TLRC station Mix 107 has been issued with a Yellow Card from Ofcom for not operating within Format. A Spot Sampling Report was carried out by the regulator in response to concerns about a specific part of the station’s output.
The Spot Sampling report was triggered following correspondence between Ofcom and Mix 107about a proposed Format change request, in which it transpired that the station had dropped the specialist Asian and Afro-Caribbean music programming required by its Format.
After Ofcom insisted that Mix 107 reinstate these programming elements, the station said that, from 29 April, it would broadcast two new programmes, ‘The Caribbean Connection’ and ‘The Asian Connection’, early on Sunday mornings from 05.00 to 08.00. However, Ofcom monitoring on Sunday 10 June revealed that Mix 107 did not broadcast the new programmes, and it was also unable to provide recordings for Sunday 6 May. Furthermore, the programmes on other weekends that were broadcast fell short of listener expectation and an acceptable standard of output, Ofcom said.
By the station’s own admission, on at least two occasions out of the first seven scheduled slots, the programmes failed to be broadcast without the knowledge of station or group management and therefore no remedial action was taken. In our view, this represents either a serious breakdown in compliance/operational procedure or a lack of commitment to meeting specific obligatory aspects of the Mix 107 Format.
Ofcom are not happy. "In our view, the situation as a whole was unsatisfactory. Firstly, the station unilaterally dropped the required specialist programming on what we consider to be unconvincing grounds. Secondly, the replacement programmes appear to fall short of an acceptable standard of output."
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