Perhaps that heading is a little misleading, but that’s what it feels like at the moment.
On Friday, Ofcom gave GWR FM (Bristol and Bath) a yellow card for not operating within its format.
GWR has a format which states (All stations’ format can be found on the Ofcom website).
The format for GWR FM is:
A LOCALLY ORIENTED CONTEMPORARY AND CHART MUSIC AND INFORMATION STATION FOR UNDER 44s IN THE BRISTOL AND BATH AREA, WITH TARGETED ‘SPLIT’ PROGRAMMING FOR BRISTOL & BATH AT LEAST DURING WEEKDAY BREAKFAST.
The important part of that is the “contemporary and chart music” part. And what’s worth knowing is that of the nineteen stations that have already changed or have been announced to change next Monday to the Heart format, only four of the smallest stations do not have these words in their format.
In other words they near enough all have to be “contemporary and chart music” formatted.
Based on some analysis of GWR’s output (and possibly analysis of its logs), Ofcom claims that GWR is not playing enough of this music. Ofcom claims that at least 66% of music must be of this category. GWR was monitored as playing 47%.
It’s also clear that this breach is not just a single station issue. The same levels of contemporary and chart music must be played on all fifteen of those new Hearts. In effect, while these stations can share the same name with the London and East Midlands stations of the same name, they can’t directly share the same music logs.
In response, Global Radio has said “We do not accept this finding, and are considering our position.”
Ofcom’s obviously upset, and Global’s repsonding robustly, I think it’s fair to say. I think I’ll just stand at the sidelines and watch the outcome.
Matt Deegan also has some useful thoughts, and Paul Easton’s comments on the same blog are useful too.
And Radio Today has an interesting piece in an editorial sent to its mailing list this morning. Sadly, I can’t find it on their website, but they highlight the difference between UK markets and New York, where K-ROCK rebranded as a chart station last week with barely a murmur of dissent. But we still have formats in the UK, and while you can change name, you have to ask permission to change formats.