SLR - Ofcom Licensing

Section 105(B) and (C): Catering for Tastes and
Interests And Broadening Choice
4. Programming Philosophy
In focusing on 35-64’s, SLR recognises the importance of providing a service to as wide an
audience base as possible, while at the same time pursuing the distinct opportunity to grow
the local commercial radio audience and widen listener choice.
Our programme philosophy is firmly grounded on a definition of localness as being
characterised by news, information, comment, outside broadcasts, what's-on information,
travel news, interviews, charity involvement, weather, local artists, local arts and culture, etc,
This is reflected in the SLR programme schedule and is designed to give listeners a feeling
of complete ‘ownership’.
MUSIC
A root cause of the poor perception of the existing local commercial radio stations is the
‘predictability’ and regularity of the music format.
It is, of course, important for listeners to have the reassurance of knowing the type or genre
of music they will hear, station by station. To be able to forecast, with a reasonable degree
of accuracy, which song is likely to be played next is an extension of the format radio
concept to a degree that inevitably impacts negatively on the audience.
SLR will break through that fog of lacklustre predictability by scheduling album tracks
alongside the more familiar hits and by providing a more extensive hit song selection than is
the case with existing stations.
The trend for commercial radio music programmers to rely purely on music selection
software can lead to a sterile feel to the music choice as it is primarily based on the
assumption that particular demographics only enjoy music from their formative years. Thus,
FM stations tend to focus on hits from the 80’s to the present day, while AM stations major
on ‘classic hits’ and thus regard the 60’s, 70’s and, to a lesser extent, the 80’s as their staple
diet of music. This is precisely the policy adopted in Shropshire by the existing local stations,
Beacon FM and WABC Classic Gold. Furthermore, these two stations form part of quasinational
generic radio brands which means Beacon’s musical anatomy is identical to stations
all over the UK. The output of Classic Gold WABC is, for all but four hours a day, exactly the
same as all other Classic Gold Digital stations up and down the land. Within these
constraints it has become increasingly difficult for Beacon Radio and Classic Gold WABC to
adequately provide a valued local service for Shrewsbury and Oswestry.
As part of our monitoring process we compared Beacon Radio’s music with two ‘sister’
stations in the former GWR ‘Mix’ network, Nottingham’s 96 Trent FM and GWR FM in Bristol.
We contrasted the 30 most played artists across a week and our findings, as expected,
showed the musical ‘anatomy’ of the three stations to be almost identical:
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