NEWS: OFCOM CONSULTATION AS LONDON RADIO STATION 'SMOOTH FM' REQUESTS SWITCH TO 'EASY LISTENING' FORMAT TO TARGET OVER-50S

by GRANT GODDARD

www.grantgoddard.co.uk October 2006

Guardian Media Group plc [GMG] has asked Ofcom for permission to re-brand and re-launch its London station 'Smooth FM' with an easy listening format that would target the 50+ demographic. The application argues that the older audience has become disenfranchised with radio listening [sic] and that the change would lead to even more diversity of programming in London. In return, GMG promises that the station would maintain its 45 hours per week of off-peak jazz programming and would increase its news commitment from six to 18 bulletins per day, and its locally sourced output from six to 18 hours per day. Analysts have noted that the GMG application raises several regulatory issues that, until now, Ofcom has managed to avoid, but will now be forced to explain in public. Firstly, the notion that, in its previous incarnation as 'Jazz FM', the former incremental licensee was ever a jazz station (apart from its first few months on-air) needs to be dropped. As early as 1992, independent research found that less than 6% of the stations daytime playlist comprised mainstream jazz recordings. Secondly, questions of public interest arise as to how a London-based station serving 11m adults could ever have been permitted by the regulator to relay 18 hours a day of programming from its Manchester studio and only broadcast six news bulletins per day. Thirdly is the significant hurdle that, on paper, London already has an easy listening soft music-led service aimed at the more mature Londoner in the shape of 'Magic 105.4', according to its Ofcom-prescribed Format. Until now, Ofcom has avoided the thorny issue of the 'reality gap' within the Formats it regulates the difference between the definition of what stations are, on paper, licensed to broadcast versus the reality of their actual output. An independent research report in 2003 that applied economic analysis to the music output of all London stations in a random week found conclusively that more stations were playing more of the same music as each other, compared to four years earlier. The survey found that, amongst the ten most played songs on 'Magic 105.4' were Travis, Toploader and All Saints artists that could hardly be described as 'easy listening'. One critic of the present system has argued that Ofcom needs to start a process of revising the fundamental components of the Format licences it has inherited from the Radio Authority in order to achieve correction of these market failures [issue #677, 'Radio Format Regulation']. Others have argued that Ofcoms Formats should be abolished altogether, having become anachronistic and irrelevant to the dynamics of the radio market. GMGs application for the format change notes that Magic 105.4 achieves its highest weekly reach (25%) amongst 25 to 34 year olds, but only manages 16% amongst 45 to 54 year olds and 13% amongst 55 to 64 year olds, despite its licence requirement to serve the more mature Londoner. A research report published by Enders Analysis in August concluded that the established commercial radio groups have singularly failed to deliver stations
News: Ofcom Consultation As London Radio Station 'Smooth FM' Requests Switch To 'Easy Listening' Format To Target Over-50s page 2 2006 Grant Goddard

that compete effectively for [BBC] Radio Twos audience, particularly the over50s. It noted that the closure of national digital station 'PrimeTime' in June has wilfully thrown PrimeTimes entire audience, the very demographic [commercial radio] needs so badly and whose loyalty had been built up over a six-year period, straight back into the arms of the BBC. A Smooth FM spokesperson concurred: "There's not too much choice for the over-50s market in London, so we're looking to cater for them. There are around three million over-50s in London and, since the demise of digital station Primetime, there's been nothing for them. Ofcom has launched a public consultation and requested responses by 18 November 2006.

[First published in 'The Radio Magazine' as 'Smooth London To Target Over-50s', #759, 25 October 2006]

Grant Goddard is a media analyst / radio specialist / radio consultant with thirty years of experience in the broadcasting industry, having held senior management and consultancy roles within the commercial media sector in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. Details at http://www.grantgoddard.co.uk

News: Ofcom Consultation As London Radio Station 'Smooth FM' Requests Switch To 'Easy Listening' Format To Target Over-50s page 3 2006 Grant Goddard