itroadcasting
Trouble in the air
William Rankine
After more than a month on the air, the London Broadcasting Company is still struggling to persuade advertisers to support a talk-round-the-tlock 'commercial radio station. There are. even rumours that LBC is considering asking the Independent Broadcasting Authority for permission to seek new sources of finance. It is to be hoped the IBA 'ill mit prove unhelpful, because LBC, for all its faults, is a worthwhile venture in communications. Indeed, it is time the IBA did Something to redeem itself. So far, in launching commercial radio, it has not exactly Covered itself with glory. It was an amusing spot by radio standards When, on the morning LBC went on the air, Paul Callan of the Two in the Morning Show Chatted about the cold he had the previous ,a5' and wondered whether it was part of a 15BC sabotage plot. But for real spanners in the works, the infant commercial network 4.111a37 have less to fear from Auntie BBC than from its own parent the IBA. Programmes from LBC and Capital Radio, the general station, are beamed from an aerial slung between the chimneys of a power station in Fulham. This 'clothesline' aerial is expected to be in use for about eighteen ITIonths but whether the programmes continue without interruption during this period i$ largely beyond the control of the IBA engineers. If the chimneys need repairs, the broadcasting has to stop, as happened once during IBA's musical test programme. LBC and Capital, and the advertisers who pay the bills, have no guarantee it will not happen again — although the IBA does believe the number of stoppages will be "very small in
Then there is the Irish problem. For the moment, Capital's frequency is 539 metres on the medium wave band, right next door to Radio Eireann. The result is that over most of the London area the favourite station of thousands of expatriates has been completely blotted out. The IBA hopes this problem will solve itself in a few months when Radio Eireann increases the power of its signal but a further embarrassing possibility is that the souped-up Irish station may then interfere with Capital.
There are just a couple of extra pin-pricks. The real technical problems for the two new London stations will be caused by the performance of the 'clothesline' aerial itself. It is just not suitable for truly local broadcasting.
It pumps out sound upwards and around it in all directions. At worst, it could bounce a signal as far as Albania. In British terms, the omni-directional nature of the Fulham aerial means that LBC and Capital are being received as far away as the Midlands and the Sussex coast. At first sight this is a straightforward bonus for advertisers who • buy time on the London stations. For part of the day at least, they may reach a regional audience of up to 20 million instead of the 81 million potential listeners in Greater London. But in advertising terms this is not an unmixed blessing. Commercial radio is expected to be used extensively for test marketing campaigns which depend on precise control of the area covered. Advertisers will not be happy if their calculations are distorted by the Fulham aerial's capacity for over-reaching itself. Another group likely to disapprove are the advertisers who will be buying time on Birmingham commercial radio from February next year. The IBA was obliged to provide the imper fect, temporary aerial in Fulham because local authorities in north-west London were unwilling to give up open space to an unsightly development of 150ft-high radio masts. If the sound of London commercial radio on the medium waveband is not to spill over permanently into surrounding regions, the north-west of the metropolitan area appears to be the ideal place for the necessary directional aerial.
The IBA began by examining 200 sites and making three applications for planning permission. After all three were rejected, two appeals were made. The Department of the Environment finally decided in favour of the IBA in the case of a site at Saffron Green. Work has now begun there, but the IBA does not expect to be able to beam controlled signals over London for a year or eighteen months yet.
There will be no complaint, however, from Capital Radio about delay in beginning transmission from Saffron Green. As soon as Capital's programmes begin to go out from the new masts, the company is bound to lose listeners — and too many lost listeners will mean lower advertising revenue.
Capital's frequency from Saffron Green will be 194 metres. a spot that simply does not exist on many radio dials. Many old radios, and many cheap new sets imported from Hong Kong and other ,points east, cannot receive below 200 metres on medium wave. The IBA believes the change will affect only a small number of sets but this conflicts sharply with the views of the British Radio Equipment Manufacturers Association.
There are three factors, however, which provide Capital's directors with some sort of comfort — and which add up to a fascinating commentary on the politics of commercial radio. Some believe the IBA is being over-optimistic in forecasting a move to Saffron, Green within eighteen months. They are counting on 194 metres being much further away than that and in the meantime they hope radio buying habits will develop towards. more expensive, more versatile sets.
There is also a slightly cynical disbelief that 194 metres is the only available slot on the medium waveband, but in VHF broadcastfive years ago the BBC and the Post Office were claiming that local radio on medium wave was impossible because there were no frequencies available. Research by Hughie Green and his associates showed how wrong that was. So at Capital there is a deep-down feeling that the IBA will somehow save them from the worst effects of the move to Saffron Green. Green's researchers suggested 451 metres as a medium wave frequency for London and it would not be surprising if Capital's engineers revived this idea, But if this is to be their salvation they will have to bring pressure on the Minister, Sir John Eden, because 451 metres cannot be adopted as a British frequency without Government action.
Finally, Capital directors have had private talks in which IBA officials have stressed that the real future for local radio lies, not on the medium waveband, but in VHF broadcasting. It is said, rightly, that in the last few years the price of sets capable of receiving VHF transmissions has been sharply reduced. IBA planners sometimes therefore tend to discount anxieties about bottom-of-the-dial frequencies on medium wave because, they say, the trend is all to VHF.
The irony of this situation is that the wheel has come full circle. When BBC local radio started it could be heard only on VHF ... and one of the most regularly employed propaganda points used by the commercial radio lobby in the late 'sixties was that their local service would be on medium wave with no pressure on listeners to buy a special new set!
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