Authors: Ally Fogg, Phil Korbel, Cathy Brooks
Published by: Radio Regen
Price: £20.00
Spiral bound book with accompanying website

Community radio is often referred to as the third tier of radio, following in the footsteps of public service broadcasters like the national and regional/local BBC stations and the commercial sector which has itself expanded relentlessly since the early 1990s.

The origins of community radio can be traced back to the 1960s, though the sector has derived considerable impetus from the Radio Authority initiative in 2001 which monitored 15 pilot community stations for a year. These stations were termed “Access Radio “, partly because they were intended to provide programmes for small communities who were underserved by the mainstream media, and partly because they aimed to allow the people who lived in them opportunities to contribute to programme content – hence allowing the audience to have access to the microphones.

Following a rigorous monitoring and evaluation of the Access pilot stations by Professor Anthony Everitt in 2002/3, the Government, in the wake of the Communications Bill, seems to like the idea of small scale radio. Tony Blair has frequently heralded the concept of ‘localness’ and encouraged communities to take greater responsibility for their own welfare and development. Now Ofcom, the Government media regulator, having taken over the reins from the Radio Authority, is currently in the process of granting five-year licences to small community radio stations across the country.

Hence this book – an invaluable resource for anyone thinking of applying, or for any of the 50 plus stations and their managers who have already been given the Ofcom nod and are now at the stage where they are planning to go on air, full time, on a shoestring budget with a diverse mixture of volunteers and a sprinkling of paid staff.

The Community Radio Toolkit takes the reader through the whole process of setting up a station, from the first steps of planning, through the delicate, difficult and tiresome business of filling in the application forms, finding money to run the station, and helping your presenters to avoid breaking the law. It is these unglamorous chapters that many prospective applicants will find most useful. The authors have all been involved in the setting up and running of two community stations in Manchester (All FM and Wythenshawe FM, collectively known as Radio Regen). Manchester is not short of radio stations, nor is it short of underrepresented communities. This team knows that the powerful commercial stations with their formulaic schedules, satisfy the undemanding mass, but fail to touch the lives of small communities in any meaningful way. That is the gap that community radio aims to fill.

One of the most uplifting features of the Community Radio Toolkit is that the authors frequently remind the reader of the fundamental principles underpinning the community radio ethos. Measuring ‘social gain’ is going to be an unscientific process. RAJAR, the audience research body who measure mainstream radio success by the blunt instrument of counting the number of listeners for each station, have little or no interest in social gain. It is difficult to quantify, and hence avoided.

But ‘social gain’ is the raison d’etre of community radio. Stations will be broadcasting across a five-kilometre radius on a fairly weak signal. The majority of presenters will be strictly amateur, and the budgets will be tight. Funders will be hard to find. Not many commercial companies will want to advertise on the stations. Many of them could well end less with a bang, than with a whimper. Those that will succeed will be the ones who take their planning, programming, management and development strategies as seriously as this book encourages them to.

The Community Radio Toolkit is well illustrated, well designed, systematic, with an informal, helpful style that, thankfully, avoids flippancy. The chapter on programming would be useful for all radio wannabes and professionals. Technical advice, the most expensive and the most specialist, geeky area of radio production, is covered not in the sort of detail that would satisfy an engineer, but in enough depth to give guidance to the station manager and volunteers, and to point them, if they do not know how, in the direction of one who does. Other chapters are slightly less universal in their appeal, but are well informed and helpful. The feeling one gets from this book is that the authors genuinely want other people to succeed in their community radio projects. They are refreshingly selfless in their task.

The book is only going to reach a fairly small audience. Like community radio itself. But, like good community radio, a lot of work has gone into creating something of quality designed to improve the lives of just a few.

© 2006 Clive Edwards