Viewpoint: BBC Local Radio cancels the network evening show, and cancels the cuts!

Finally... some sense has at last permeated into the hallways of Broadcasting House, and penetrated the thick skulls of BBC management.

Just think about this.  In the last year, BBC Local Radio in England reached 133,000 less people now than it did in 2016, according to RAJAR.  And why is that?  Because they were continuing to use an outdated idea of what BBC Local Radio is.  Well, outdated is not perhaps the most accurate term for it.  Try, short sighted, ill-advised, ill-judged, and outdated.  The current local radio format, is basically the same one that has been in place since 1992, before the internet became a common thing, and before social media even existed.

At the time, the strategy seemed to be a good one, make BBC journalism the core of the local radio product.  The net result of that though was a more talk format during weekday daytime, which felt a little off, and also an all talk breakfast slot.  This felt a little bit like overkill, in trying to differentiate themselves from their commercial radio competition.  As the internet has become a phenomenon and social media has come into being and grown into another phenomenon, so the strategy of serving the over 50s audience, allowing commercial radio to come in and hoover up the 18-54 audience, has looked more and more ill-judged.  After all, local radio should be serving communities, not demographics.

In fact, BBC Director General Lord Tony Hall even admitted as much in his speech at the Frank Gillard Awards in Coventry Cathedral tonight.  “Local Radio should be for everybody,” he said. “It’s there to serve the Facebook generation as much as the rest of us.”Too right it is there to serve everyone in a community, even if that community is as diverse and eclectic as Cornwall. 

But the thing that makes me most overjoyed, is the cancellation of the network evening show.  In my view, it was and still is, the biggest mistake BBC local radio ever made.  Heck, there have been times in the past when BBC local radio had to save money, and cut the number of regional outputs in the evening slot from the previous 10, down to 4.  Whilst it didn't feel particularly local, it didn't feel particularly distant either.  The network evening show has felt distant and disconnected from the rest of the BBC local radio output, even though they were following the daytime more talk format, which was also a mistake for an evening show to do.

 On top of that, it eliminated some particularly well thought out local strategies for the evening output, such as Duncan Warren's Evening Show on BBC Radios Cornwall, Devon, Guernsey and Jersey.  Any sports coverage that any of the local stations needed to do was cleverly opted out of the show at the relevant point, and then they would opt back in at the end.  Meanwhile Duncan's show would update the information on that sports event during the show for those who couldn't bear to listen to the coverage, or just weren't in the right area.

Listeners to BBC Local Radio stations in the South were annoyed to lose the thinner record spinner, Roger Day from their evening output.  BBC Radio London would lose their nightly sports programme, which was a great idea for an area like London, where there are many different sports teams and usually at least one of them would be in action most evenings.  In many areas, there was consternation about losing these good local shows for a network evening show.  But now, the beast that is the network evening show, has been slayed, or at least is dying a slow death, officially ending next summer, probably right around the time next year's football season starts at a guess.

In fact, Tony Hall's speech at the Frank Gillard Awards held great promise for the future of BBC Local Radio.

“I’m a Director-General who believes in Local Radio. I recognise the unique value the BBC locally can bring. We’re an organisation that’s global, national and rooted in our local teams. Local Radio is in the DNA of our communities. I think that is more important than ever. England’s changing. It’s always been a patchwork of communities, with quite distinct identities. While Newcastle’s population is getting older, Bradford’s is getting younger and Birmingham is becoming one of the most diverse cities in Europe. Decision-making is being devolved too – there are mayors in some of the big metropolitan areas and that’s having an impact.

“I want to hear the sound of England as it changes. So while other media are becoming creatively less local, I want us to become even more so and to connect with our audiences in new ways.

“For many years the BBC has been reducing its investment in Local Radio. The development of new technology and the growth of smartphones has seen many people getting their local news, weather and traffic information digitally. But the rise of digital technology has also seen the rise of fake news, not just on a global level but on a local one as well. That’s why the role of BBC Local Radio is actually becoming more important – not less.

“Local Radio should be for everybody. It’s there to serve the Facebook generation every bit as much as the rest of us. My ambition for BBC Local Radio is for it to have more creative freedom, to celebrate local life, to be the place where we report local news but also the place we reflect local identity, nurture local talent and engage local audiences through digital platforms. I want to see a renaissance in Local Radio.”

Now, what this implies, is in many ways, a back to basics approach for BBC Local Radio, back to how it used to be before 1992, when the station's Managing Director, had much greater control over the local output, than the current Editors do. 

Community Radio has taken on a lot of what BBC local radio, and indeed Independent Local Radio, used to be.  Community radio has really become the community's voice on the airwaves, the place where local life is not only celebrated, it's almost revered.  Community radio nowadays reflects local identity and nurtures local talent more than the BBC or Local Commercial Radio does.  Local Commercial Radio is going more generic and more national, and has been for a long time.  And Tony Hall is quite correct when stating that the BBC had been reducing investment in Local Radio, but from what he's saying, and this is purely speculation on my part, that increased investment in the Local Radio product is coming and its coming at a more local level.  But what does this mean?

In an area which I'm most familiar with, the South West, I can forsee a few possibilities.  The first, and easiest to achieve, is increasing the output of Somerset Sound, or as it is now known BBC Somerset.  At the moment, BBC Somerset shares output with Radio Bristol 0500-0630 and 1200-1600 on weekdays, as well as sharing the evening and overnight output from 1900 to 0500, whether that's BBC Radio 5 Live, Ujima Radio, Somer Valley FM or BCFM, or any other programme for that matter.

At the weekends, BBC Somerset broadcasts local programmes from 0600 to 1300 on a Saturday, whilst on Sundays, BBC Somerset and BBC Radio Bristol completely share output.  Changing that situation so that from 0500-1900 on weekdays, and 0600-1800 on weekends, BBC Somerset is completely local, is the minimum requirement.

The second requires more work, but I am sure this can be done, and that is to turn the weekday breakfast opt-out for Dorset into a full radio station.   The minimum requirement here is adding some weekday drivetime output, but in reality, nothing less than a full local radio service will do.  Lots of people in Dorset think that the BBC forgets about them, and to be fair, they have a point.  Years ago, the BBC Dorset FM optout ran from 0630 to 1300 every weekday, opting out of BBC Radio Devon.  Now it's merely 0630 to 0900 opting out of BBC Radio Solent.  There needs to be some serious work done to change the long earned reputation that to the BBC, Dorset is the forgotten county.

The third is the one that I think might be least likely to happen, but they have done opt-outs before for this area, and could easily again, and that is to make the 95.7 FM frequency for BBC Radio Devon in Plymouth, as well as the DAB version on the Plymouth multiplex, a Plymouth opt-out or even, a full separate station.  A BBC Plymouth, maybe titled BBC Plymouth Sound as a needle to Heart, would only have Radio Plymouth as the local competition, as Heart South West's output in Plymouth is the same as it is across the rest of Devon, minus adverts of course.  The BBC could have the advantage by doing local Plymouth Breakfast and Drivetime shows, plus weekend breakfast as well.  Eventually, you might look to go full time with it, but that could be a way off in the future.

A fourth possibility would be to give BBC Radio Cornwall, the same status as BBC Radio Wales, Scotland and Ulster, and make it a National Regional station.  This is unlikely to happen, but if they are serious about increasing local output, then how about adding local output to evenings and late night, 7 days a week.  This would give the station the same levels of programming that the national regionals do.  Even adding a daily news bulletin in the Cornish Language, even if it was only a couple of minutes, would make a difference to how the radio station is percieved in the Duchy.

And that's just on four of the 40 stations that the BBC currently runs, with the option to increase that so much more.  With ViLoR, their Virtual Local Radio software, they have an option to run continuous music overnight rather than Radio 5 Live.  When Radio 5 Live was introduced as the overnight sustaining service in the mid 1990s, it was done because it was the only way to hear 5 Live without interference.  Now you have 5 Live on Digital Satellite (both Sky and Freesat), Digital Cable, Digital Terrestrial, online, and on DAB as well, the 5 Live overnight sustaining service just isn't necessary any longer.

Stations can contribute programmes to air overnight, and there are already a number of good candidates in my view for this.  Programmes like Paul Miller's Soul Show, Graham Pass's show of crooners and music from the vintage years, Richard Green's Vintage Chart Show, Gillham Gold, and many others could be shared across network overnight, just like some of these programmes are already shared between stations in regional structres weekend evenings and Sunday afternoons.

All of these things and many more can be done relatively easily and quite quickly.  The BBC is also supposed to be working with the community radio stations.  Now BBC Radio Bristol utilises this partnership quite well, with Ujima Radio, BCFM and Somer Valley FM all producing a weekly hour of output to go out overnight at the weekend, plus there's a best of community radio show on Sunday afternoons at 5pm, and all of those programmes can be heard on BBC iPlayer Radio.  BBC Radio Cornwall for instance, could work with Coast FM, Source FM, CHBN and RSAB to provide weekly hours of output that could be used to provide more local content at weekends, evenings or overnights.

BBC Radio Devon have Soundart Radio, Phonic FM, Bay FM and The Voice as possible producers of community radio hours.  There's a lot of options out there that BBC Local Radio could utilise.

Hopefully we'll start seeing changes in 2018, but the one I am most looking forward to, is saying goodbye and good riddance to the network evening show.