Welcome back to the number one place to keep up with the latest developments in community radio in the UK.

This week is going to be one of the easiest blogs to write as it on one of my pet hates PPL (sfx loud scream please)

Yes the Mafia of the music world, even scarier than the tax man after all they take their cut before him.

It all started when a colleague of mine was telling me the trouble he has paying his PPL bills.

Like you he runs or works on a non profit making community radio station which as it says on the tin does not make a profit.

Now first up he should not even be paying PPL until this month!!!! that’s right non profit making organisations were free from PPL fees until April 2010.
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Are you looking for low cost radio commercials that sound a million dollars?
Radioads are specialists in producing the whole project for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

Email: dgimarketing1@googlemail.com
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So why like all the other community radio stations have they been paying for the last five years.

Well of course when it came to community radio, well it’s radio they always pay nobody thought to tell them that they were a not for profit organisation so according to the rules laid down by PPL they were exempt.

How much has your station paid over the last few years? I feel a court case coming on………………

Anyway back to the point all he wanted to do was pay by direct debit every month, all companies do that, don’t they?

Not PPL they want your money and they want it a year in advance do not try talking to them they are above the law, otherwise they will send the boys round (cue horses head on pillow).

Now any sensible person will know they are being silly as long as you set up the direct debit and pay money into their account each month there is not a thing they or any company for that can do about it.

Under english law you have made a commitment to pay which is all you need to do.

Of course they will hate you for it, they will chase you for it, but you can sleep at night knowing they can do nothing.

Lastly on this little rant of mine (I told you they were a pet hate) a question (rhetorical) why do they take the money from your advertising revenue, and not the music you play?

Well firstly it would mean more paper work for them and they don’t like that secondly of course they make 10 times more money.

legalised prostitution in my world.

Until next week please leave your comments.

Happy Dayz
The DG

And a happy easter to you all Good Friday and I am still banging at the keys.

This week we are going to talk about the digital migration from FM, I do love that word does it not mean they will be coming back?

There has been a lot of hype both in the national press and also the House of Lords this week that analogue yes the good old FM band is shutting down completely!!!

Now we of course know this not to be true (don’t we?) it is just the big boys moving over to Digital and that’s not happening till 2015 if then.

I doubt if any big players will spend the money involved unless it can be proven there is going to be a market there.

In fact this week it was announced by the car industry that they still have no plans to install as standard digital radios in their cars and without that market I cannot see the big boys moving anywhere.

The problem seems to me is that everyone has got confused with the TV situation as normal what TV does first radio follows according to the general public that is.
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Are you looking for low cost radio commercials that sound a million dollars?
Radioads are specialists in producing the whole project for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

Email: dgimarketing1@googlemail.com
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Personally I don’t see why they had to change apart from the money to the Government for flogging off FM but who’s going to buy it?

Are we going to be left on FM with a load of cab companies and builders, that would be a good way to kill off community radio before it even started, well they are already trying to stave it of cash with all the red-tape and no government funding.

However it would seem the cavalry are about to ride into town with certain manufacturers saying it could be possible to make a digital and fm receiver together (big cheer goes out).

At the end of the day Joe Public does not know or care on which frequency they are listening to the radio they just want to hear your station.

So lets all hope that common sense prevails and everybody government/manufacturers/Ofcom work together to pull us through this one.

Until next week then don’t forget your comments are always welcome.

Happy Dayz
The DG

Welcome to another week in the wacky world that is community radio, first up this week to Network or Not to Network?

I read with interest that the CMA have agreed a deal with a national traffic provider to provide its stations with free travel news.

Now whilst anything free is jumped upon by community radio does that necessary make it a good thing.

Surly the reason why you got your licence was to provide a service to local people and I can not see what traffic in John o Groats (is there any?) has got to do with Chelfont St Peters.

Now I know this is being a little over the top but the nearest any travel provider can get to providing traffic for your station is regional which to a community station is exactly like my example miles away.

Do your listeners want travel news most community radio stations cover a very small area and once outside that area they cannot hear you so unless you enjoy telling listeners of the impending gloom on the M25 what is the point.

In fact I would go so far as to say that most of your listeners are indoors anyway so traffic is just a distraction to their listening.
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Are you looking for low cost radio commercials
that sound a million dollars?
Radioads are specialists in producing the whole project
for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

Email: dgimarketing1@googlemail.com
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I also read this week that one community station is even taking a new networked chart show, again why.

Surely the whole point of your station is to be local if your listener want traffic news, chart shows or even international news they have plenty of places to go, you set up your station to be different so lets stay independent and be proud of it.

Until next week your comments are always welcome.

Happy Dayz
The DG

Was the Community Radio Experiment a success?
Last week we looked at how most stations were set up as small ILR’s and usually so the owner could hear themselves on the radio!!!!!!!!!!!

However today I want to change track a little and suggest not only did we want our own radio show but we wanted paying for it, none of this doing it for free lark I want the money and give it to me now.

Last week I mentioned the demise of 209 in Cambridge, but was not its future already written when they decided to have THREE paid employees all on very decent salaries which added up (and please forgive me these are off the top of my head) to about a GRAND a week.

Were in hells name is a community radio station going to earn that before even paying the bills it just makes no sense.

This week I heard of another station which will have to remain nameless due to legal reasons in debt to the tune of £78,000 but still happily trading away.
They were even promising to pay their presenters, needless to say where the 78 grand debt comes from!!

*******Wake up and smell the coffee*********

——————————————————————-
Are you looking for low cost radio commercials
that sound a million dollars?
Radioads are specialists in producing the whole project
for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

Email: dgimarketing1@googlemail.com
———————————————————-

Also in the news this week, prominent government figure visits station and diplomatically says the community radio fund will not be increased.

Well of course he didn’t say that but that is what he meant when he said “Communtiy radio was never meant to be fully funded by the government” and “We are looking at and working with other departments to see how they can help”

In laymen terms then NO CHANCE.

So what happened to the COI payments then from all those government funded public service announcements all gone very quite on that front I thought the CMA where carrying the banner on that one.

So that brings us to the big question who is going to fund this experiment though the next phase or are we going to be cast out to sea to see whether we sink or swim.

Grant funding maybe? if I was to spend any money paying someone to work on a community radio station it would not be a presenter it would be a professional fundraiser who could write applications all day long maybe then you might win the odd one.

How about a skim off from the licence fee I am sure the BBC wouldn’t mind that!!!
No matter what it says publicly the BBC is the last person who wants to see community radio survive, because they know if we become successful there will be no need for THEM!! so I think that one is out.

Yes my friends the only person that is going to pay for community radio is US don’t loose any more sleep about how to pay for it just buy the lottery ticket on Saturday.

Until next time, please leave a comment.

Happy Dayz

The DG

But back to the plot, sad to hear of the demise of Radio 209 in Cambridge recently, along with news that The Forest of Dean will not be renewing their licence next year.

We are now coming to the time when the first stations to be licenced back in 2005 are near the end of their licence period, so I thought it might be a good time to look at The Community Radio experiment.
Yes remember, it was an experiment so was it successful?

Well if you asked Ofcom or even the government and I think they would say Yes, well they have to don’t they it was their idea!!!!

But was it really? I know of a few stations that got awarded licences, never got off the ground probably due to finances, one that I remember handed its licence back because of lack of transmitter power and coverage.
___________________________________________________________
Are you looking for low cost radio commercials that sound a million dollars?
Radioads are specialists in producing the whole project for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

Email: dgimarketing1@googlemail.com ___________________________________________________________

So what can we learn from this?

Well as I stand at the top of my ivory tower looking at things in retrospect I know I could have done better when I set up my station all those years ago (five years seems more like ten).

I lacked planning and as they say “if fail to plan, you plan to fail” But I was excited it was a new beginning a new dawn, my chance to prove that my model was right for radio in the UK.

Now I want you to think about this carefully and be honest, a lot of us (me included) Started a station because WE wanted to be on the radio not because it was going to serve the community, yea that was great too but be honest you came first!!!!!!!!!!

So what did we do we set up lots of mini ILR’s yes the way it used to be before that nasty commercial radio got hold of it.

We turned on (and up) the transmitters and pumped out pure snap crackle and pop with a few jumble sales thrown in for good measure to keep Ofcom happy.

In our applications we gave ourselves great salaries after all we did the hard work we deserved it sod (pardon me) volunteering that’s for Mrs Jones down the road at the WI.

Who was going to pay for all this oh yes that great mythical benefactor or the advertiser, both we now know does not exist, unless of course your station was set up by a college or university to preach (sorry educate) your audience, then of course you did not have to worry.

But you know looking back I think we missed out on a big opportunity it was not meant to be about us, old dj’s past their sell by date or young wipper snappers on their way to Radio one.

It was meant to be about two hours once a week of Mrs Jones and her knitting pattens, not 24/7 wall to wall filled with anything you can get your hands on.

Yes looking back I think we missed a great opportunity which I will talk about more in future issues.

But I tell you what I BLOODLY ENJOYED IT.

Until next week,
Happy Dayz,
The DG

Hi and welcome to a very late blog this week my apologies however I am moving house at the moment, which as we all know is a pain.

Well here we are at the end of October and still not a whimper from Mr Brown and his colleagues about whether in our case we shut up shop in 13 months time.

Can you imagine one other industry that cannot plan a year ahead, it just would not happen, but Ofcom are just happy to sit on the fence and wait, after all they know their jobs are safe no matter what colour the Government.

Meanwhile everything comes to a halt at many of the first stations licenced, you cannot apply for grant funding if you are not going to be here next year.

Work experience programmes come to an end you can not book them in then let them down next year.

Staff morale gets worse each day with more and more presenters looking for another station, and so it goes on just because the Government has more important things on it’s mind.

Has anyone been given a date when they might make up their mind? the last I knew it was going to be after the Summer recess back in September.

This really is a joke, but then again so is politics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your views as normal please.

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Are you looking for low cost radio commercials that sound a million dollars?

Radioads are specialists in producing the whole project for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

We can normally turn round a project in three working days from first email to finished product in your inbox.

Our prices start at just £35 for a one voice music bed so if you are looking for highly professional ad’s to give your station that professional sound and your advertisers a campaign that works.

Now for all you super dj’s we also produce sweepers from £9.99

Email: radioads@ntlworld.com

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Now to the fun part give me the money honey!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I thought we would look again at joint venturing one of the biggest and cheapest ways to get publicity and money in the bank.

First off of course is Children in Need, what could you do that could get you on the telly.

We all know the beeb are crying out for content, I once got on a telefone just by stealing some knomes!! what ideas can you come up with?

Oh I see you want me to do the hard work!!!!

How about my old baked beans in the bath trick, just sit in it for 24 hours in a shop window, bound to get you on tv.

Children in need is all about kids let them take over the radio station for a day get their proud parents to sponsor them, then do it again in six months with funds going to your station.

Great idea if I say so myself, publicity and money ‘kar ching’

Or if you really want to pull the heart strings go into the children’s ward at your local hospital provide some entertainment and shake those tins.

So there you are then some ideas to get started with, I bet yours are even better and you know how good it would make you feel to share!!

Comments please.

Until next week,

(hopefully on time Thursday)

Happy Dayz

The DG

Hi everybody and welcome to this weeks issue, before we start I need to ask a favour if you are reading this you are obviously interested in community radio, so can I ask you to refer us to a friend, the idea is to start a viral campaign where you tell at least one person every day about this blog.

Also if you are reading this I would really welcome your comments what do you want us to talk about your suggestions are always helpful, lastly a plea from the broken heart of a radio copy writer if you have any ad’s give our service a try it’s the cheapest in town and we like to think we are very good at it.

Right to work, Telephone calls to take them or not to take them.

Remember back in the dark distance days when you had a delay unit, talk about mind boggling I could never get my head around you were live but delayed by 30 seconds (or whatever it was) and when you finished the call you had to revert to real time!!!! what a mess.

Now of course things are easier, you can just record the call, but I had one guy tell last week it’s not live the listener will know!!!

Well of course the listener will know, but will they care, NO everybody out there in the real world knows radio is recorded they dont care, and this way they get a chance to hear themselves on air after all that is what they want, their five minutes of fame.

So lets get the batty Mrs Smith on talking about the aliens at the bottom of her garden it’s good fun, it’s good radio and we all need to lighten up a bit more.

It has to be better than council cutbacks and do gooders filling up our airwaves.

As usual your comments please and I promise to post them.

——————————————————————————

Are you looking for low cost radio commercials that sound a million dollars?

Radioads are specialists in producing the whole project for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

We can normally turn round a project in three working days from first email to finished product in your inbox.

Our prices start at just £35 for a one voice music bed so if you are looking for highly professional ad’s to give your station that professional sound and your advertisers a campaign that works.

 Now for all you super dj’s we also produce sweepers from £9.99

Email: radioads@ntlworld.com

——————————————————————————

In this section I try to offer ideas to help you raise both your profile and some extra cash for your station.

Last week we looked at starting a newsletter, this week I want to stay with telephones as talked about above.

I had an email from a company this week telling me how we could make a fortune from people calling our station.

Now if you are one of those people that point blankly refuse to charge for calls to  your station then stop reading now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However if you have an open mind and can forget about the Ant & Dec scandal then this may interest you we all know about the 25p a minute we could earn from people texting or calling, but there is also a more interesting way to make money from your mobile.

How about a radio station fan club you would text out details of whats going on to those who subscribe giving them discounts on services like buying theatre/cinema or concert tickets if they book within 24 hours.

You then charge your member 25p for the call (which is all done automatically for you) and you charge your advertiser who will be more than happy to pay because they know they will sell a guaranteed number of tickets in 24 hours.

There are loads more ways to make money from your mobile which I am sure we will come back to in future issues, as usual if you have an idea that is working for your station please share it with us.

Until next week,

Happy Dayz

The DG

Hi and welcome to another week in the wacky world that is community radio.

Something I want to talk about today maybe a bit near the knuckle for some of you!

Is the community Media Association on our side?

I only ask this because last week it’s chairperson Jacqui Deveaux (sorry for any misspelling) stood up and agreed with others on a Radio Academy pod cast that the current restrictions in the community radio bill are a good thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes this is some one who is ment to be telling everyone that needs to hear, that the rules need to be changed, but here she is agreeing with people from the commercial sector that everything is all OK.

Well Jacqui it is not, quite a few stations are funded out of the back pockets of the people that own them, not all are funded by universities etc.

They need help now, they need to be able to run as many commercials as they see fit, if the listener does not like it they will tune out and the station go broke that is the nature of business, but they do need that option.

They need guaranteed finance to employ people not the lottery that is the community radio fund.

Mostly they need the support of an orgainisation that they pay their dues to.

To paraphrase Lennon ‘All we are saying is give us a chance’

As usual your thoughts please.

———————————————————————————————-

Are you looking for low cost radio commercials that sound a million dollars?

We are specialists in producing the whole project for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

We can normally turn round a project in three working days from first email to finished product in your inbox.

Our prices start at just £35 for a one voice music bed so if you are looking for highly professional ad’s to give your station that professional sound and your advertisers a campaign that works.

Now for all you super dj’s we also produce sweepers from £9.99

 Email: radioads@ntlworld.com

———————————————————————————————

This week in raising funds I thought we would look at a community news paper/sheet.

After all we are in a multi media industry and we should learn to enhance it, now I hear you all cry but we already have a website surly we can put all our news on there.

Yes of course you can but do not under estimate the power of direct mail, yes you may call it junk mail, but why do so many big companies still use it, because it works.

Just look around any home and you will see it laying there a constant reminder of what it is advertising sublimely entering your mind you cannot beat it.

And these days despite the lack of trees print media is not as expense as it was ten years ago now with technology even colour is affordable giving you a high quality finish that people will keep.

It also opens up that new revenue stream paid advertising, then sell it at your local newsagent, it is a myth that advertisers want millions of copies out there the more savvy know it is finding the right niche and your magazine will prove that by people paying hard earned cash for it.

So when it comes to your marketing plans don’t forget good old print, John Bull certainly knew what he was doing back then.

Your comments please.

Until next week

Happy Dayz,

The DG

Hi and welcome to this weeks issue a day late, sorry about that pressure in the day job!

So today I want to ask you a question are you communicating? seems strange to ask after all if you are reading this you are more than likely to be a presenter, but lets look deeper shall we!

Communication: a conversation between one or more people.

Lecture: A speech given to an audience.

So now which one are you?  if you are just telling the listener this is that was and all the facts about the band, when it was recorded etc surly that is a lecture.

If we were sitting in a pub, would you suddenly tell me “that was the Beatles from 1963 on the parlophone label you know George wasn’t on that one he went to the dentist that day”

If you did I dont think I would be staying long even though I am interested in music and love beer.

All the best presenters are great conversationalists,  they know how to make their show sound like a two way conversation,”how are you today”  or “looks like rain doesn’t it”.

So when presenting use open questions, remember to engage your listener, talk to them not at them, and use the old training tool of picking someone you know and imagining talking to them.

Target your show are your listeners house wifes? well talk about the washing or dinner, if you are aiming at the workforce (not many of those left) then talk about men talk football etc.

Know your audience, don’t just lecture the world.

As usual your comments please.

———————————————————————————————

Are you looking for low cost radio commercials that sound a million dollars?

We are specialists in producing the whole project for you from writing the script to voicing, and producing.

We can normally turn round a project in three working days from first email to finished product in your inbox.

Our prices start at just £35 for a one voice music bed so if you are looking for highly professional ad’s to give your station that professional sound and your advertisers a campaign that works.

Email: radioads@ntlworld.com

———————————————————————————————-

So you wanna make more money than Heart, sorry you are in the wrong game and reading the wrong column

But we can help you make some money to pay the bills.

We have covered the subject of theme nights before in this blog, but now is an excellent time to take action what with Halloween and Bonfire night (what ever happened to Guy Fawkes night) so if you want the lowdown check the archives.

Now something I don’t think we make the most of, all community stations have specialist shows whether it is country or jazz, soul or salsa.

This means you have a great opportunity to make money, if you have a jazz programme for instance you could run a coach to a nearby concert , 50 people a tenner a head, thats £500 just for phoning up your local coach company, go one further even sell the tickets for the gig the promoter will give you a commission on these.

Why not start an extra page on the website all about jazz (or link to one) the spin offs from records to books should bring a few bob in or even find some courses how to play jazz guitar etc on www.clickbank.com  and earn more commissions.

So there you have it just a couple of ways to turn a show with a specialised audience into money in the bank.

So what do you think? have you any great ways to make money let us know please this is your column your thoughts please.

Until Next week.

Happy Dayz

The DG.