Tuesday, 26 December 2006

So, here we go again. What is the great weirdness that surrounds the Isle of Man International Broadcasting PLC?

According to the Kabbary Antenna Technology Company website (and I quote www.crossedfieldantenna.com):

"KAT is ready BUT IOMB is not yet : NEW !IOM CFA

KAT had manufactured the IOMB 100 kW CFA since year ago Dec. 2005 ( click here for CFA photos ) , we hope the IOMB can prepare in a month time , the site ( ship ) to get KAT do the CFA installation on the ship which was delayed to arrive Alexandria since last year 2005 for some reasons out of IOMB hands.

Dr. Kabbary confirms the above information because he is the technical advisor for the IOMB , as a director and a shareholder.

KAT had manufactured the CFA ahead of the time schedule to attract other big customers to do superpower CFA antennas to solve long wave transmission problems , this is always one of KAT targets."

Now, hold on a minute. Surely we were told in a previous statement on their website that:

"KAT has cancelled the IOMB CFA License , because the IOMB is financially dead and could not pay KAT the CFA license fees for the many last years.

Consequently the IOMB 279 license is obviously revoked too , since it was awarded based on using the CFA .

KAT is not responsible for any funds raised into the IOMB by new investors or shareholders ."

And it was because of the above that we were told in press releases and via the IOMIB website, as well as by IOMIB Directors and shareholders writing on the net that IOMIB ties had been cut with KAT "some time ago". Indeed, we were also told that KAT had been paid a deposit (unconfirmed rumours at the time had it that this was just in IOMIB shares and not in hard cash) but 'not delivered', and that an alternative supplier (the name of which was top secret) had been sourced.

So then. A couple of questions spring to mind.

1) Has IOMIB now kissed and made up with KAT?

Hmmm. So theJazz is now on air.

<Slow intake of air>

<Slow release of air>

"Nice".

Anyway, where was I? I accidentally mellowed out then.

Yeah, I remember: I was going to say how fascinating it is that in London we used to have a Jazz station. It was called Jazz FM.

Now, I blame the inability of RAJAR to work out how to poll anybody but the middle-aged middle ground, but for various reasons Jazz FM plunged to a painful death.

Rather than give back the licence and allow Ofcom to re-advertise it afresh, the operators changed it to the exceedingly boring 'Smooth' format, where 'jazz' was all but completely replaced by old pop music, a lot of which was boringly presented and the same old unadventurous soul-oriented pop going round and around. Slap me with a feather bower: Oh what a surprise that format didn't work either.

Did they throw back the licence to allow Ofcom to re-advertise it afresh this time? How did you guess the answer was still 'Nope'?

So Smooth has now taken the next step into becoming an old people's radio station playing songs from the shows and stuff that's at least 40 years old and targeting people now too old to listen to Radio 2.

Hmmm. Deja Vu? Yep. Remember how Country 1035 mutated into an awful and very confused 'Easy' format. Quell surprise that nobody listened. And was the licence handed back to Ofcom? You guessed right again: Nope! Instead, it was allowed to mutate into a London-wide talk and music station aimed at part of the Asian population, a population mainly served by the owner's other radio interests of course. I didn't see that one coming; did you?

Now, here's my point. You could be forgiven for assuming from the evidence that on the face of it we should believe that the jazz music format and the country music format can't / won't work.

So, that being the case, why would somebody (in fact, the lovely and highly adventurous GCap) decide to launch a national station providing non-stop jazz music? I mean, surely it just doesn't work and nobody wants it. Cough.

Well, if that's not the case, and, in fact, the truth is that it does work and people do want it, then I'm afraid I have to get even more cynical about the large Borg organisations that come along and buy random licences intent on not actually running the output format the licence was given to provide.

One could argue they buy a radio station, run its format into the ground, plea to Ofcom it doesn't work, ask for a new 'half-way' format, deliberately run that into the ground for a year or so, and then ask for yet another format change to end up with the radio station that was their original intent. All done without having to apply for a new licence, just by assimilating an existing infrastructure.

So, I put it to you that a lot of specialist radio is being destroyed by Borg with greater ambitions. Ofcom needs to stop allowing format changes, and should insist that any station which is failing should hand its licence back allowing Ofcom to re-advertise it.

If the jazz format really didn't work, why would we now have theJazz? QED.
—
* Christopher England just said that *

Christopher England <...> said:

So, I put it to you that a lot of specialist radio is being destroyed by
Borg with greater ambitions. Ofcom needs to stop allowing format
changes, and should insist that any station which is failing should hand

It's the old "quantity over quality" situation... In the grand scheme of things, it seems that "loads of stations, lots of choice" is the real clincher for converting people to DAB... and here's something straight from the horse's mouth, "Dawn" at Digital One (remember who owns them) recently informed me that:

"We've estimated that approximately 70% of the DAB digital radios sold are effectively mono (either having just one speaker, or having such limited speaker separation that a stereo image just won't be conveyed). And ultimately we think that listeners will appreciate the extra service, as jazz listeners have never had a service of that type available nationally before, and at 96kb/s mono, the subjective audio quality will be very good (albeit mono)."

So, it's our fault for buying tiny little radios, is it ?

I would personally prefer a radio group who could excel at one or two particular formats and pull it off – Not a dozen p-poor outlets with non-stop music and rather drab presentation. Perhaps they (GCap) just want to be king of radio ? Not forgetting that it's also less hassle for OFCOM if the least number of groups own stations.

Regards,
—
Charlie

dimitri konstantine < ...> said:

Oscar <...> said:
Enigma TKR on 846 kHz on Boxing Day (December 26th) from 9am GMT to
mid-afternoon with Badger and Chris Day bringing you fun and frolics,
comedy songs and sketches and musical gems. It is a station unlike any
other that's for sure.

Sounds like it could be really bad but I shall look forward to you
writing about it in glowing terms as if your not involved in the next
edition of the mag.

WOW!!!!!!
Where did that come from?
I can assure you that Oscar has no more of a connection with Enigma than I do and that's nothing other than the fact that they and ourselves are trying to do radio in a style that is not normally heard. Oscar admires this type free radio and without his and others of like thought these stations would not exist. Stations like Enigma and my station WNKR are not purely there as a ego trip, people do genuinely enjoy the style of programming we produce and they tell us so. These people may be anoraks but they are still humans.

Remember anoraks are for life! Not just for Christmas.

dave.