Andrew Harrision urges all radio groups across commercial radio and the BBC to work together to ensure the survival of our medium. Speaking at The Radio Festival, Harrision proposed a team of people (rather than a committee) meet up and report back in a years time.
The team would consist of people from RadioCentre (on behalf of commercial radio), Ofcom and Heads of BBC Audio and Music. "Day to day, we'll compete for listeners and figures, but behind the scenes we could be working out how to better ensure our survival", he said.
Andrew outlined seven areas to tackle starting now in 2007, from digital migration to pirate stations.
After his speech, Andrew chatted to Jeremy Vine about how commercial radio is not able to grow due to lack of funds and declining revenue. A programme such as BBC Radio Five Live's Fighting Talk would be quite cheap to produce, taking out Colin Murray's fee, so why couldn't commercial radio put out a programme such as this? Harrison: "It took 18 months for Fighting Talk to become established.. that's a long time in commercial radio.
"Another boundary is the lack of national spectrum – this kind of programme would only work on a national talk station, of which there is only one."
This is something, he said, will be addressed in the future with the addition of the new national multiplex.
Coming up, how we are losing teenagers to the iPod generation, and we'll let you know what questions are thrown to Jenny Abramsky, Ralph Bernard and Andy Duncan in one of the final sessions from Cambridge.
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