SLR - Ofcom Licensing

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Section 105(A): Ability to maintain proposed service 2. Financial and Business Plan c) Financial Projections The Shrewsbury Chronicle is one of the oldest weekly papers in the country and was first published in 1772. Over the centuries the paper has had many different owners and offices around the town, but it is now based at Chronicle House, Castle Foregate, opposite Shrewsbury railway station. It is printed on Wednesday evening and is on sale for Thursday breakfast. The Chronicle claims to be a ‘community’ newspaper aiming to “chronicle everything that has happened in Shrewsbury and the surrounding area during the previous seven days”. However, it is clear to any reader that the paper’s true raison d’être is to sell property. The paper averages 96 pages each week half of which form a property supplement. According to Jicreg data the Shrewsbury/North Shropshire Chronicle has a circulation of 18,349 with an average issue readership of 54,000, (51% of the population). The current ratecard cost of a mono quarter page ROP advertisement is £348. The Oswestry and Border Counties Advertiser is one of a number of weekly titles owned by North Wales Newspapers group. Established over 150 years ago it is the second oldest newspaper in the county. With a published readership of 32,500 our own focus group research and anecdotal evidence showed this to be a valued publication and the solitary source of hard news outside the giant MNA stable. (Full details of Focus Group studies can be inspected in Research Report 3 in Appendix 7). Shrewsbury ‘Admag’ is a weekly free paper published by Northcliffe group that is almost entirely comprised of advertisements. According to VFD the title reaches 35,000 households in and around Shrewsbury and 7,000 homes in Oswestry. The Powys County Times and Express covers a large geographic area fringing on the proposed <strong>SLR</strong> transmission area. Readership and commercial support, however, is almost entirely confined to the Welsh side of the border. A Detailed map of the specified press circulation areas landscape can be found in Confidential Appendix 16. The Local Radio Market The two existing commercial stations broadcasting to Shrewsbury and Oswestry are Beacon Radio and Classic Gold WABC. In Oswestry MFM 103.4 and Classic Gold Marcher, (from Wrexham), also appear on Rajar diaries, although the town lies outside the stations’ official MCA. All these stations are now a part of Britain’s largest radio group Gcap Media. BBC Radio Shropshire also broadcasts across the county. A Detailed map of the specified radio landscape can be found in Confidential Appendix 16. Originally focused on Wolverhampton and The Black Country, Beacon Radio launched in April 1976, the last of the Independent Broadcasting Authority’s first raft of ILR stations. Beacon was considered an ‘experiment’ by the IBA which was keen to observe what would happen if two commercial stations were allowed to operate in close proximity to one another. One third of Beacon’s area overlapped with Birmingham-based BRMB, an area which includes the towns of Dudley and Halesowen. Beacon’s original board recognised the need to formulate an alternative musical offering and looked to North America’s more developed radio industry when recruiting senior management for the station’s launch. Under the first Managing Director, an American, the early Beacon sound was very distinctive, and noticeably different from that of BRMB. 25
Section 105(A): Ability to maintain proposed service 2. Financial and Business Plan c) Financial Projections Like other early ILR stations BRMB was primarily top 40 based while Beacon injected ‘spice’ to its music in the form of classic oldies and album tracks. Throughout the late ‘70’s and into the ‘80’s Beacon remained strongly focused editorially on Wolverhampton and the Black Country with an unusually diverse mix of music. The station unquestionably won the hearts and minds of local people scoring excellent ratings from the outset with a share of 42% in 1979. (Source, Jicrar). After the departure of Beacon’s somewhat ‘unorthodox’ launch management team, the station’s programming began to conform more with the ILR norm under Managing Director Peter Tomlinson, (a former ATV presenter), and his Programme Controller, ex-BFBS broadcaster, Bob Pierson who was later promoted to MD. Another management change came in 1987 when former Sales Director, Alan Mullett stepped-up to MD with presenter Pete Wagstaff as Programme Director. The new team were keen to make a difference and successfully applied for a new franchise to broadcast across Shropshire from a powerful FM transmitter high above the county on top of the Wrekin. So, on July 14 1987 commercial radio finally came to Shrewsbury and Oswestry. ‘Beacon Shropshire’ launched as an opt-out of the West Midlands service with dedicated programming for eight hours a day at breakfast and drivetime, as well as separate commercials, traffic updates and news bulletins at other times. The station also invested in a studio and sales office located in Shrewsbury’s Music Hall and was frequently seen staging outside broadcasts from all over the county. Beacon recruited strongly local presenters for its dedicated Shropshire programmes. Individuals like Graham Hall and Will Tudor, who remains one of the county’s best known personalities to this day. Station policy was to use local relevance in abundance to enhance appeal and the Shropshire service fast became an important contributor of listener hours and new revenue to the Beacon Radio ‘family’. At this time there was a terrific team spirit at Beacon which drove a hunger for further success. Audiences and revenue were at record levels and the station achieved breakthroughs in other areas like, for example, the ‘syndication’ of its overnight show to neighbouring ILR stations, Signal, Mercia and Wyvern. In 1988 the government announced its intention to end the practice of ‘simulcasting’ and Beacon’s management team devised a new format for their only AM frequency, 990khz. ‘Radio WABC’ started broadcasting on January 15 1989. Once again, Beacon did things slightly differently. Because of the, by now, well established ‘Gold’ format from Birmingham’s Xtra AM, WABC became Britain’s first easy-listening station with Frank Sinatra's ‘Nice and Easy’ as the first song played. Keen to expand further, Alan Mullett successfully applied for what was to be the last IBA licence, and on December 12 th 1990 WABC was rolled out across Shropshire, mirroring the local programming template of Beacon FM. Radio WABC's music policy shifted several times over the next few years becoming more upbeat and contemporary towards the middle of the decade. In 1993 Beacon’s shareholders sold out to Swindon-based GWR group, although a condition of the sale meant that GWR could not take day to day control of the stations for three years. During this time Beacon Radio and WABC continued to be programmed and presented locally with no external influence to the music or on air line up. The Shropshire stations continued to deliver strong local content with regular involvement of local people via ‘phone-ins and outside broadcasts. 26
Page 1 and 2: An Application to Ofcom for the FM
Page 3 and 4: Section 105(A): Ability to maintain
Page 25: Section 105(A): Ability to maintain
Page 39 and 40: Section 105(B) and (C): Catering fo
Page 53 and 54: Section 105 (D): Evidence of Local
Page 69: Section 105 (D): Evidence of Local

SLR - Ofcom Licensing

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