VIDEO DIDN’T KILL THE RADIO STAR

Radio may be the oldest form of broadcasting, but contrary to the famous pop song it’s not just alive but also at the forefront of the digital broadcasting revolution. Yet how well does radio serve disabled people today, and what does the future offer?

This January a new radio station aimed at disabled people was launched in the UK. “We felt there was a gap in the market,” says Tim Saunders, who founded radio-therapy.com with his sister Rebecca, who is herself disabled. The inspiration for the station was simple enough: “There are radio stations for other minority groups,” he says, “yet what is there for disabled people?”

At first glance the answer would seem to be: not a lot. When it comes to national broadcasters, BBC Radio 4 has In Touch, a weekly programme for blind and visually impaired listeners, while a broad range of disability-related stories also feature frequently on the station’s lunchtime consumer affairs magazine You and Yours. Outside of these two programmes and the occasional news item, however, specific programming targeting disabled listeners is increasingly difficult to find either within the BBC – which dominates the UK’s national listening habits – and an increasingly cash-strapped commercial sector that nevertheless still leads the way in local radio. Does this explain why recent BBC audience research found that disabled people are less likely to listen to radio (and for shorter periods when they do) than their non-disabled peers? When the BBC ended the long-running disability magazine programme Does He Take Sugar? the promise was that disability coverage would feature across the network – so that rather than segregating disability-focused programming, it would be fully integrated. One problem with this is that disabled people don’t necessarily know how to find programmes that cover disability issues, which is why the BBC’s disability affairs correspondent and In Touch presenter Peter White now produces a monthly email newsletter informing listeners about disability related items across BBC radio.

SPECIALIST STATIONS

It is now both easier and more difficult to set up a new radio station than it was in the past. Technological advances mean that the equipment needed to start broadcasting is far from being the preserve of huge companies; set-up costs are minimal, with a reasonably powerful transmitter and good quality studio costing little over £2,000. As a result there are currently an estimated 150 illegal radio stations broadcasting regularly in the UK, which the authorities are invariably trying to close down. 

Doing everything by the book, however, can be far more problematic, thanks to one simple problem – the finite number of frequencies and transmitter space available on current analogue FM and MW frequencies. Tim and Rebecca only discovered this when they contacted Ofcom, the official body which issues radio licences in the UK. “They told us that no matter how much money we had, it couldn’t be done because the airwaves are totally clogged up with existing radio stations,” explains Tim.

Still determined to go ahead, the pair began to look at alternative platforms for their idea, and very quickly settled on the worldwide web. “We looked at the internet and felt that it was probably the best medium to operate through. It’s much cheaper – the overheads are a lot lower – and it’s coming along in leaps and bounds in terms of audience reach. While we’re not yet streaming ongoing radio shows through the website, you can click on icons and listen to individual items – for instance, a five-minute interview. In time the content will expand, but we all have to start somewhere,” explains Tim.

The internet has already proved to be a practical solution for many other specialist stations, since it allows both the live streaming of programmes and the potential downloading of sound files. One example with a specific disability brief is Insight Radio, which was originally launched as VIP On Air in November 2003 and is funded primarily by the RNIB. “The radio station was created to provide a bespoke service to blind and partially sighted people across the UK,” says station manager Ross Macfadyen, “both in terms of what they could listen to and also in terms of opening potential employment and training opportunities.”

At a time when existing analogue stations are building an online presence, Insight Radio recently moved in the opposite direction, courtesy of an Ofcom Community Radio Licence and specific financial support from Glasgow City and South Lanarkshire councils. “We’ve launched an FM service in Glasgow,” says Ross Macfadyen, “because we recognise that the majority of people who are blind and partially sighted tend to be of a slightly older age and won’t necessarily have access to the internet. We are therefore continually looking at alternative and accessible means of getting our programmes to our target audience.” However, this is not likely to mean that Insight Radio will be spreading across the country through local community licences. “We’re not actively going to develop that,” adds Ross Macfadyen. “What we are going to do, however, is to try and get the radio service onto a digital platform across the UK.”

Not-for-profit community stations, running on rolling five-year licences from Ofcom, are growing in number across the UK, and look likely to be the most realistic option in terms of traditional FM/MW broadcasting when it comes to helping disabled people, groups and organisations get on-air. “Community radio stations either target all of the population within a geographical area, or a ‘community of interest’,” says Ofcom. “In the latter group, for example, Ofcom has licensed Insight Radio and two services for the over-60s - Angel Radio in Havant and Newport on the Isle of Wight. The Angel Radio services include features and information with a disability focus, and general health issues for the over-60s. Some services for the general population in an area will also include programmes with a disability focus. Community radio is about community access and participation, so disability groups that wish to make features or programmes should approach their local community station to see if there is a way of getting involved in the output.”

“Our range of programmes is very, very diverse,” explains Mary Dowson, the Director of Bradford-based BCB, one of the first stations in the UK to receive an Ofcom community licence. “It’s aimed at giving people the confidence to vision themselves as broadcasters; especially those whose voice isn’t usually heard – most people just see themselves as passive consumers of the media. One project we work with is a group of people with learning difficulties. They produce weekly programming for listeners with learning difficulties; they go out and do interviews and reports. What we’re trying to do is make sure that the media isn’t something that’s done to us, that we represent ourselves. It’s about telling the story from the inside without somebody else interpreting it on our behalf.”

A DIGITAL FUTURE?

Ofcom is carrying out a review of the community radio sector this year which will cover licensing, funding and ownership rules as well as the relationship between not-for-profit community radio stations and small commercial services. What is unlikely to change, thanks to the limited number of available FM frequencies, is the overall number of licences Ofcom has at its disposal. This, and the growing number of alternative uses for those frequencies - such as mobile TV and more digital radio and data services - is building up pressure for a digital switchover similar to that already beginning with UK television services. However, this is unlikely to happen any time soon; within a consultation document published in April, Ofcom proposed not reviewing use of the FM spectrum until 2012, or whenever half of all radio listeners listen through digital platforms – DAB radio, digital television or online. Indeed, the only short-term consequences for radio of the UK digital switchover soon to take place in television will be the necessary engineering work on transmitter sites shared by both television and radio services.

For the time being online radio stations such as Insight Radio are unlikely to be broadcast widely outside the worldwide web. “Our target audience is blind and visually disabled people everywhere, all over the UK, which is why we had to make this radio service as available and as accessible as it possibly can be through the internet,” says Ross Macfadyen. “The development plans for radio generally from the RNIB are to expand the schedule that we’re already offering, and to continue bringing the listener a bespoke radio service which they will not get anywhere else.”

Insight Radio currently broadcasts weekdays between 8am and 5pm, with programmes produced by a team of staff and volunteers - many of whom are blind or partially sighted themselves. Thanks in part to the support of the RNIB, and sponsors such as local councils and BBC Radio Scotland, the station is now established to the extent that it recently recovered a Sony Award – UK radio’s equivalent of the Oscars. Insight Radio came second in the Internet Programme category, receiving a silver award.

STARTING SMALL, GROWING BIGGER

Radio-therapy.com is still in its early days; it’s also, at the moment, very much a two-person operation, and Tim only works part-time as he has a day job as a magazine sales manager. So at the moment it is not so much a full radio station, more an online location from which listeners can access a choice of audio material at their own convenience. Interestingly, many traditional broadcasters also now provide material in this way online: whole programmes can be accessed at a time convenient to the listener or actually downloaded as specially packaged audio files which can then be stored on personal computers and portable media players such as iPods - hence the term podcast (from iPod and broadcast). Possibly the most popular disability-targeted podcast at present is produced by the people behind the BBC’s Ouch! website.

Radio can be accessed nowadays through an increasing number of platforms – via digital television, DAB digital radio, online or FM/MW transmission. “This benefits listeners in the number and range of stations they can choose from,” says Ofcom. “However, for established radio broadcasters, this explosion of choice brings new challenges through increased competition for both listeners and revenues. Broadcasters also face increased costs from having to invest in new platforms and must deal with increased competition from an ever wider range of media. All of these changes create significant pressures on the traditional pattern of local radio.”

Although radio is going through a period of change, the medium continues to thrive; in particular, the growth of community radio potentially offers real opportunities for disabled people to communicate their ideas, beliefs and existence both with each other and the wider community of which they’re a part. Although regular radio broadcasts have been with us for more than 80 years, the ways in which radio can empower disabled people are still being explored.

 

FURTHER INFORMATION

BBC Ouch! podcast
www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast

Insight Radio
0141 334 5530
www.viponair.com

Ofcom
020 7981 3000
www.ofcom.org.uk

radio-therapy.co.uk
editors@radio-therapy.co.uk
www.radio-therapy.co.uk

 

May/June 2007