully exploit the use of digital technology to build Choice nationally into the UK's leading urban music station and the number one urban music brand."

Capital Radio and subsequent owners seemed to want to turn Choice FM into a station that competed directly with KISS FM (owned by rival EMAP plc). But they never seemed to understand that KISS FM was now a ‘dance/pop’ station, whereas Choice FM had always been firmly rooted in the black music tradition of soul, reggae and R&B. Such semantics seemed to be lost on Choice FM's new owners and on the regulator, but certainly not on Choice FM’s listeners, who had no interest in Kylie Minogue songs.

In 2004, Capital Radio moved Choice FM out of its South London base and into its London headquarters in Leicester Square. The station’s final link with the black community of South London it had been licensed to serve was discarded. In 2005, Capital Radio merged with another radio group, GWR plc, to form GCap Media plc. In March 2008, [offshore] Global Radio Ltd bought GCap Media for £375m. In July 2008, Choice FM managing director Ivor Etienne was suddenly made redundant. One of the station’s former founder shareholders commented:

“I’m disappointed that the new management decided to relieve Ivor Etienne so quickly. My concern is that I hope they will be able to keep the station to serve the community that it was originally licensed for.”

However, from this point forwards, it was obvious that new owner Global Radio had no interest in developing Choice FM as one of its key radio brands. In the most recent quarter, the station’s share of listening fell to an all-time low of 1.1% (since its audience has been measured Londonwide). Sadly, the station is now a shadow of its former self, even though it holds the only black music commercial radio licence in London (BBC digital black music station ‘1Xtra’ has failed to dent the London market, with only a 0.3% share).

This week, news emerged from Choice FM that its reggae programmes, which have been broadcast during weekday evenings since the station opened, will be rescheduled to the middle of the night (literally). One of the UK’s foremost reggae DJ's, Daddy Ernie, who has presented on Choice FM since its first day, will be relegated to the graveyard hours when nobody is listening. From 2003, after the Capital Radio takeover, reggae songs have been banished from the 0700 to 1900 daytime shows on Choice FM. Now the specialist shows will be removed from evenings, despite London being a world centre for reggae and having more reggae music shops than Jamaica.

Station owner Global Radio responded to criticism of these changes in ‘The Voicenewspaper: “Choice [FM] has introduced a summer schedule which sees various changes to the station including the movement of some of our specialist shows.”

Once again, the regulator will roll over obligingly and rubber-stamp these changes. For Global Radio, the endgame must be to transform the standalone Choice FM station into a London outlet for its Galaxy FM network. At present, London-based advertisers and agencies can only listen to Galaxy on DAB or via the internet. A London Galaxy station on FM would bring in more revenue for the brand as a result of more listening hours and its higher profile in the advertising community. It would also provide a direct competitor to KISS FM London (ironic, because Galaxy FM had been launched in 1990 by an established commercial radio group as an out-of-London imitation of successful, London-only KISS FM). Global Radio’s argument to persuade the regulator will probably be that Choice FM’s audience has fallen to uneconomic levels. And whose fault was that?

Already, Global Radio’s website tells us that “Choice FM is also included as part of the Galaxy network” which “consists of evolving mainstream music supported by entertaining and relatable presenters.” And yet, according to Ofcom, Choice FM’s licence is still for “a targeted music, news and information service primarily for listeners of African and Afro-Caribbean origin in the Brixton area but with cross-over appeal to other listeners who appreciate urban contemporary black music.” How can both these assertions be true of a single station?

For the black community in London, and for fans of black music, this will be the final straw. Just as happened in Birmingham, the new owner and the regulator will have collectively sold Choice FM’s listeners down the river. Another station that used to broadcast unique content for a unique audience will have been wilfully destroyed in order to make it almost the same as an existing station, playing almost the same content. We have many commercial radio stations, but less and less diversity in the music they play. Radio regulation has failed us.

For Choice FM, the writing was on the wall in 2003 when Capital Radio bought the station and one (unidentified) former DJ commented:

“Choice [FM] was there for a reason [to be a black music station for black people], but that reason changed [since] 13 years ago. That’s why you’ve got over 30 pirate stations in London. If Choice FM kept to the reason why they started, you wouldn’t need all them stations. But Choice has become a commercial marketplace. They’ve sold the station out and they should just say they’ve sold the station out. What’s wrong with that? They have sold the station that was set up for the black community and they know they’ve done the black community wrong. But they’ve made some money and they’ve sold it. Why not let your listeners know?”

For me personally, as a black music fan and having listened to Daddy Ernie for twenty years, I am much saddened. In the 1970’s and 80’s, I had found little on the radio that interested me musically, so I listened to pirate stations and my own records. During those two decades, I actively campaigned for a wider range of radio stations to be licensed in the UK and, by the 1990’s, I had played a direct role in making that expansion of new radio services happen successfully. Where did it get us? Now, years later, I have gone back to listening mostly to pirate radio and my own records (and internet radio). I am sure I am not the only one.

The radio industry and the regulator seem not to understand one important reason why radio listening and revenues have been declining for most of the last decade. They need to examine how, through their decisions, they have consistently sold down the river their station audiences and the very citizens whom their radio licenses were specifically meant to serve. Listeners vote with their ‘off’ buttons when station owners renege on their licence promises and the regulator lets them. Choice FM is sadly just one example.

In 2006, a lone enlightened Ofcom officer, Robert Thelen-Bartholomew, had asked at a radio conference:

“Is there room to bring the content of illegal stations into the fold? One way or another, whether we like it or not, we have a large population out there listening to illegal radio. Why do they listen? We are trying to find out. But, if you listen to the stations, they are producing slightly different content and output [from licensed stations]. Some of it is very high quality. Some of it is very interesting. So, what options are there for bringing some of that content into mainstream radio?”

Seemingly, none. The last FM commercial radio licence the regulator offered in London was more than a decade ago. Last year, when two small South London FM stations (one licensed for a black music format) were closed by their owner, the regulator unilaterally decided not to re-advertise their commercial radio licences (see my story here). A pirate radio station has not been awarded a commercial radio licence by the regulator for two decades.

Why do pirate radio stations still exist? Because, just as in the 1970’s and 1980’s, there are huge gaps in the market for radio content that – in spite of BBC radio, commercial radio and their regulators – remain unfilled. It is no coincidence that the share of listening to ‘other’ radio stations (i.e. not BBC radio and not commercial radio) in London is near its all-time high at 3.1%.

Farewell, Choice FM. I knew you well for twenty years.

And, irony of ironies, we are in Black Music Month.

[thanks to Sharleen Anderson]

[Originally published in 2010 at https://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/choice-fm-rip-birth-and-near-death-of.html . Three years subsequently, 'The Guardian' published a remarkably similar, shorter article 'RIP Choice FM' authored by Boya Dee.]

16 July 2025

You just keep on using me ... until you use me up : 1989 : Brian Davis, Radio & Music magazine, EMAP plc

 In March 1989, an advertisement appeared in the press, seeking staff to work for a new radio industry magazine. There had been several attempts to publish a radio-only trade publication since the launch of commercial radio in 1973, all of which had ended in failure. The industry had still not become large enough to sustain substantial amounts of paid-for advertising, or to build a large enough circulation to make such a publication financially viable. Then, EMAP plc, a major publisher of consumer magazines and regional newspapers, announced plans to launch ‘Radio & Music’, a fortnightly, glossy magazine aimed at the music radio sector. EMAP had established its reputation as one of the twenty fastest growing companies in the UK, with an annual turnover of £189m. It believed the time was right for a radio publication: “The radio industry is undergoing a radical change and deserves a radical voice to reflect the new environment ... We will be the sole magazine devoted to the radio industry in all its guises ...” 

I was eager to secure further outlets for my writings about the radio industry, so I rang the phone number in the recruitment advert. I spoke to Brian Davis, the magazine’s managing editor, and arranged to meet him at EMAP’s John Street office at 6 pm on 22 March. There, on the top floor of ‘MEED House’, I found a group of advertising executives selling space in EMAP magazines by phone with a ferocity and aggressiveness I had never before witnessed. Davis greeted me warmly and the two of us moved into the penthouse meeting room, where he expanded upon the philosophy behind the magazine’s launch. I ran through my experience in radio [pirate radio presenter/producer since 1972; executed turnaround strategy in 1980-81 of Newcastle’s ‘Metro Radio’ whose “audience figures show[ed] the greatest improvement [of all UK commercial stations] and were “the highest since the station’s establishment” according to the IBA regulator; managed the production team at London community station ‘Radio Thamesmead’ in 1986; project manager at London’s ‘Capital Radio’ in 1986-88], and my writings about the radio industry [Radio Editor at London consumer magazine ‘City Limits’ since 1988; Radio Editor at ‘For The Record’ trade magazine in 1989], and I expressed interest in writing for the magazine in either a full-time or freelance capacity. Davis showed me the draft layout of a pilot issue scheduled for April publication, and he asked my opinion of some of the planned content.

He expressed interest in employing me in some capacity on the magazine, and asked me to submit two examples of my work: an opinion piece on one aspect of the radio industry that I felt was pertinent to the magazine’s readership; and a list of twenty editorial items I felt should be included regularly in the new publication. I obliged by writing an editorial on the conservatism of commercial radio playlists, and I drafted a list of twenty suggested features that included:

  • “sit in on a particular show & examine success/failure
  • pick a city/area & examine the radio market
  • details of artists’ radio promotion tours
  • who’s pushing what – record companies/pluggers’ hitlists
  • giveaway sampler CDs.”

I sent my suggestions to Brian Davis and awaited his response. I was still keen to be more involved in [off-air London pirate station] ‘KISS FM’, but it was not earning me any money. Right now, some additional income from writing about radio would be particularly useful for me. I was hoping that Davis might offer me a post or, at the very least, some freelance work. While I awaited a response to the ideas I had sent to Davis, the competition for the London-wide FM radio licence was intensifying.

In a seemingly unrelated occurrence, I attended the opening ceremony of the fifth ‘UK Music Radio Conference’ on the evening of 4 April 1989, organised by the ‘Radio Academy’ at the ‘HMV Megastore’ record shop in London’s Oxford Street. The event itself was largely an opportunity for the radio industry to indulge in mutual back-slapping, but I was there in the hope that it might provide some source material for a radio article. I bumped into Brian Davis, managing editor of publisher EMAP’s new magazine Radio & Music, to whom I had not spoken since our initial meeting the previous month. I had yet to receive a response from him to the ideas I had submitted. Davis introduced me to his associate publisher, Peter Gould, and we exchanged small talk about the magazine’s impending launch. Recognising me across the crowded room, KISS FM’s Lindsay Wesker came to join our conversation and, once I had introduced him to the others, the topic switched to the ex-pirate station’s prospect of winning a London FM licence. Gould was very enthusiastic about KISS FM’s chances and showed particular interest in learning that the station was seeking a further investor. He suggested that a meeting with his superiors at EMAP could prove productive.

In early April 1989, EMAP launched the pilot issue of Radio & Music magazine although, strangely, its editorial was not particularly positive about KISS FM’s chances of winning the London FM licence. From a personal perspective, I was frustrated to find that, during this and the magazine’s following issues, several feature ideas which I had proposed had been used. The magazine’s managing editor, Brian Davis, had never contacted me again.

[Excerpt from ‘KISS FM: From Radical Radio To Big Business: The Inside Story Of A London Pirate Radio Station’s Path To Success’ by Grant Goddard, Radio Books, 2011, 528 pages]

9 July 2025

Tell your friends about dub : 1995 : King Tubby, 18 Dromilly Avenue, Kingston, Jamaica

 From: fu071@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Lao Marzuki Zarief)

Newsgroups: rec.music.reggae

Subject: Reggae Dub wise !

Date: 29 May 1995 14:25:40 GMT

Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)


Could someone recommend me some good dub stylee Lps (various artist).

email me at zarief@pop.jaring.my

thanks in advance

-------------------------

From: grant <GRANT@grantg.demon.co.uk>

Newsgroups: rec.music.reggae

Subject: Re: Reggae Dub wise !

Date: 8 Jun 1995 06:59:11 +0100


difficult to recommend budget titles for king tubby since most cd compilations and reissues are all full price. my pick of the reissues are:

this is the cd version of a double lp released in 1989 with excellent sleeve notes by reggae expert steve barrow and beautiful artwork. a totally fitting tribute and great music. the first lp is a straight reissue of "dubbing with the observer" with incredible versions of niney the observer productions from 1975. the second lp is bunny lee productions from 1974-76. worth every penny.

these are all compilations from 1990 on trojan's offshoot label, attack, and comprise some of the best mid 1970s b-sides from bunny lee productions on his justice and jackpot labels and his work with singer johnnie clarke. i have the vinyl versions but i think they're also out on cd with the "cdat" prefix instead of "atlp".

a 1994 release of material from 1975-89 produced by bunny lee, again with great steve barrow sleeve notes and comprising some of the excellent versions found only on the b-sides of jamaican singles.

all these are uk-released cds at full price, so if you're in the us, i guess you'll have to pay import prices [even in the uk, they are US$21 each]. but they are all the genuine article and not cash-ins on king tubby's name, like many i have seen in the shops.

king tubby was not the only dub mixer/producer. check out errol t's work on the joe gibbs productions "african dub chapters 1-4" [out on cd, but i don't have the numbers]; keith hudson's work on the cd reissues of "brand" [pressure sounds pscd 004] and "pick a dub" [blood & fire bafcd 003]; and anything by augustus pablo [lots on cd].

happy listening!!

-- 

grant                                           e-mail:grant@grantg.demon.co.uk

-------------------------

From: ms20@Wolfe.NET (mAD sCIENCE 2o)

Newsgroups: rec.music.reggae

Subject: King Tubby Discography?

Date: 30 May 1995 16:55:25 GMT

Organization: Wolfe Internet Access, L.L.C.


I've been rediscovering King Tubby these last few weeks.  I'm trying to find an old album I used to have, but can't remember the title.  Does anyone have a discography they'd be willing to post?

Thanks,

ROmeo Fahl

-----

ms20@wolfe.net

-------------------------

From: GRANT GODDARD <GRANT@grantg.demon.co.uk>

Newsgroups: rec.music.reggae

Subject: Re: King Tubby Discography?

Date: 3 Jun 1995 22:16:18 +0100


ROmeo -

some of the best king tubby mixes were to be found on the b-sides of many hundreds of 7-inch singles that came out of JA in the 1970s. if you see any of these in secondhand shops, grab them - even if the a-side is not so hot, the dub can be incredible. otherwise, here are some vinyl albums from the period [though not entirely king tubby mixes] that you should look out for:

by no means is this a complete list!! i have only listed original vinyl LPs. since then, there have been innumerable re-compilations and re-issues of King Tubby material. beware!! beware!! many of the cd's i have seen in shops that bear king tubby's name may well not be mixed by king tubby - many were simply recorded or mixed in his studio. perhaps i will post a separate list of reissues at some point. 

...............................................................................

postscript - excerpt from my obituary of tubby/review of "harry mudie meets king tubby......vols 1/2/3" reissues in 1989:

"..............King Tubby's remix skills received scant attention outside the reggae world and, sadly, always remained a sideline to his electrical repair business and sound system work. Dub was the only truly innovative popular music to emerge from the 70s, and Tubby completely redefined the creative limits of what could be produced in a basic 4-track recording studio. His legacy is embodied in twelve dub LPs that are essential to any reggae collection. It's good to know that three of these are available again at long last."

City Limits magazine, 20 April 1989

...............................................................................

yours (in dub) - grant

[Excerpt from 'Reggae On The Internet: Volume 1' 154-page compendium of newsgroup posts, Reggae Archive, 1995]

27 June 2025

Bob Marley sang “I remember when we used to sit in a government’s yard in Swedes Town”?? : 1995 : Catch The Words, Kenya


 From: gt45@ix.netcom.com (Jerrelle Williams)

Newsgroups: rec.music.reggae

Subject: lyrics

Date: 5 Jun 1995 21:09:32 GMT

Organization: Netcom


Anyone know where I can get reggae lyrics

---------------------------------

From: grant <GRANT@grantg.demon.co.uk>

Newsgroups: rec.music.reggae

Subject: Re: lyrics

Date: 7 Jun 1995 07:14:12 +0100

Organization: Demon Internet News Service


jerrelle -

one entertaining source of reggae lyrics can be obtained from: jkn productions, po box 57066, nairobi, kenya. they produce a series of little printed booklets called "catch the words" that sell in music shops for 45 kenyan shillings.

catch the words volume 29 includes the lyrics to bob marley's "legend" album. you'll be pleased to learn that "no woman no cry" includes the lines:

say i remember when we used to sit

in a government's yard in swedes town

over over trampling people graves

and they would mingle with the good people we meet.

and "get up stand up" includes the memorable lyrics:

preacher man only tell me heaven is only near

i know you don't know what life is really worth

he's as old as piece of gold

after story i've never been told

so now you see the right

yea to stand up for your rights.

and "waiting in vain" includes these immortal words of love:

like i've said, there's a continuation sound knocking on your door

and i still can knock some more

uuuh girl uuuh girl is it easy going

i wonna know now, for i do not want to mourn.

on page 32 of this booklet is printed the disclaimer:

"Every effort is made to ensure that all the information contained in the CATCH the WORDS is correct. However information can become out of date and author's or printers error(s) can creep in......."

other volumes worth a look at are: bob marley's "uprising" [not numbered]; gregory isaacs' "night nurse" [volume 18]; and don carlos and gold's "raving tonight" [volume 24]. they all provide hours of unexpected entertainment.

-- 

grant                                           e-mail:grant@grantg.demon.co.uk

[Excerpt from 'Reggae On The Internet: Volume 1' 154-page compendium of newsgroup posts, Reggae Archive, 1995]

19 June 2025

Aggrieved by UK government insistence it launch a national popular music radio station, the BBC unilaterally created a high culture network : 1945 : BBC Radio 3

 In terms of delivering value for money for the Licence Fee payer, ‘Radio 3’ is easily the most expensive of the BBC's five analogue radio networks. My calculations for 2009/10 show it had cost 8.5p per listener hour, compared to 1.7p for ‘Radio 4’, 2.5p for ‘Five Live’, 0.9p for ‘Radio 1’ and 0.6p for ‘Radio 2’.

There may be arguments about the artistic merit of Radio 3 (though I would argue exactly the same for Radios 1 and 2), but there is no denying that, in value for money terms, it is up there with the ‘BBC Asian Network’ [9.0p per listener hour] and ‘Radio Cymru’ [14.6p] on the expensive-ometer.

Remember the network's history. After World War Two, the BBC was 'persuaded' to continue the popular wartime ‘General Forces Programme’ as a new domestic network - the ‘Light Programme’. Until then, the BBC had resisted the notion of a full-time comedy and popular music network as horribly downmarket. At the same time, as a cultural response, the BBC made its own decision to launch the ‘Third Programme’ (renamed ‘Radio 3’ from 1967) on which then Director General WJ Haley promised "operas, plays, discussions, features will be given the fullest time their content needs."

As Sean Street wrote in his excellent account of UK radio from 1922 to 1945, 'Crossing The Ether': "The message for the old guard was clear: taste would not be undermined by change, culture would not be sacrificed for populism."

Radio 3 exists because the section of the BBC that would not be seen dead listening to Radio 2 (as the Light Programme was renamed from 1967) wanted their own high-brow radio station. The question is - should the rest of us still have to pay so highly for them to enjoy that privilege?

There is no doubt that Radio 3 produces some excellent unique programmes. The problem is that too few people ever get to hear them. And, if BBC Asian Network is still on the chopping board for these very reasons, how is it that Radio 3 has always managed to justify its continuing existence as a network that is virtually 'untouchable' when axes fall?

[Published reader comment to 'Radio 3 Is Letting Its Listeners Down', Sarah Spilsbury, The Guardian, 5 Oct 2011]

12 June 2025

Diversity within UK radio workforce largely confined to stations targeting minorities : 2010 : BBC Trust

 “Leadership of the [UK broadcast] industry appears to remain in the hands of predominantly white, able-bodied men”. Broadcast Training & Skills Regulator, Equal Opportunities Report 2008

In the United States, ‘diversity’ has been described as:

  • One of the “paramount goals of broadcast regulation in America”
  • “One of the foundation principles in communications policy”
  • “A broad principle to which appeal can be made on behalf of both neglected minorities and of consumer choice, or against monopoly and other restrictions”

American Professor Philip Napoli portrayed the objective of ‘diversity’ in US broadcasting policy as a derivative of First Amendment goals to promote informed decision-making, cultural pluralism, citizen welfare and a well-functioning democracy. Napoli described the ‘diversity’ objective in terms of a ‘marketplace of ideas’:

“Thus, the marketplace of ideas has been conceived by the courts, legal scholars, and policymakers as a key dimension of First Amendment freedoms, in which citizens are free to choose from a wide range of ideas (content diversity), delivered from a wide range of sources (source diversity). The citizens then partake of this diversity (exposure diversity) to increase their knowledge, encounter opposing viewpoints, and become well-informed decision-makers who are better capable of fulfilling their democratic responsibilities in a self-governing society”. 

Napoli created a flowchart that outlined the primary dimensions of diversity, their component parts and their presumed relationships:

Source Diversity Content Diversity       Exposure Diversity

1. Ownership 1. Program-Type Format 1. Horizontal

a. Programming     2. Demographic         2. Vertical

b. Outlet         3. Idea/Viewpoint

2. Workforce

In the United States, it was thought that the ultimate public policy goal of ‘exposure diversity’ could be achieved through significant regulatory intervention in the broadcast industry to forcibly create the antecedents ‘source diversity’ and ‘content diversity’. However, the latter interventions have remained mere proxies for the policy goal and, from empirical evidence over several decades of intervention, Napoli concluded that:

  • “The expectation that increased diversity of sources leads to increased diversity of content is far from a certainty
  • It may be that increases in content diversity should be considered essentially meaningless from a policy perspective if the additional content is ignored by the audience”. 

By contrast, in the United Kingdom, ‘diversity’ has not been a prime policy objective of broadcast regulation. In part, this derives from the historical difference in the development of broadcasting between the two countries. In the United States, broadcasting evolved as a wholly commercial industry, propelled by competing stations serving local markets. In Europe, the model was state-controlled broadcast monopolies serving national audiences, supplemented only relatively recently by commercial competitors. In the US, broadcast evolution has been bottom-up, whilst the European model was entirely top-down.

More recently in Europe, ‘diversity’ has come to be recognised as an important policy issue in media regulation. In 2003, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers described ‘cultural diversity’ as an “essential public interest objective” in its member states’ measures to promote the democratic and social contribution of digital broadcasting. 

In the UK, a report commissioned by government agency NESTA in 2001 concluded that:

  • “Cultural diversity amongst viewers, broadcast employees, producers and broadcast suppliers has noticeably worsened during the last ten years
  • Over the last decade, there have been a decline in the numbers of black people employed in influential positions in broadcasting; a decline in the numbers of programmes targeting black viewers and a decline in the numbers of black-owned production companies being commissioned by broadcasters
  • Diversity tools such as ethnic minority supplier targets; contract compliance; ring fenced resources; and publicly available monitoring data, have been recommended by a variety of industry organisations but have not been adopted by many broadcasters”. 

The ‘diversity’ issue in broadcasting was placed centre stage when (as explained in a BBC presentation):

“In April 2000, a man stood up at the Race In The Media Awards in London and said … ‘The BBC needs to change dramatically if it is to be a serious player in 21st Century Britain.’ His name was Greg Dyke, Director General of the BBC”. 

As a result, then BBC director of sport, Peter Salmon, was appointed to champion cultural diversity within the BBC, and he pledged:

“Changing the culture of the BBC has been crucial to ensuring an atmosphere in which diversity can flourish. The ‘One BBC’ initiative, which encourages risk-taking, honest discussions, creativity and dynamism across the whole of the BBC, has been an integral part of supporting our wider aims around diversity – a BBC fit for the 21st Century Britain”. 

A decade after Dyke’s statement, it is instructive to document the levels of ‘diversity’ achieved in the UK radio industry as a whole, as well as in BBC radio. This is intended to help benchmark the extent to which independently commissioned radio content satisfies the ‘diversity’ requirement stipulated in the BBC Agreement. Borrowing the framework of Napoli’s flowchart, the issues of ‘source diversity’, ‘content diversity’ and ‘exposure diversity’ are examined in turn.


SOURCE DIVERSITY

1.  Ownership

As a consequence of the Licence Fee system by which public broadcasting is funded, it could be argued that the BBC belongs to all paying households in the United Kingdom. The headline data on the composition of the population demonstrate that:

  • 50.9% of the total UK population are female (31.0 million); 
  • 7.9% of the total UK population belong to ethnic minorities (4.6 million); 
  • 17.2% of the total UK population are disabled (10.6 million); 
  • 16.2% of the total UK population live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland (6.9 million); 
  • 5.4% of the total population of Great Britain believe in non-Christian religions (3.1 million). 

The increasing ‘diversity’ of the UK population in the 21st Century theoretically translates into a more diverse collective ownership of the BBC. Each of us expects something back from BBC radio in the form of content that reflects our particular citizenship, be that our gender, our geographical location, our ethnicity or simply our love of jazz music. This multiplicity of competing demands obviously presents a major challenge for the BBC, much of whose content is broadcast to mass audiences on national Networks.

CHART: Market shares of the commercial radio sector by owner (% share of listening to commercial radio in Q4 2009)

In the commercial radio broadcast sector, consolidation permitted by the Communications Act 2003 has resulted in more concentrated ownership of the UK’s more than 300 commercial stations. Whereas, eight years ago, the three largest station owners accounted for 54% of commercial radio listening, they accounted for 75% in Q4 2009. The largest commercial radio group, Global Radio, was responsible for 39% of commercial radio listening in Q4 2009. 

At the same time, the number of commercial radio analogue stations has increased substantially from 106 in 1990 to more than 300 presently and, as a result, a more diverse range of content is now offered to listeners.  For example, the first commercial radio station to target an ethnic audience was licensed in 1990, and the first religious station in 1995. The DAB digital radio platform has also carried an increasing number of stations, although the reach of these services has been limited by the slow public take-up of DAB receiver hardware.

Ofcom does not publish data on the diversity of ownership of commercial radio licensees. However, the ownership of commercial radio would appear to have narrowed substantially as a result of consolidation. Although it is clearly not the BBC’s responsibility to balance the impact of less diverse ownership within the commercial radio sector, it nevertheless highlights the imperative for BBC radio to reflect the increasing diversity of the population it serves.

Napoli’s second issue of programming ownership has little relevance for the UK radio market because the overwhelming majority of content broadcast by both BBC and commercial radio is originated by the broadcaster itself, rather than sourced externally. Hence, the diversity of programme ownership is largely a product of the diversity in ownership of the broadcast outlets.

2.  Workforce

Empirical data outlining the diversity of the radio broadcasting workforce derive from three sources: Skillset, the Broadcast Training & Skills Regulator and the BBC.

Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the creative media industries, conducted an Employment Census in 2009 which estimated that 19,900 persons were employed in the radio broadcasting industry (BBC and commercial). Of the total:

  • 16% were freelance
  • 47% were female
  • 7.9% were from ethnic minorities
  • 2.6% were disabled. 

These results were extrapolated from only 77 completed questionnaires returned from employers in the broadcast radio sector and from 9 in the community radio sector.  This response rate may also explain Skillset’s estimate that, of 400 chief executives employed in radio broadcasting, 100 are freelance, 100 are female, 50 are from ethnic minorities and 50 are disabled. 

Within its analysis of employment in the radio sector, Skillset noted that:

  • Women make up almost half the workforce, a greater proportion than that of the audiovisual industry as a whole
  • The radio industry employs a low proportion of ethnic minority staff relative to its locations in London, Northwest and Southeast England, where 60% of the radio workforce is located
  • In London, 11% of the radio workforce is from ethnic minorities, whereas 25% of the capital’s population of working age is from ethnic minorities
  • Disabled people comprise a higher proportion of the radio workforce than in the audiovisual industry as a whole
  • The age profile of the radio workforce is slightly older than that of the creative media workforce as a whole. 

Skillset’s ‘Diversity Strategy’ for the media sector stated:

“Diversity, the drive to create a genuinely inclusive culture, is increasingly recognised as a business critical issue. Managing diversity successfully helps business to respond effectively to ever more diverse markets and to achieve new levels of creativity and innovation. … However, one look at the overall demographic profile of the sector’s workforce and it becomes apparent that there is still a long way to go to make it truly inclusive of our society as a whole”. 

Skillset estimated that 48% of the total radio industry workforce is employed by the BBC, 43% by commercial radio, and 9% by community radio.  Skillset found that the proportion of freelancers in the commercial radio sector was twice the proportion working in BBC radio. 

The Broadcast Training & Skills Regulator [BTSR] collects data from broadcasters regarding the promotion of equal opportunities and training, as required by Section 337 of the Communications Act 2003. Broadcasters employing fewer than 21 staff (the majority of local commercial radio stations) are exempt from this requirement to supply data. The latest BTSR report, based on 2008 data, collated returns from 29 companies in radio, and nine companies working in both radio and television.  Unfortunately, data from the latter nine bi-media companies (which probably include the BBC, Bauer and UTV) are not separated into ‘radio’ and ‘television’, making it impossible to build up a complete picture of the radio sector.

BTSR data from the returns of 29 radio-only companies found that 7,021 people were employed in radio broadcasting in 2008, of which:

  • 46.1% were female, of which:
    • 12.7% at board level were female
    • 31.8% in senior management were female
    • 64.2% in administrative & support functions were female
    • 38.4% on freelance or contract basis were female
  • 3.2% were from ethnic minorities, of which:
    • 11.4% at board level (9 persons) were from ethnic minorities
    • 3.6% in senior management (7 persons) were from ethnic minorities
    • 2.5% in administrative & support functions were from ethnic minorities
    • 1.4% on freelance or contract basis were from ethnic minorities
  • 0.4% were disabled (30 persons)
    • 1.3% at board level (1 person) were disabled
    • 0% in senior management were disabled
    • 0.1% on freelance or contract basis were disabled. 

Because this data must be assumed to exclude BBC radio personnel, it would seem to indicate relatively low levels of diversity achieved by respondents from the commercial radio sector within the BTSR sample.

BTSR noted that, for the broadcast industry as a whole, reports published by Ofcom “indicated that little progress was being made by the industry overall in promoting equality of opportunity”. It concluded:

“Despite several broadcasters taking some action to promote Equal Opportunities, the employment data collected for this report indicates that barriers persist to recruiting people with a disability, in particular, as well as people from minority ethnic groups, to the industry. It has been commented on elsewhere that the broadcast industry lacks a strategic approach to managing equality and diversity. Indeed, the results of this analysis indicate that very few individual broadcasters have a strategic approach to managing Equal Opportunities or diversity”. 

Across its total workforce, the BBC has adopted numerical goals for achieving diversity. The current targets for delivery by December 2012 are:

  • 12.5% from ethnic minorities (actual 12.2% at 31 December 2009)
  • 7% from ethnic minorities in senior management (actual 5.6% at 31 December 2009)
  • 5.5% disabled (actual 4.3% at 31 December 2009)
  • 4.5% disabled in senior management (actual 3.4% at 31 December 2009). 

Skillset’s 2006 Employment Census found that, in BBC radio, 11% of the workforce was from ethnic minorities and noted that “the majority of the BBC workforce (some 60%) is based in London, where 24% of the working population is from an ethnic minority”.  In contrast, it found that only 3% of the commercial radio workforce was from ethnic minorities, a proportion close to the BTSR data.  From this evidence, BBC radio appears to be achieving considerably greater ethnic diversity amongst its workforce than the commercial radio sector.

CHART: BBC Audio & Music division workforce diversity

Analysis of the workforce diversity data for the BBC’s Audio & Music division (also referred to in this report as ‘BBC Network Radio’) at year-end 2009 showed that it achieved above average diversity for gender, but below average for ethnic minorities and the disabled, compared to the BBC as a whole. Much of Audio & Music’s complement of ethnic minority staff was accounted for by two digital radio Networks, 1Xtra and the Asian Network, both of which target ethnic minority audiences. These results highlight the relatively low ethnic diversity in the workforces of the BBC’s longer established radio Networks such as Radio 2, 3 and 4, particularly as all are London-based.

In January 2009, the trade union BECTU and the Radio Independents Group had organised an event in London specifically aimed at encouraging ethnic minority professionals to work in independent radio production. The publicity for the ‘Move On Up’ open day emphasised the significance of the independent radio production sector as a means to secure employment in the radio broadcast industry:

“Working with radio indies is a key route into the industry, and engaging with these executives provides a whole new set of opportunities”.


[Excerpt from my 'independent' 245-page report 'Independent Radio Productions Commissioned By The BBC' for the BBC Trust in 2010]

[Commissioned by the BBC Trust to research, author and present a report on its independent productions to a meeting of its main board, I pursued interviews with BBC Radio managers. Some refused to meet, some never supplied requested data and some merely patronised me, seemingly oblivious that they were public servants whose salaries and generous pensions were funded by the British population. My supposedly 'independent' report was edited line-by-line by the BBC's Gareth Barr who insisted several chapters be expunged into appendices. I was not invited to the board meeting that belatedly considered the edited version of my report which now omitted all appendices (including this and my previous blog post). During my research, the BBC's then Senior Diversity Manager had generously offered me relevant data to create the above chart of BBC Radio workforce diversity. Within months, her ten-year tenure at the BBC ended.]