Tuesday, 5 August 2008

Agreed and understood. We know that something like a weekend LBP can be operated on pocket money without advertising and can be a good way for enthusiastic and dedicated people to put together some creative programmes as a service to listeners. I wish there were a few more people doing that in the present situation today. In some ways it makes so much sense to focus on that option rather than others that folks seem to go for.

Anything larger (such as anyone attempting a new offshore venture for example) would need to be able to raise substantial amounts of revenue, and adverts would become part of the price that listeners would have to pay.

I also find myself wondering, given that Big L were stuck with the Trintelhaven transmitter, would it have been possible for them to survive financially if the station had been run and managed in a different way. What do you (and others) reckon?

Furthermore, whilst it is an admirable and wonderful thing that people who run LBP's are willing to spend their own money to entertain people, do the panel believe that it is in any way wrong or "sinful" for people to want to actually use their talents as broadcasters in order to EARN money?

From: "Oscar" <(Address removed)>

Steve West said:

adverts annoy listeners!

Agreed and understood. We know that something like a weekend LBP can be
operated on pocket money without advertising and can be a good way for
enthusiastic and dedicated people to put together some creative
programmes as a service to listeners. I wish there were a few more
people doing that in the present situation today. In some ways it makes
so much sense to focus on that option rather than others that folks seem
to go for.

Yes it must be said our cost base isn't very high at the moment so it wouldn't justify going to get advertising, it would probably just serve to annoy Ofcom who could then spread their false allegations that pirates make
4 grand a week!

Anything larger (such as anyone attempting a new offshore venture for
example) would need to be able to raise substantial amounts of revenue,
and adverts would become part of the price that listeners would have to
pay.

Yes totally agree, fuel costs BIG money these days!

I also find myself wondering, given that Big L were stuck with the
Trintelhaven transmitter, would it have been possible for them to
survive financially if the station had been run and managed in a
different way. What do you (and others) reckon?

They were trying to run a semi national station with big overheads when their AM signal just wasn't up to the job. They should have cut their cloth accordingly, run it as a satellite/internet station instead of a taking heavy losses. To be honest I'm surprised it survived this long, it's slow death is becoming painful. Fair play to them for trying, but it was destined for failure without a proper signal into large urban areas.

Furthermore, whilst it is an admirable and wonderful thing that people
who run LBP's are willing to spend their own money to entertain people,
do the panel believe that it is in any way wrong or "sinful" for people
to want to actually use their talents as broadcasters in order to EARN
money?

No way is it a sin. If you are good enough to earn a decent living from radio then good luck. It is something I could never do, firstly I don't have the talent, secondly wages in radio are getting to be pretty bad now so I probably couldn't afford the wage cut :-)

 It's not just UK advertisers who would be hounded by The office of media restriction and censorship (Ofcom) When Singapore Airlines advertised on Caroline 558 in the 1980's they were threatened with the withdrawal of landing rights at Heathrow if their involvment with Caroline continued.

However both LBP and offshore stations should be able to find any amount of advertising from for example the millions of internet based businesses around the world who would not be bothered by Ofcom's intimidation or the station could even start it's own internet based business with heavy on air promotion and derive revenue that way.

There is no reason why both offshore and LBP's can not be viable or even profitable.

In article <6fc352ed25932d904375f0da31696d35@jiglu-wc>, (Address removed) (Oscar) wrote:

I also find myself wondering, given that Big L were stuck with the
Trintelhaven transmitter, would it have been possible for them to
survive financially if the station had been run and managed in a
different way. What do you (and others) reckon?

Hi Oscar

May I change the direction slightly as I feel there will be enough BigL knocking by everyone so I'd rather come at this way.

We used AM for a while and quickly found out that whilst it was a great marketing tool it only served to get people onto better platforms such as the Net or Satellite. Sure there were a few annoyed truckers when we gave up on AM, but it would have been cheaper to send them CDs.
However, I still think that very local projects can do good things on AM if they have incredible local content.
So that begs the question – what's up with AM?
To start with anyone in the agency world will not think AM is sexy – so that kind of hurts the business model. Next the demographics, which I don't fully understand as there's lots of older folks these days, is such that an MOR/Gold station isn't sexy either – double woops.

I guess there is a chance for a personality led station on AM, but as we are now seeing the Net is grabbing that area and with Net radio in cars from next year – well the writing is on the wall.

Eric

In article <32de1427fb024a460d5aa8305c55fb0d@jiglu-wc>, (Address removed) (Neil Gates) wrote:

It's not just UK advertisers who would be hounded by The office of
media restriction and censorship (Ofcom) When Singapore Airlines
advertised on Caroline 558 in the 1980's they were threatened with
the withdrawal of landing rights at Heathrow if their involvment
with Caroline continued.

That would probably have been through a UK Office which would have fallen under the MOA – the sales person must have been good to keep that from the airline, who was it I want to meet him NOW! :-)

However both LBP and offshore stations should be able to find any
amount of advertising from for example the millions of internet
based businesses around the world who would not be bothered by
Ofcom's intimidation or the station could even start it's own
internet based business with heavy on air promotion and derive
revenue that way.

Actually that make half-sense. The only audience would be older people who, on here at least, are crying out for a station. The content would need to be very 50/60s MOR and the net services would need to be US, a bit like that nice guy Michael who got around the Imperial Measures ruling by setting up A Quarter Of in the US selling back to the UK.

Eric

From: "tesug" <(Address removed)>

May I change the direction slightly as I feel there will be enough BigL
knocking by everyone so I'd rather come at this way.

We used AM for a while and quickly found out that whilst it was a great
marketing tool it only served to get people onto better platforms such
as the Net or Satellite. Sure there were a few annoyed truckers when we
gave up on AM, but it would have been cheaper to send them CDs.
However, I still think that very local projects can do good things on AM
if they have incredible local content.
So that begs the question – what's up with AM?
To start with anyone in the agency world will not think AM is sexy – so
that kind of hurts the business model. Next the demographics, which I
don't fully understand as there's lots of older folks these days, is
such that an MOR/Gold station isn't sexy either – double woops.

I guess there is a chance for a personality led station on AM, but as we
are now seeing the Net is grabbing that area and with Net radio in cars
from next year – well the writing is on the wall.

I suppose we could argue/discuss the merits of a decent quality AM signal all day, BUT, In Big L's case they have never had a good enough signal in their target area to merit such an argument.
Their whole business plan must have been as an AM lead station backed up with other platforms like satellite and internet, but I'm sure AM must have been their main focus, so frankly they failed to deliver on that platform.

Hallo everyone. Read now the message on http://www.bigl.co.uk/news/medium-wave-update
Nico.

Hello everyone. Read now http://www.radiofreak.nl/nieuws.php?id=7550 Nico.

From: "Q_1_2_3_4_5_6" <(Address removed)>

Hello everyone. Read now http://www.radiofreak.nl/nieuws.php?id=7550
Nico.

Big L staakt uitzendingen via Nederlandse 1395 AM
Het Engelse commerciële station Big L uit Londen is niet meer te ontvangen via de Nederlandse middengolffrequentie 1395 AM. Sinds september 2006 werd er uitgezonden op de frequentie vanuit de Trintelhaven in Lelystad. De vergunning is officieel in handen van Quality Radio-eigenaar Ruud Poeze.

"De officiële reden is dat men zoekt naar een opstelplaats dichter bij Groot-Brittannië voor de zender", zo zegt Poeze tegen RadioFreak.nl. "Maar de hoge dieselprijs (de zender was als enige diesel gestookt) heeft een behoorlijk klap gegeven, zo wordt ook toegegeven. Daarnaast is bekend dat er weinig reclame-inkomsten waren, mede door het slechte bereik in Engeland."

Of de zender terug komt en hoe is volgens Poeze niet te zeggen. Via internet en Sky satelliet is de Londense zender nog te horen.

Erm what does it say?????????????

You can read in the message in this link (among others) the following sentence "De vergunning is officieel in handen van Quality Radio-eigenaar Ruud Poeze". This is NOT correct because Ruud stated in an answer of him in a Dutch newsgroup that BigL itself is owner of the license for transmitting on the 1395 kHz AM instead of Ruud Poeze, read:

"Ruud is en blijft eigenaar van die frequentie".
Answer of Ruud Poeze on this sentence:
Nee, geen eigenaar frequentie, is van BigL zelf".

Greetings of Nico from Gouda, the Netherlands.

In article <de293e98565f3f5e481ced5e91d59766@jiglu-wc>, (Address removed) (Q_1_2_3_4_5_6) wrote:

Hallo everyone. Read now the message on
http://www.bigl.co.uk/news/medium-wave-update
Nico.

Well if they do – good luck. Must be some deep pockets somewhere, that's all I can say.

Eric

From: "tesug" <(Address removed)>

Well if they do – good luck. Must be some deep pockets somewhere, that's
all I can say.

My thoughts exactly Eric.

I genuinely wish them well.

Hallo everyone. In message no. 34 on http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/big-ls-dutch-mediumwave-transmitter-on-1395-khz-switched-off you can read a message of Ruud Poeze that BigL will perhaps soon transmit from Terneuzen. But what does he mean with the words "red tape"? Greetings of Nico from Gouda, the Netherlands.

 If Big L had a strong signal into the Uk on for instance 675 and not the un-viable 1395 it would not be in financial trouble now.

Having recently parted company with TalkSport, Mike Mendozeoff has now been added to the line-up of talkers at Play Radio and will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays 8pm to midnight starting next week on Play Two UK.