OfCom (the Office of Communication) is starting to make tentative steps into a 'third tier' of broadcasting: community radio. They have 'public' radio (BBC), 'independent' (what we call commercial) and now community - but it's still a very legislative environment and it is very hard to start a radio station in this environment.

For instance, 'Birmingham' (where I live) is itself considered a community. That'd be like having RNZ, TRN and Canwest - and then setting up one FM station to cater to the Auckland community and say that's community radio taken care of. As good as Planet FM might be, I'd argue there's room for more...

Compared to low power FM in NZ - or even the States, community radio in the UK is an entirely different affair.

That said, there are quite a few unlicenced stations (or 'pirates', as OfCom like to call them) and some of these serve very small geographic communities or cater to particular political, ethnic or musical interests, but the penalties are pretty hefty - and they're quite active at policing the airwaves here. In other words, it's all rather backwards at the small end of the scale.

It's worth making the attempt to get into the industry here though... people seem to be very active media consumers - and no matter what, it seems if you're on the air, you'll get an audience.

Cheers,

Dubber


_________________________________

Andrew Dubber
Project Coordinator
Online Music Enterprise
Media and Communications
UCE Birmingham
Perry Barr
Birmingham B42 2SU
United Kingdom

DD: (+44) 0121 331 6642
Fax: (+44) 0121 331 6501
Mobile: (+44) 0787 016 0557
Weblog: http://thewireless.blogspot.com

The Radio Studies Network
http://www.radiostudiesnetwork.org.uk