Summary
In this chapter we will look at the various forms of radio broadcast licenses that exist in the UK. We will detail the content of both a commercial and a community radio license application and also discuss the advent of licences for new broadcast services such as DAB.The BBC, its remit and UK Licensing
Conventional broadcasting stations in the UK are governed either by the BBC Trust or Ofcom. The BBC uniquely operates under a Royal Charter, originally granted in 1927 when the British Broadcasting Company became the British Broadcasting Corporation, that sets out the public purposes of the BBC and is intended to guarantee its editorial independence from government. The current Royal Charter, the eighth since 1927, requires the BBC to obtain a "Licence and Agreement" from the relevant minister with responsibility for broadcasting matters. Originally the Postmaster General, later the Home Secretary, today this is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The Licence and Agreement also details matters such as the BBC's regulatory obligations and funding and also stipulates that the BBC must provide the World Service to users outside the UK in languages approved by the Foreign Secretary.The BBC Trust itself issues a licence for each of the BBC's UK public services, detailing, among other matters, its remit, aims, objectives and how it is to be distributed. Before launching a new service, or substantially changing an existing one, the BBC Charter requires the Trust to undertake a Public Value Test, which includes a Market Impact Assessment carried out by communications regulator Ofcom intended to ensure that new BBC services do not conflict with the development of a vibrant and dynamic commercial sector.
All non-BBC UK based broadcasting stations that use radio waves to freely distribute programmes require a licence from Ofcom. Licensing arrangements vary considerably for the different categories of radio licence, from requiring a considerable cash bid to being virtually available on demand. Relevant licences described below cover:
National analogue commercial radio
Local analogue commercial radio
Community Radio
Radio restricted services
DAB national commercial radio multiplexes
DAB local radio multiplexes
Digital sound programmes
Digital additional services
Radio licensable content services
No broadcasting licence is required for a service distributed only via the internet, although appropriate copyright licences may well be required. See section 2.9 for a discussion of copyright issues.
National analogue commercial radio
The three national analogue commercial radio licences are awarded by a cash-bid process under the terms of the Broadcasting Act 1990 that specified that that one must be awarded to a 'non-pop' station (currently Classic FM) and one for a predominantly speech-based service (curently talkSPORT). Classic FM has a national FM licence while talkSPORT and Absolute Radio are AM only.Licences were issued for a period of eight years but as an inducement to take up places on the national DAB multiplexes, national radio licensees were entitled to automatic renewal for a further eight years.
To win the original licences stations had to commit to making considerable annual licence payments consisting of both a cash sum (that was inflation linked) and a percentage of qualifying revenue (PQR). By Ofcom's own calculations (2006:5) these payments, in total for the three services, would by now have reached £7 million pounds per year, collected by Ofcom and paid into HM Treasury. Given the gradual swing away from AM listening, increasing digital listening and greater media competition, Ofcom took the opportunity of the licence extension process to review the financial commitments made by these existing operators. In a move estimated to reduce annual payments to less than £1.5 million per year qualifying revenue was completely removed for AM services talkSPORT and Virgin (now Absolute) Radio, and reduced to 6 per cent (from 14 per cent) for Classic FM. The annual cash sums payable became £50,000 for Classic FM and £100,000 for talkSPORT and Absolute Radio.
Ofcom has no current plans to advertise any new national analogue licences. The exiting licences expire in September 2011 in the case of Classic FM, 30 April 2012 for Absolute Radio and 31 December 2012 for talkSPORT. Under the Communications Act 2000 any replacement licence would be issued for a term of twelve years but discussion of an 'analogue switch-off' suggests that this is very unlikely to happen.
Local analogue commercial radio
Unlike national analogue licences there is no requirement for cash bids nor a commitment to pay the Treasury a share of advertising and sponsorship revenue when applying for a local radio licence. Ofcom is simply required to award licences for local commercial radio services by open competition to the applicant who best meets the statutory criteria set out in the Broadcasting Act 1990.These are:- The ability of the applicant to maintain the service for the twelve year licence period.
- The extent to which the proposed service would cater for the tastes and interests of people living in the area.
- The extent to which the proposed service would broaden listener choice.
- The extent to which there is demand or support for the service in the area.
While Ofcom feels there are few, if any, new frequencies available for analogue commercial radio in the UK, almost 300 existing licences will expire during the next few years and be open to new applicants. When an existing licence comes up for re- advertisement Ofcom invites declarations of intent from the existing licensee or anyone else. In order to deter spurious statements of intent a cash deposit measured in tens of thousands of pounds is required, refundable when a complete application is submitted. If only the existing licensee declares an interest Ofcom can re-award the licence under a simplified 'fast-track' procedure, otherwise the licence is fully re- advertised.
Licence advertisements appear on the Ofcom website and include the application form that must be carefully and comprehensively completed. In practice the Ofcom questions form the basis for a document, typically between 50 and 100 A4 pages, submitted electronically to Ofcom, usually as a pdf file.
Applications are expected to be clear, concise and simple in layout and style. Over- elaborate applications are strongly discouraged and while a limited number of charts is acceptable, applications must not include photographs or illustrations. The questions on the application form are designed to test applicants' proposals against the statutory criteria in Section 105 of the 1990 Broadcasting Act.
In particular, in assessing the application Ofcom needs to satisfy itself that the company has access to sufficient financial, human and technical resources to maintain the proposed service. The regulator has great experience of the financial position of existing licensees and can usually spot if the business plan, in terms of costs, audience levels and revenue, would not be likely to work with the proposed programming format. Under this section of the Act, even if the proposal were the only application received, Ofcom would not be able to grant a licence to a group without a robust financial plan.
Details are required of the involvement by the applicant and its major shareholders in activities which could trigger concerns under the ownership regulations, such as advertising agencies, other media and publicly funded, political or religious bodies. Identifying the individuals who will serve as directors is an important element in assuring Ofcom that the company will know what it is doing if granted the licence. In the case of a station that will be a subsidiary of an established group it may be sufficient to nominate some of the group's national directors but a new local project should ensure the board includes experience of radio broadcasting as well as finance, local business and the community.
Financial projections must include profit and loss accounts, balance sheets and cash- flow forecasts, it is usual to provide these for the pre-operational period and the first thee years of the licence. In order to justify commercial revenue assumptions the applicant will need to give details of the area expected to be covered, the estimated population and the expected listening figures for the first three years. All the assumptions must be justified by research or relevant experience.
The programming 'format' is at the heart of the application and, in reality, is about the only part of the licence to which the station must conform absolutely after the award of the licence, the wording forming part of the licence. A blank Ofcom-standard format form is supplied and requires completion with station name, number of daily broadcast hours and the amount of locally-made programming and news bulletins. There is space for details of any intention to provide the service from the studios of another station and for any proposal to share programming with another service. Section 314(1) of the Communications Act 2003 requires Ofcom to ensure:
- that programmes consisting of or including local material are included in such services but, in the case of each such service, only if and to the extent (if any) that Ofcom considers appropriate in that case; and
- that, where such programmes are included in such a service, what appears to Ofcom to be a suitable proportion of them consists of locally-made programmes.
A section on the programming philosophy of the station is an opportunity to set out in more detail and more colourfully the ways in which the service will cater for the tastes and interests of people in the area and broaden the range of programming available from local commercial services. Note that legislation does not require Ofcom to consider whether the new station will broaden choice in relation to existing BBC or national commercial services, although in practice a new local station would be ill- advised to go head-to-head with any of them. Most applicants also include a basic weekday programme schedule at the end of this section.
The 'Evidence of demand' section of the application form is entirely concerned with the results of formal research into the identified demand for the proposed service. Applicants for the larger local and regional licences may spend over �30,000 in commissioning and analysing formal market research studies as part of their application process. Ofcom does not appear to expect anything like as much to be spent on research by applicants for smaller licences but any research used must be robust and fairly conducted. A summary of the objectives, methodology and conclusions of the research must be included in the application with full data tables submitted separately.
A section headed 'Evidence of Support' gives the applicant the opportunity to include expressions of support from potential audience and prospective local advertisers. Many applicants include quotations from letters supporting their bid submitted by leaders of local public, charitable or commercial bodies. Ofcom (2008) 'does not believe that generic support for the establishment of a new radio service is as meaningful as evidence of considered support for a specific applicant's proposals', so any such letters should relate to the value of the proposed service rather than simply saying that a new radio station would be a good thing. In Ofcom's (2008) view; 'evidence of local demand, as demonstrated by formal audience research or analysis, is a more meaningful and cogent measure than evidence of local support as demonstrated by letters or petitions'. As a result applicant groups now devote more time and effort to formal research than to public meetings and presentations.
An application must conclude with a "Declaration" that neither the applicant nor any director or person concerned in the management of the company is disqualified to hold a licence, that nobody connected with the application or operating the service has been convicted within the past five years of an unlicensed broadcasting offence, in other words running a pirate radio station, and that anything else which might influence Ofcom's judgement as to whether the applicants are fit and proper persons to have a radio licence have been made known to Ofcom.
A non-refundable application fee must be received by Ofcom by the specified closing date. At time of writing fees range from �1,000 for an AM licence or �5,000 for a FM licence in an area of less than 400,000 adults up to �50,000 for a FM licence in a region or city with an adult (15+) population greater than 4.5 million. Funds must be transferred by BACS or CHAPS directly into the Ofcom bank account.
All applications received are made public via the Ofcom website, apart from specified financial information and anything which Ofcom agrees in advance should remain confidential. The regulator's staff read through applications, scoring each section against the four statutory criteria in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal in their briefing to the monthly meeting of the Radio Licensing Committee (RLC) that makes the final decision on licence awards. The RLC usually makes a decision within two to four months of the closing date, winners being notified by phone, the outcome being emailed to all applicants and posted on the Ofcom website.
Within a week or so of the decision Ofcom customarily issues a statement setting out reasons for the award to the successful applicant, but this does not extend to an analysis of why other bids were rejected.
Community Radio
As befits the voluntary nature of much of the sector, while applying for a community radio licence is hardly straightforward it does not require the level of professional technical and business planning, nor the standard of audience research expected of a commercial licence application.Community radio stations are intended to be provided on a not-for-profit basis focusing on the delivery of specific social benefits for a particular geographical community or a community of interest. As the licences are designed to cover smaller geographical areas than generally would be viable for commercial radio, it is possible to re-allocate frequencies used in the existing larger commercial and BBC transmission areas. Ofcom therefore does not define the exact locations where it wishes to offer community radio licences but invites applications from any group within a specified region of the country. It is up to the applicant group to make a case for a particular area to receive their proposed service.
The Community Radio Order 2004 (HMSO 2004) requires that a community radio service must:
- Be provided primarily for the good of members of the public or of particular communities and in order to deliver social gain, rather than primarily for commercial reasons or for the financial or other material gain of the individuals providing the service.
- Be intended primarily to serve one or more communities - whether or not it also serves other members of the public. (A community is defined as either people who live or work or undergo education or training in a particular area or locality, or people who have one or more interests or characteristics in common).
- Not be provided in order to make a financial profit, and uses any profit produced wholly and exclusively to secure or improve the future provision of the service or for the delivery of social gain to members of the public or the target community.
- Offer members of the target community opportunities to participate in the operation and management of the service.
- Be accountable to the target community.
Much of the application form follows the content of the commercial radio procedure outlined previously but there are some important changes and additions. A study of these indicates some of things a group must consider before embarking on a licence application:
Section One asks applicants to supply a short Opening Statement describing their organisation, its objectives, the nature of the proposed radio station, the community which it intends to serve and its broadcasting philosophy.
Section Two asks for information on the organisation applying for the licence. Only a 'body corporate' (not an individual) can hold a community radio licence and Ofcom wants to know whether it is, or will be, for example, a company limited by guarantee or community interest company. Registered Charities are not eligible to hold the licence unless also a corporate body.
As with commercial radio applications, the next section asks for information on the directors of the company and, if applicable major shareholders, including any involvement in specified activities. In addressing the requirements of Section 105(1)(a) of the 1990 Broadcasting Act Ofcom needs to know about the experience and expertise of the group, its structure, management and staffing. Section Four of the application also asks for details of the station's financial position, assets and proposals for funding the ongoing operation.
The community licence form requests a brief history of the group, including when it was formed, links with other community organisations and membership. Ofcom wants to know of any previous broadcasting experience in the group, including past licence applications, internet broadcasting or running Restricted Service Licence stations. The community radio form also places far greater emphasis on the management structure of the organisation and if the posts are paid or voluntary.
Financial questions cover existing assets, pre-launch income and expenditure, and first year income and expenditure against specified headings. The Community Radio Order 2004 requires that stations be funded from multiple sources with no one source comprising more than 50% of operational income, Ofcom asks whether it is proposed to partially fund the service with spot advertising or sponsorship which would count as one source for the purposes of this rule and therefore must account for less than 50% of the total. Fortunately, Ofcom is also willing to count in-kind contributions to the establishment and running of the service. Details of these and other conditions are published in Ofcom's Notes of Guidance for Community Radio Licence Applicants and Licensees available at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radio/ifi/rbl/commun_radio/.
Section Five of the application deals with technical issues and requires detailed information on the proposed transmission system, without which Ofcom would not be able to ensure that a suitable frequency was available. Applicants may request an AM or FM licence, however given the generally greater cost of AM systems, poor night-time reception and a general drift of listening away from the AM bands, few take this option. A transmission site, power and aerial height must be given together with photographs of the aerial site and maps of expected signal strength. For FM transmission the applicant must also say whether they intend to broadcast in stereo and if they will carry Radio Data System messages, the merits of which are discussed in a later section.
Since Ofcom, as well as regulating broadcast issues, is in charge of licensing all transmitters in the UK to prevent interference between services, they need to know that the community group will have expert support in commissioning and maintaining the transmitter, and so ask for names of any outside contractors and the manufacturers of key pieces of transmission equipment.
The programming questions in section six relate to the community (or communities) the proposed station would serve and the programming that it would provide.
The Community Radio Order 2004 defines a 'community' as:
(a) the persons who live or work or undergo education or training in a particular area or locality, or;Looking at the community the station intends to serve the applicant must answer specific questions on where they live, size of the population concerned and any relevant socio-economic information. A general description of the proposed programming then follows outlining its approach and objectives. As with the commercial radio formats previously described, Ofcom asks for a commitment to a certain number of hours of programme output per day, on weekdays and weekends, including any plans to repeat or automate or originate programming other than in the local area. The balance between music and speech output must be expressed as a ratio, with broad details of the genres of music and types, and languages, of speech programming proposed. It is perfectly acceptable to show how these durations, proportions may change over time as the service becomes more established or has greater support from volunteers.
(b) persons who (whether or not they fall within paragraph (a)) have one or more interests or characteristics in common.
The sections of the application form on catering for the tastes and interests of the target community, or communities, and on how the service will be different and distinct from the existing offerings of local (non-BBC) stations, should be answered with reference to careful research among the target audience, particularly focussing on their un-served radio needs, and by monitoring the output of relevant stations to identify the difference between their current output and the proposed programming.
Ofcom suggests that the evidence of demand and support supplied in section seven can include, for example: letters from statutory or voluntary sector organisations which expect to contribute practically and/or financially to the operation or which would expect to collaborate with the station in joint activities; evidence of interest in the service generated through RSL activities; results of research; letters of support from local politicians, educational or religious bodies; or support from the business sector. As with commercial applications, Ofcom does not attach great value to numerous examples of similar generic or form letters of support generated by the group, preferring expressions of considered support for the specific proposals. The application form may include brief extracts from letters or research reports which should be submitted in full as separate appendices.
Section Eight measure the additional requirement, under Section 105(1)(e) of the 1990 Broadcasting Act, as modified by the Community Radio Order 2004, that a community radio service provides primarily for the good of members of the public, or of the target community, and in order to deliver 'social gain' (both on air as part of its broadcast output and through other activities). The Community Radio Order lists four mandatory social gain objectives and a further (non-exhaustive) list of seven other social gain objectives that may be applicable. After some general questions about the purpose and objectives of the service, applicants are specifically asked how they will meet the mandatory objectives:
(a) Target Audience. How the target audience includes individuals who are otherwise underserved by broadcasting services and how the proposed programming will fill the need.Applicants must come up with convincing answers under each of these headings if they are to justify the award of a community licence and should show how the station might meet other 'objectives of a social nature' including, but not limited to, as many as possible on the list suggested by The Community Radio Order:
(b) Discussion and opinion. How the proposed service will "facilitate discussion and the expression of opinion".
(c) Education and Training. How the station proposes to provide education or training to individuals not employed by station.
(d) Community Understanding and Links. How the group proposes to build a better understanding of its target community and strengthen links within it.
(a) the delivery of services provided by local authorities and other services of a social nature and the increasing, and wider dissemination, of knowledge about those services and about local amenities;Another issue in the community application form but not in its commercial equivalent is the need to ensure accountability and accessibility, which are tested in sections nine and ten respectively. In section nine the station must explain how members of the target community will be able to contact the service and influence its operation, how the station will formally or informally collect feedback and how suggestions and criticisms will be acted upon. In section Ten the applicant explains how it will allow access by members of the relevant community to the station facilities and provide training in the use of those facilities.
(b) the promotion of economic development and of social enterprises;
(c) the promotion of employment;
(d) the provision of opportunities for the gaining of work experience;
(e) the promotion of social inclusion;
(f) the promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity;
(g) the promotion of civic participation and volunteering.
The application, alongside all others received for the region under consideration, will be made publicly available on Ofcom's website. The applicant must let Ofcom know if they wish certain material to be kept confidential, including personal contact details, staffing proposals and financial matters.
Help can be found with community licence applications from the Community Media Association and Community Radio Toolkit websites. Alex Green, Station Manager at ALL FM, Manchester summed up his feelings about submitting their application:
It's a very daunting process. You've got these 35 blank pages, which increase to around 55 when you've filled them in. You've got to break it down into smaller pieces. Then it's not so daunting. I booked three weeks clear in my diary and at the end of that it was written. So it wasn't something that was done over a massive period of time, but equally it's not going to be done in an afternoon. "We finally submitted it about 30 mins before the deadline. It's the fine-tuning of it - sending it back and forward between ourselves, quibbling about words. We could have gone on forever. Eventually you have to just give up and press 'send'.
Fogg, Korbel and Brooks (2006 : 40)
Radio restricted service licences
Short-term Restricted Service Licences (RSLs) are a well established facility for those wanting to broadcast for a special event, for trial broadcasts and for training and education. RSLs are usually issued for a maximum of 28 days operating with a low-power transmitter in a limited geographical area. Except in the London area within the M25, a person or group may hold two short-term RSLs in the same area in any twelve month period provided there is a four month gap between the broadcast of each service.Exceptionally, in areas where there is no existing commercial or community radio service, Ofcom may grant a licence for a longer period, on FM, at no additional cost. The maximum period likely to be allowed is 84 days, once in a twelve month period, with a second RSL of 28 days permitted after a four month gap. Ofcom also accepts applications for up to 28 days of non-consecutive broadcasts at low power from the same site, extending across an agreed period of time, for coverage of a series of events. Typical uses are at football stadiums or race tracks, but the licences are not restricted to sports events provided the radio service is focussed on events happening at the site of the service.
The application form may be downloaded from the Ofcom website, is straightforward and licences generally are awarded on first-come-first-served basis. Because Ofcom has a general statutory duty to ensure that radio services appeal to a variety of tastes and interests (Section 3 of the Communications Act 2003), the programme format of a restricted service should broaden audience choice and so be different to anything available by way of commercial local radio in the same area. Ofcom may however permit a trial service with a format similar to an existing local commercial radio service to operate in the same area when the local commercial radio licence will be re-advertised within a year and the RSL group intends to compete for that licence.
Each application must be accompanied by an application fee of £400. In the event that the application is successful two licences fees must be paid before transmissions can begin, one for a broadcasting licence under the Broadcasting Act 1990 and the other for a transmission licence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006. Both are issued by Ofcom. For an AM licence, at time of writing, Ofcom charges £10 per day for the broadcasting licence plus £15 per day for the transmitting licence, for low power FM the charges are £10 plus £25, and for up to 25 watts on FM the daily tariff is £30 plus £40. By way of example the common 28-day FM RSL will cost a total of £1,960 in Ofcom licence fees.
A separate category of long-term RSL permits a station to provide a continuous service within a single site occupied by an establishment, such as a university, hospital, shopping centre, marina or military base. These licences were introduced to replace the ad-hoc arrangements permitting some university and hospital stations to broadcast within their own premises using an inductive loop and are issued for a maximum of five years but are automatically renewable.
Stations are usually permitted to use up to 1 watt of radiated power on an AM frequency but FM frequencies are available in some less populous areas of the UK at a usual maximum radiated power of just 50 milliWatts.
The annual cost of a long-term RSL licence varies depending upon whether it is for a service on freely-radiating AM, FM or induction loop. For FM and induction-loop services the fee is currently is £140 per year, £275 for a freely-radiating FM licence. In each case an additional £100 annual Wireless Telegraphy Act licence fee must be paid.
DAB national commercial radio multiplex licences
DAB radio works in a fundamentally different way to traditional AM and FM radio and this is reflected in the very different licensing arrangements. As explained later in this publication, DAB is broadcast as a collection of audio and data services bundled onto a single frequency, the bundle being known as a multiplex. The average multiplex has 1.2 megabits per second of usable capacity that allows for around eight or nine stations depending on the digital quality required for each.It is these multiplexes which are licensed by Ofcom and from time to time the regulator advertises for companies who wish to operate multiplexes nationally or in different regions of the country. The company who wins the licence then has to find a mix of radio services to fulfil its application obligation to Ofcom. In practice most multiplexes have been awarded to consortia of existing radio groups who fill many of the available slots themselves. Each multiplex operator may separately advertise for programme services that then pay to fill the remaining capacity. The BBC also operates a national multiplex and local BBC stations are guaranteed a slot on their local commercial multiplexes.
Ofcom is required to award national radio multiplex licences in an open competition to the applicant who best meets statutory criteria set out in the Broadcasting Act 1996 and considers:
- the extent to which the award of the licence to the applicant would be calculated to promote the development of digital sound broadcasting in the UK (otherwise than by satellite);
- how much of the potential coverage area applicants plan to serve, and by what timetable this will be achieved;
- whether applicants appear able to establish the service and maintain it during the licence period;
- to what extent the new radio services proposed by applicants appeal to a variety of tastes and interests;
- how applicants will encourage listeners to invest in new radio sets;
- whether applicants have behaved in a way likely to ensure
fair and effective competition in contracting with those radio
stations or data services who wish to appear on the
multiplex.
DAB local radio multiplex licences
A new local or regional station wanting to broadcast on DAB must reach an agreement with the operator of an existing or soon to be licensed multiplex. The multiplex operators recoup their considerable capital outlay by charging a fee for each service carried on their frequencies. Such fees are subject to confidential commercial negotiation, and depend on the amount of digital bandwidth required but generally are reported to be region of £50,000 to £100,000 per annum.At the time of writing, current DAB multiplex operators included:
Switchdigital (Aberdeen, Central Scotland, and London);
CE Digital Ltd. (Birmingham, London, Manchester);
Now Digital (Bournemouth, Bristol & Bath, Coventry, Exeter & Torbay, Leicester, Peterborough, Southend & Chelmsford, Swindon & West Wiltshire, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury & Telford, Norwich, Nottingham, Reading & Basingstoke, Plymouth & Cornwall, Cambridge, Cardiff & Newport, South Hampshire, Sussex Coast, Kent, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire & Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire);
MXR (North East England, North West England, South Wales & Severn Estuary, West Midlands, Yorkshire);
Digital Radio Group (London);
Arqiva (Ayr);
Emap Digital Radio (Dundee & Perth, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Northern Ireland, Leeds, Liverpool, South Yorkshire, Teesside, Tyne & Wear, Humberside, Central Lancashire);
UTV-Emap Digital Ltd. (Swansea, Stoke on Trent, Bradford/Huddersfield)
MuxCo (Wrexham & Chester, Hereford & Worcester, North Yorkshire)
In most cases the major participants in each existing multiplex consortium are the company or companies owning the heritage analogue commercial radio licences in the relevant area or region. As further spectrum becomes available Ofcom may advertise for further multiplex operators in specific regions around the UK. When making the award of a twelve year DAB local radio multiplex licence, Ofcom is required to take into account:
- how much of the potential coverage area applicants plan to serve, and by what timetable this will be achieved;
- whether applicants appear able to establish the service and maintain it during the licence period;
- to what extent the radio services proposed by applicants appeal to a variety of local tastes and interests. The legislation also requires the broadening of local digital choice to be taken into account;
- evidence of local demand or support for applicants' proposals;
- whether applicants have behaved in a way likely to ensure fair and effective competition in contracting with those radio stations or data services who wish to appear on the multiplex.
Digital sound programme licences
Although a new radio service wishing to broadcast solely via a DAB or Freeview terrestrial multiplex does not require its own transmitting licence, the station must apply to Ofcom for a Digital Sound Programme (DSP) licence. It is then up to the service to negotiate the financial terms for carriage of their audio on the chosen multiplex.DSP licences are generally issued on request for an indefinite period unless the licence is surrendered or revoked. Beyond the usual exclusion of disqualified persons, including local authorities, political, religious and publicly-funded bodies, advertising agencies and anyone convicted of running a pirate radio station, there are few restrictions on who can apply for a licence and no specific programming obligations beyond the need to comply with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.
The application form is very straightforward and must be accompanied by an application fee of £250 and the first annual fee of £100.
Digital additional services licences
Anyone wishing to broadcast text or data services via a broadcast multiplex not related to the programmes on that multiplex, for example graphic, video or paging services, must have a Digital Additional Services (DAS) licence which is generally issued by Ofcom on request following a similar procedure to that for DSP licences.Radio licensable content service licences
These licences are required by stations who have arranged to provide a service via satellite or cable. A radio licensable content service (RLCS) is defined by Ofcom (2005: 2) as: "a service provided in digital or analogue form broadcast from a satellite or distributed using an electronic communications network that is to be made available for reception by members of the public and consists of sound programmes." RLCS licences are not needed for internet services or a service is distributed only to listeners within a single set of premises. Licences are generally issued on request following a similar procedure to that used for DSP licences, and are presently subject to an application fee of £250 and an annual licence fee of £575.
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