Radio Jackie in South West London welcomes the recent news from Ofcom that more community radio stations will be licensed.
Radio Jackie has long advocated opening up the airwaves to more radio stations and is pleased that Ofcom now believes that four more frequencies can be found for stations in the London Boroughs of Merton, Sutton, Croydon and Kingston Upon Thames.
Commenting on the announcement Radio Jackie?s owner, Tony Collis, said: ?We welcome more stations and a wider range of listening choice. Sadly this new round of community stations still won?t answer the demand in London for a far greater range of stations serving specialist music tastes and minority interests.
Many of these interests are not geographically confined to a five kilometre radius that these new community stations will be licensed to serve. They need to be able to serve substantially larger parts of the Greater London area. Frequencies for more stations can be found if the will is there to provide real choice rather than preserve the status quo to the advantage of the BBC and current commercial radio operators,”
“Licensing needs to be quick and easy. Licences should also be non-transferable with the stations required to remain compliant with the initial format proposed by the applicant. Stations should be allowed the freedom to fail if their proposed format proves unpopular or financially unsustainable. Stations would then come and go reflecting the listening needs of the time. That would be a constructive answer to the pirate radio issue debated last month in Parliament.?