A bleak mid-winter for local radio

A black cloud has settled over my Facebook page and it refuses to budge. Then again, with half my friends working in BBC local radio and the other half working in the arts, I imagine it accurately reflects the fear, frustration, uncertainty and downright anger swirling around chunks of the creative industry.

If anyone understands the reeling blow BBC local radio staff received this month then it should be the arts. Not knowing what’s happening by Christmas, end of the financial year, this time next year? Yes, the arts know all about that. And it’s time to extend the hand of friendship.
BBC local radio faces losing hundreds of hours of programming. If that happens, a bleak winter in the arts could get much bleaker. If the BBC is able to use local radio stations as the sponge to soak up the need to cut costs, then galleries, theatres, youth programmes, orchestras and festivals will lose one of the main tools in their arsenal to get in front of their audiences.
No, the BBC does not cover everything. No, it isn’t fair that the gallery down the road seems to be on the breakfast programme every week when you’re on once every six months at best. Yet seven million people listen to BBC Local Radio every week. For a third of the listeners, their local radio station, be it Merseyside, Manchester, WM, London or Leeds, it is the only station they listen to. These are the people who live and breathe their local area, just the same as you do.
The proposed cuts will not touch breakfast, lunch or drive, when the biggest audiences tune in, but they will hit the smaller more off-beat programmes. My patch is Liverpool. Music, visual arts, literature festivals, exhibitions, parades, stop-ins, stop-outs, film screenings, spoken word tours, comedians, dancers, superstars and hyperlocals; you name it, it’s probably on this week, or next. A very good friend who is Art Editor at the local newspaper barely has time to write her to-do list each Monday, her every precious minute is so in demand. She barely has a minute to herself and yet still feels guilty for not covering something. And Liverpool is lucky, it has two Arts Editors at its two leading sister newspapers, not to mention excellent blogs and online editorial, social media friends and vloggers covering as many arts events as they can get to. Yet even these dedicated arts correspondents can’t cover everything. And neither can a producer of a breakfast programme for whom art is just one of the features to include alongside national, international and local news, weather and sport. It is the fringe programming, those in the less high-profile slots, that often give the arts the majority of its coverage: that show on a Sunday afternoon or Saturday morning as we eat our bacon butties, stretch our toes and wonder how to spend the rest of the weekend. I imagine that is the one that you, or your director or marketing boss, will usually go on to and chat about the papers and the whatsons. These are the exact programmes we could lose.
I wrote for another title that radio stations will lose an integral element of their local identity if they lose these programmes. But it isn’t just the radio stations that will lose out; the local community will ultimately feel the blow. A homogenised, ‘All-England’ radio show in the evening and at weekend won’t be able to reflect all of the larger arts organisations like the Baltic, Tate St Ives or The Lowry, let alone the smaller organisations with even tighter, more squeezed resources. These might be what the Director of News at the BBC, Helen Boaden, describes as “low audience periods” but we know audience is about quality, as well as quantity. The audience that is passionate and engaged is much more likely to spread the word. Smaller or fringe arts organisations or groups could be squeezed out of coverage altogether. Without even the limited oxygen that publicity offers, they are not only being side-lined, they may disappear altogether.
The plan is out for consultation until December 21 and people can email their views on the proposed cuts to [email protected]