Summary

In this chapter we introduce the changing and complicated environment of radio in terms of technological, social, economic and political forces that affect it. We provide detail on both the size and nature of the environment, the radio audience and the changing nature of regulation, competition and the demands of the industry and the audience whilst focusing particularly on technological advances in the industry. We argue that these complicated and rapid changes that beset radio place new demands on radio management and managers and that they need to respond appropriately in order to meet these and maintain the trust of their audiences. From this we move on to outline why there is a need for this book and the audience that it is aimed at and provide detail on the structure and content of the remainder of this volume.

Introduction

Radio stations and the people who work in them are faced with, to use the Chinese adage, 'interesting times'. There is increased competition from radio and other traditional media at local, regional, national and now global levels and increasingly from new technological means of broadcasting, such as podcasts and Internet audio streaming - we can listen to many UK based digital radio broadcasts via satellite or the Internet virtually anywhere in the world. This dual aspect of globalisation brings with it interesting political, economic and social issues - who, for instance, owns, controls and decides on the 'content' of a radio broadcast, how independent is a radio station, and so on? Many commercial stations are now part of much larger global media companies, some of which may seem to transcend national politics, policies and laws. These technological, economic, political and social issues are both complicated and nested - often one affects another and sometimes in ways that may not be immediately obvious.

Technological advances have resulted not just in the introduction of alternative types of broadcasting but also in new alternatives to radio listening, such as playing computer games. As a result radio broadcasters find that both the number and the types of competitors have increased at a time when they can reach an ever-increasing audience. This though is not just due to technological advances; people in the developed world are now supposed to have both a higher disposable income and more leisure time than previously and increasingly more media channels to choose between.

Nonetheless listeners can no longer be considered to be passive audiences. They are, to use a term present in management and media studies, 'active' as audiences (see McQuail 1983) and as consumers who chose from an increasing variety of outlets competing for their attention, time and money. If they don't like a broadcast they can, and will, turn it off and find an alternative. The structure of the competitive environment for radio stations has, and continues to, change.

Economically, radio stations now compete for audiences and market share in an increasingly competitive marketplace that may be dominated by a few, large global media companies. According to Michael Porter (1980) there are five forces that act on an organisation in a competitive marketplace: the relative power of the buyers; the relative power of suppliers; potential new entrants; substitute products and finally; the prevailing degree of competitive rivalry. In Porter's terms the radio industry is an increasingly turbulent and competitive environment. Suppliers here include, for example, news production companies as well as staff. So while a station, for example, may find an increasing number of sources for news feeds it may also find that it faces more competition to hire and retain a well know DJ. With regard to the former a station may negotiate a news contract with both local and global news suppliers. According to Porter, the extent to which a station can 'negotiate' successfully with its suppliers would vary according to the particular dynamics of each supplier-station relationship. Similarly a station's relationship with its various 'customers', that is, for example, it's advertisers, the local community, the audience, and again the buyer-station dynamics would affect any relationship here.



Michael Porter's (1980) Five Force Model

Porter argued that strategically an organisation should first decide whether or not its market position allowed it to be the cost leader (ie that it can be the lowest cost producer for the industry) - if it could not then it should instead ensure that its product is differentiated from its competitors and so aim at charging a premium for these different products. Following this decision the organisation should then decide on the scope or focus - whether the organisation aims to meet the needs of the entire market or a particular segment. So in Radio management terms, a station that is unlikely to be a cost leader may instead concentrate on differentiating its service and focusing on a particular niche - a national or regional specialist music station (Kerrang - a heavy rock station), a station that focuses on a particular geographic area part of a population.

For Porter at least, the move towards global media companies is a sign of a competitive strategy where a global organisation attempts to dominate its suppliers, buyers and customers. Where there is little competition and very little chance of a substitute product or new entrant to the market one would expect the dominant station to be in a good position to make a profit. Where there are many small stations competing for the same audience and faced with global news suppliers, etc., one would expect the stations to face greater financial difficulties. Interesting times indeed, and we believe one where it is increasingly important for radio stations to be effectively managed!

The rise and rise of UK radio

By July 2008, in addition to BBC radio, there were some 300 commercial radio stations in the UK, plus 112 community radio services. A further 67 community radio stations had been approved by Ofcom but have yet to come on-air. (Ofcom 2008a)

Since 2000 the new community radio sector has developed rapidly and the Community Media Association now has over 700 members. Hundreds of short-term 'restricted service' stations (RSLs) are licensed every year; they provide a training ground for would be commercial and community licensees. There are 68 student radio stations and over 250 hospital radio stations currently operating. All these people can benefit from this book. There is evidence that there is a growing market of people who up to now have had little connection to community radio but who might now be involved at a strategic or a funding level. This includes local authorities and services and also a wide variety of funding bodies - all of whom need to understand the issues involved in community radio if they are to have any kind of involvement in the new sector.

There are growing numbers of independent radio companies that make programmes for the BBC - there are 94 on the current register of BBC Radio 4 independent radio producers. Increasingly, would be broadcasters run their own production companies, web radio stations and podcasts. Add to these totals innumerable internet and other unregulated services and it must be the case that more people are taking managerial responsibility for a radio station than at any time in British radio history. Against this however must be set the continued consolidation of the media business with a concentration of commercial radio ownership into the hands of fewer companies with a consequent reduction in the status of the individual station manager.

Radio responds to new technologies

All the current developments in the structure and regulation of the radio industry must be seen against the background of changing technology and a greatly increasing range of audio delivery platforms. While there are those who predicted that the iPod would mean the end of radio as we know it (see Berry 2006 for discussion of this) the same was said at the birth of television, commercial television, daytime television, the walkman and the Internet. Radio broadcasting has a strong survival instinct.

Most of the new media opportunities for radio broadcasting involve targeting small segments of the listening population, albeit sometimes on a worldwide scale. The old models of management developed at a time when an individual network could see a weekly audience in excess of twelve million people are not applicable to the new digitally-delivered strands which may number their audience in tens of thousands. Over half of the UK commercial radio stations serve areas with an adult population of fewer than 300,000 and it is the management systems developed here and in the smaller BBC outlets that give us the best indication of practical corporate structures for the future of radio.

Speaking at the Radio Academy Festival in Cambridge in July 2007 (Radio Magazine 2007), BBC Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt said there was a common belief that radio listenership among young people was suffering because of the Internet, TVs in bedrooms and multimedia mobile phones. "There's a myth that needs to be debunked," he told delegates. "That myth is of the teched-up 17 year old. Analogue media and radio have far more impact than we are led to believe."

He said an extensive research project undertaken by the BBC among young people across the UK showed radio still played a significant part in young people's lives. But Parfitt also pointed out that the notion of owning 'a radio' on its own was alien to most young people, "They expect it to come free with other stuff [such as mobile phones]." And he continued, "The idea of going out and buying a standalone piece of kit called a radio is unimaginable."

This may be one explanation, along with relative cost, of the unusual age profile of the first DAB radio purchasers. In 2004, five years after the award of the first National DAB Multiplex, Ofcom estimated the average age of the digital radio set buyer was 51, much older than the normal 'early adopter' profile for new technologies and products.

Speaking to a Social Market Foundation seminar on Digital Radio in September 2004 (Ofcom 2004), the then Ofcom Chief Executive, Stephen Carter said:

Ask many people how many radios they possess and often the first answer is 'two: one in the kitchen, the other in the bedroom.' If you ask them to think again the typical reply is 'Oh, well there are the car radios of course... and the one in the alarm clock... and the one in the Hi-fi... and in the bathroom and then there's the kids' ones;' and if they are at the more tecchie end they'll add: 'errm... does listening to it on the Internet count, or via the TV... or on the mobile?'

Nobody knows exactly how many radios there are in this country. Best estimates put it at somewhere between 110 million and 150 million, that is, 5 or 6 for every household. For the industry and the public, that's a good thing; though it does have implications for the move towards a fully digital world in radio.

Nevertheless there can be no doubt that technological advances will change the purposes for which we use radio. The function of music radio has arguably already changed forever. Indeed, speaking at the Captains of Industry Conference held in Singapore in November 2007, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the vice president of Google's Asia Pacific and Latin America Operations pointed out that, since 1982, the price of data storage had fallen by a factor of 3.6 million (Storey 2007). She argued that, if this trend continues, every piece of music ever recorded could be carried simultaneously on a portable iPod type device as early as 2015.

New demands on radio managers

Against this background of unprecedented technological change the expectations of the radio audience are changing in other ways. Perhaps in response to the laissez faire wild-west atmosphere of much of the internet, greater emphasis seems to be being placed on the reliability and trustworthiness of the traditional public-service broadcaster. In a world where facts, opinions and entertainment are freely available from thousands of sources it is arguably only the trust and understanding built up between a broadcaster and their regular listeners that justifies the existence of traditional services at all. This places new demands on the radio manager.

In spite of this increased need for trust the public perception of the broadcast media in the UK has fallen. In the wake of a 2007 scandal involving fake phone-in competitions on high-profile programmes and wrongly edited footage of the Queen, a Guardian/ICM poll showed trust in the BBC had fallen sharply and a wider crisis of public confidence in the broadcasting industry as a whole (Glover 2007). Fifty-nine per cent of those questioned said they trusted the BBC less than before the revelations and the poll suggested that the programmes of the BBC, which has long prided itself on its reputation for accuracy and honesty, were regarded as no more honest than those of commercial rivals.

Although focussing on television, where the highest-profile lapses occurred, the poll suggested many lessons for radio broadcasters. Asked whether they thought that the BBC's job should be to entertain, even if it meant dishonesty at times, 67 per cent did not agree. This suggests that there is a strong public backing for the corporation's subsequent attempts to impose clear values on its output. BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, said the organisation had experienced "a rude awakening" and promised to send staff on retraining courses to restore a culture of honesty.

BBC radio programming has not escaped unscathed with lapses admitted to on Radio One in the Jo Whiley Show in May 2006, on BBC 6 music during 2006 in the Tom Robinson Show, the Clare McDonnell Show, the Liz Kershaw Show and the Russell Brand Show. Film Cafe on BBC Asian Network in February 2007 and White Label, a BBC World Service programme broadcast up to April 2006, also faked winners.

In the case of the Jo Whiley Show, transmitted on BBC Radio 1 on 12 May 2006, the BBC revealed that it had been pre-recorded to permit essential engineering work in the studio. Listeners were still invited to enter a competition that had already been recorded with an on-air participant who had expressed an interest in entering the competition the previous day. Although this person was a genuine member of the audience, the name of a second participant, mentioned on air, was invented, and listeners had been invited to telephone and text when in reality there was no opportunity to participate.

When in October 2008 press publicity stimulated some 40,000 people to complain about the broadcasting on Russell Brand's BBC Radio 2 programme of phone calls made by Brand and Jonathan Ross to actor Andrew Sachs, suggesting that Brand had carnal knowledge of Sachs' granddaughter, most of the comment by press and senior politicians centred on the management systems and corporate responsibilities of the BBC. In the resulting furore the highly respected Controller of Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, and the Radio 2 Head of Compliance, David Barber, were left with little alternative but to resign.

Whilst these breaches of trust represent a very small proportion of the programmes broadcast in the last few years, they indicate an underlying problem in non-news areas that management appears to the public to have failed to apply adequate editorial controls.

The manager in radio

So who manages radio? In radio job titles are seldom a good indication of rank, authority or experience. Whilst a producer in network radio will have similar responsibilities to a producer in television, film or the stage, and is additionally expected to act as a director in the studio, it has become commonplace for a lowly-paid or voluntary assistant who answers the telephones in a local radio station to also be referred to by the presenter as 'my producer'.

It is perhaps not accidental that the term Managing Editor refers to someone who has overall responsibility for a BBC local radio station whilst the equivalent post in a commercial station is often a Managing Director. This distinction between editing the output and directing it is reflected in the typical programming philosophy of the two sectors. Some years ago it was similarly usual for the head of programmes in a BBC local station to be a Programme Organiser while their equivalent in commercial radio was a Programme Controller, perhaps again indicating a difference in emphasis between facilitation and control.

Many community radio stations side step these value-laden terms and are under the day-to-day control of a Station Manager; a title increasingly used in smaller commercial radio stations where directors sit at a higher level in a group structure and where little control over editorial or commercial policy is devolved to the individual station.

It is not simply that 'who manages' has changed in radio, how they manage is also changing. Radio managers now manage multi-skilled employees, have an ever increasingly participative audience and increasingly answer the demands of global organisations. Perhaps encouraged by these demands they have become increasingly influenced by modern management theories (for instance see Georgina Born's research (2004) about BBC management culture). Nonetheless we would argue that management theory here cannot be assimilated wholesale; radio is a specific environment and management needs to adapt to and reflect this appropriately.

Who is this book aimed at?

The creative and media industries, including radio, are faced with increasing competition locally, internationally and from other markets. In such a competitive market it becomes more important for radio to be managed effectively and managers can no longer rely on merely repeating old practices.

This book comes out of a collaborative project between the authors - radio managers and academics who have worked together on radio management courses for the University of Sunderland's MA in Radio (Production and Management). At present there are only a limited number of academic texts that focus specifically on managing radio. This is despite radio being both one of the most widely accessible global media forms and a subject studied at under and post-graduate levels at Universities in the UK, Europe and elsewhere.

Radio studies, as an area of study at undergraduate and post graduate level, has developed a great deal over the past decade, helping to boost the profile of the medium as an academic and practical area of study. The boom in small -scale radio stations and independent radio production, along with the development of Internet radio and other technologies have changed the way new entrants see jobs in radio: radio management is no longer the preserve of the few senior managers in the BBC and the larger commercial radio groups. It is furthermore no longer the case that someone is solely a radio presenter, reporter or producer: those who work, or wish to work, in radio now need to be a multi-skilled employee and aspirant radio manager. Nowadays media students have a chance to participate in running small-scale stations whilst they study. Courses in radio and business studies are beginning to reflect a wider range of job roles in radio including the multi-skilled role of the radio manager. Furthermore Ofcom (2008b), the UK radio regulator, now requires radio stations to state their commitment to training, this indicates the wider responsibility this part of the radio industry now has towards identifying skills gaps and promoting best practice.

Media graduates increasingly use radio as entry point to the media industries. They no longer see radio as a job only in terms of presentation or journalism but have become aware of wider opportunities in production and management. 22,000 people work in the UK broadcast radio - more than in terrestrial TV (Skillset 2008). Since 1990 the opportunities in UK radio have increased with the proliferation of commercial radio stations: there are now over 400 local, regional and digital commercial services (RadioCentre 2008: 11) and 54 network, national, and local BBC radio stations (BBC 2008)

This volume aims to be a useful text for students studying the theory and practice of managing radio stations as well as those outside academia who are looking for a good hands-on guide to setting up a station from scratch. It is also envisaged that it would be a useful source for those undertaking media studies who are interested in media management more widely and management students interested in the media industries.

Structure of the book

Managing Radio is divided into three sections. In Section One, Managing Radio-Introduction and Overview, the authors synthesise their academic and practical experience in both media studies and management and organisational theory to integrate contextual and critical material and viewpoints from academics and radio managers. Section Two, Practical skills and techniques for managing radio, is a detailed and comprehensive practical guide to the different elements of managing commercial and community radio as well as operating as an independent producer or on line radio service. It provides useful tools and examples of management practice, backed up where appropriate with references to wider academic reading. For instance in Section 2.2 Station organisational structures discussion about how volunteers might be involved in a community station. In Section 3, Managing Radio Case Studies examples will be used to illustrate different station structures and management approaches. These are based on empirical research by Mitchell and Lister, using their extensive contacts and working knowledge of these stations.

The art of radio management

A senior manager visited several small radio stations on a trip to the eastern United States. The most impressive thing, he said, was that all the staff at each station seemed to know all the essential facts about their company, "I asked the receptionist about their transmitter power, and she was able to tell me straightaway. I asked the engineer about the music policy and he could describe it in great detail, and a presenter told me how their rate-card was structured." In the twenty first century, top radio managers have a broad understanding of how the medium works, part statistician, part entertainer, part engineer, accountant, and salesperson, and a large part teacher. That is the art of radio management.




Go to main page