Former Managing Editor Dr Liam McCarthy writes to Tim Davie over BBC local radio changes

Former BBC radio Editor Dr Liam McCarthy has written a direct paper to BBC Director General Tim Davie over the changes to local radio.

Liam is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of History, Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester. He worked for the BBC between 1978 and 2008 and was Editor of three BBC local stations in Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield and Head of BBC Local Radio Training.

He is currently writing a book titled ‘Finding a British Asian Sound on BBC Radio’.

The below paper argues;

• Shared programming in local radio will cut listening figures, hit the BBC diversity and damage the reputation of the BBC
• New Journalism Hubs ignore the fact that local stations in England already produce hundreds of stories a week that never get online
• The loss of listeners will precede the end of BBC local radio

Here it is in full, reposted with permission.

Going Digital? How the BBC is getting its local services wrong – again.

Dr Liam McCarthy, a former station manager of three BBC local radio stations, argues the BBC is right to embrace growing digital literacy among consumers to deliver significant digital local news services, but it is wrong to do so at the expense of local radio listeners.

In the last 15 years more than 250 local newspapers have closed and over 200 commercial local radio stations have been subsumed into national brands such as Greatest Hits Radio, Smooth and Capital. There is therefore a market failure in local journalism and a growing democratic deficit in which politicians and local leaders are not being held to account – and these BBC plans will play a part in making it worse by cutting up to half of local output on some local stations.

The BBC’s vision to build a truly multi-media locally based service ‘so trusted and valued it reaches half the population of England every week’, is a good one. But some stations such as BBC Radio Cornwall already reach 53% of adults through radio and social media – before including figures from BBC Sounds and BBC News Online.

Rather than cutting local output and building regional journalism hubs the BBC should be asking how it can share the best practice in Cornwall – not cutting the local radio output by half.

Senior management justify these new changes by saying that BBC local radio only reaches 13% of licence fee payers a week and it needs to offer something to everyone locally. The argument that sharing is occurring when audiences are lowest is a dangerous one as it can be applied to every radio station in the country and critics of the BBC will alight on it. Should BBC Radio 5 Live, with a smaller audience than BBC Local Radio, share its drivetime news service with the Radio Four PM programme? The argument that 83% of people don’t listen to BBC local radio in England is a spurious one, local radio is part of an overall BBC portfolio which reaches nine out of ten adults each week. Should every BBC service with a lower reach than BBC local radio be cut to boost digital content? There are plenty of them: BBC 5 Live, BBC Radio 3, BBC 6 Music, BBC 1Xtra, BBC Asian Network, BBC Radio Wales – you get the picture. Even so, around one third of the 5.7 million people who listen to BBC local radio NEVER listen to any other BBC radio service.

The BBC’s plans fail on three fronts, first, the cutting of local radio by providing shared ‘regional radio’, second a flawed model of ‘regional journalism’, and third a possibility of an end to BBC local radio.

Sharing Output: Cutting presenters, not Managers, and losing listeners?

What the BBC euphemistically calls ‘reprioritising its staffing model’ across local radio England is turning into a PR calamity. A drip feed of stories featuring the sacking, redundancy or loss of many existing presenters is creating a slow release of toxic news coverage which is drowning out any chance of positive coverage of the digital future. These presenters with a lifetime of local knowledge are in many cases being replaced by a shared programme – in Scarborough for example your shared afternoon and weekend shows will come from Sheffield around 100 miles away. It did not need to be this way. A look at the history of BBC local radio proves that creating ‘shared’ output across regions always fails.

In the 1990s the BBC planned to launch a combined BBC Surrey and Berkshire but decided rather than this new station it would cut costs and combine smaller units in Surrey and Berkshire with existing stations. So, BBC Thames Valley FM (Radio Oxford and Radio Berkshire) and BBC Southern Counties (Radio Sussex and Radio Surrey) were born. They never worked and even today the combined reach of the renamed BBC Sussex and Surrey is one of the worst in terms of weekly reach – while the now separated Berkshire and Oxford are performing more strongly. I suspect that sharing the output on BBC Radio Berkshire and BBC Radio Oxford again as part of an even wider region will hit listening – as it will inevitably do almost everywhere.

The new shared output on BBC local radio will fail. It is a misunderstanding of the role of local radio which is not just about news and sport. It is about local pride, convivial conversation, friendly voices that also challenge those in powerful positions locally.

Weekend programme sharing will devastate local listening: take the BBC in the East Midlands where on a Saturday morning local stations should give the full exciting build up to the promotion races of Derby County and Notts County, the Premier League relegation battles of Leicester City and Nottingham Forest, and in rugby the play-off hopes of the Leicester Tigers. A shared East Midlands programme won’t be able to do this for fear of upsetting everyone and so would revert to a bland music, chat and competitions format – why bother listening?

Interestingly the BBC is going to share some station management – but not nearly enough.

There are many roles that could be lost – or shared before sharing programmes. Others could be refunded; for example, Community Producers could be funded like the Local Democracy Reporters and provide a bridge between BBC local stations and community radio. De-layer before de-localising. This is before new layers of management are added with News Editors for the new Investigative Journalism Hubs are employed – what’s the betting on Digital Editors being created as well.

Digital News: A regional fudge and not really local?

The BBC’s digital vision falls at the first hurdle. If the PR disaster of losing local radio presenters is not sorted then the whole process will be repeated as journalists are reassigned to new roles across England. According to the BBC, the creation of eleven new investigative journalism hubs employing 71 journalists in its regional centres will provide ‘at least 20 television and iPlayer programmes a year’ and produce digital content for local online, radio and television. It’s a big ask for hubs employing around 6 people and it doesn’t add up. To be truly local these 71 posts should be based in the BBC’s 43 local bases – regional hubs will concentrate on stories close to them. It is management with TV experience replicating the regional TV model because it is what they know. In its 43 local bases, the BBC is going to install a BBC Sounds producer and an online content producer to provide ‘an up-to-date trusted service across the week’.

BBC local radio stations and regional TV stations already produce hundreds of stories a day which fail to go online – a product of the silo mentality of BBC ‘divisions’ that don’t really trust each other. Before setting up new Journalism Hubs that will complicate editorial decision making the BBC should be sorting out its present online log jam of stories.

After its abortive plans to introduce a ‘super local’ TV service in 2008 were rejected by the BBC Trust the BBC promised the newspaper industry – and the DCMS – it wouldn’t be enhancing its local provision to allow commercial services develop. What if an Ofcom investigation finds against the BBC for being too competitive – will these plans still stand or worse still be reversed?

An End to BBC Local Radio?

Most BBC local radio stations will lose a third of their output sending their cost per hour soaring and beg the question why bother with it at all? Local listeners don’t want regional radio and will simply go to national stations. This move ignores BBC research over the years that local pride, local interest, local champions and an authentic sense of place are key planks of a BBC local radio service. Perhaps the worst point about cutting local output is the loss of the important work local radio plays in driving diversity in the BBC. At present between 6am and 6pm each station broadcasts 21 local programmes a week which will be reduced to just 10 on some stations under the new proposals. Over local radio as a whole one in ten of these programmes (October 2022) is hosted by black or Asian presenters, many of whom will be lost leaving just half the presentation opportunities in which to develop new BAME talent.

What will happen to the 20 hours of Asian programming on nine stations currently reaching over 35s that are not catered for by the BBC Asian Network, or the 25 hours of black programming on ten stations for listeners who get no other radio programming from the BBC? Plans for more sharing of these programmes is fraught with difficulties as the make-up of BAME communities differs station by station – here again local should be key.

The sharing proposals will cost BBC local radio many listeners.

Conclusion

The BBC is clearly not happy that these proposals were right in the first place as they have rowed back continually since they were unveiled. If BBC Radio Merseyside and BBC Radio London can now keep all of their local output then why can’t BBC Radio Humberside or BBC Radio Cornwall? What price is local pride?

I recognise there is important new digital and online work to be done by the BBC’s local services. However, the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have highlighted a need for a vigorous local news service and the BBC is in a unique position – and has a duty as a public service – to take advantage of this if it is brave enough to approach the new digital literacy among consumers properly.

I part authored the BBC Local Radio 2000 and Connecting England strategy papers in 1997 and 2001 which pointed the BBC to a policy of targeting the over 55s and I am staggered that these proposals have gone this far without warning lights flashing about the public, media and political backlash they would unleash. I am not against the sentiment of the BBC’s plans for England, but the way it is being done is wrong. The idea of regional digital hubs should be scrapped. Any journalistic firepower to be put into the existing television and radio services to turn them all into local digital hubs using the content they are already producing – and crucially adding more.

When I wrote to Tim Davie the BBC’s Director General about these plans he replied ‘In a digital age we can drive significant measurable reach by “feeding” off the main BBC news reach, and then lead people to the wonders of local radio’.

The hollowing out of BBC local radio stations propped up by regional programming is taking the foundations away from the ‘wonders of local radio’. At least these proposals have been successful in uniting MPs across the House of Commons, listeners and media professionals with their shock at the cuts to local radio output and anger at the BBC for failing in its core purpose. It is a shame the BBC isn’t listening – it is still not too late to pause and reflect.

About the author.

Dr Liam McCarthy is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of History, Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester. He worked for the BBC between 1978 and 2008 and was Editor of three BBC local stations in Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield and Head of BBC Local Radio Training. He is currently writing a book titled ‘Finding a British Asian Sound on BBC Radio’.