31/3/2011 - Council Leader speaks out over potential BBC local radio cuts

I would like to bring to Cabinet’s attention the early day proposal of the BBC to reduce or cut local radio.

A leaked memo from a BBC Executive meeting held earlier this month has surfaced showing that senior management are considering a proposal for all BBC local radio stations to be cut back to broadcasting breakfast and tea time programmes only and for the rest of the day switching to output from BBC Radio Five Live.

I recognise that the BBC faces some tough financial choices as it takes on funding for new responsibilities while the licence fee is frozen for six years. It must clearly ensure that as much of the licence fee as possible goes into making quality programmes. 

However, at a time when the BBC is paying 445 managers an annual salary of more than £100,000 each and in just six months last year, staff at BBC Wales claimed £720,000 for expenses on hotels, £177,000 on flights, £286,000 on rail travel and a further £408,000 on hire cars. Cutting or even reducing local radio is a particularly crass proposal.

I appreciate that all public services need to make savings. It would be quite fatuous of this council to point the finger at the BBC and say ‘don’t cut anything’. But let’s remind ourselves of the services that Radio Cumbria provides:

- It is the most listened to station per head of population in the whole of England.

- It has the highest audience reach of any of the BBC's chain of local radio stations, last year achieving its highest ever audience reach of 39 per cent.

- It has won more Gold awards than any other station at the BBC local radio awards, winning recognition especially for its breaking news on the West Cumbria Shootings.

- It serves our community day in and day out, not only informing them about local news, events and sport, but also acting as a valuable lynchpin in the county’s emergency planning procedures and the way we warn and inform the public at times of crisis. This of course came to the fore during the floods of 2009 when the station broadcast updates through the night and ensuing days.

In short, it is the only Cumbria-wide media outlet that serves all of our diverse communities; it’s part of the fabric of Cumbria, part of our DNA, from Arnside to Alston. Given the localism agenda, community development and local autonomy I believe it would be not only a retrograde step to take, it would be a huge loss of the Cumbrian identity. Radio Cumbria is intimate and it is ours. Manchester and London and Radio 5 are a million miles away!

We’ve already lost the BBC bus from the county and we’ve seen the erosion of local news from the Border/Tyne Tees merger. 

I believe we cannot sit idly by if the last bastion of local broadcast news is threatened while the BBC fritters licence payers’ cash on expenses and celebrity fees. 

Although there is no formal consultation on the proposals, I would like Cabinet approval and support to write to the Director General of the BBC as well as the BBC Trust and the Head of Regional and Local Programming of the BBC laying out this Authority’s opposition to the proposals which would effectively emasculate local radio in Cumbria. Radio Cumbria does a first class job and I believe we must do our best to preserve and protect it.

ENDS

Media enquiries to Gareth Cosslett, News Manager on 01228 226332 or 07973 811206