Community radio

In the UK, the term community radio originated from the many illegal Pirate Radio stations that came about from the influx of afro-carribean migrants in cities such as London, Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester in the 1970's.

Modern day Pirate radio stations often cater for local communities and underground music fans that are not neccessarily catered for by larger corporate Radio stations. Unfortunately, some of these illegal stations refuse to respect other legal radio stations, and the emergency services by allowing their transmistions to drift across other important airwaves. This gives other more consiencious Pirate Stations an unwanted dissrespectful image that leads to many raids by the DTI who confiscate and prosicute persistant offenders. It is also thought that a small percentage of Pirate stations use the station as a base for drug running and other criminal activities though this is fortunately in the minority, most Pirate stations are there simply out of a an absolute love for the music style they play or community they serve.

Pirate Radio stations can apply for a Broadcasting Licence but they will usually need to go off air for a time to present a legal case.

Overall if a Pirate radio station is run within the boundaries of the law it can be a valuble asset to a community and ultimately the wider city area.

A good example of modern day Pirate radio can be found at P.C.R.L. or a direct link here: Reggae Pirate Radio Station (http://freespace.virgin.net/mickey.nold/index.html)

Retrieved from "http://en.BambooWeb.org/wiki/Community_radio" has recently been taken up by the radio industry regulator Ofcom as the name for its proposed 'third tier' of the UK radio industry. The idea for this new level of radio broadcasting was piloted by the Radio Authority (now Ofcom) in 2002 with the licensing of 15 'Access radio' stations (the term has now been replaced by community radio). The one year licenses were extended in 2003 for a further year, and in 2004 a consultation was issued by Ofcom on the creation of community radio.

In the United States, community radio is used to describe non-profit, and generally non-commercial, radio stations within a community. The stations are often staffed by volunteers and air a wide variety of programming. Some examples of U.S. community radio stations are in Cincinnati, Ohio, in Boulder, Colorado, in Tampa, Florida. These community radio stations are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission and should not be confused with so-called pirate radio, which broadcasts without a license.

The Access Radio Pilot

The Access Radio Pilot, initiated by the UK Radio Authority, was designed to test the demand for community radio and to see whether such small-scale radio broadcasting projects were feasible. Some of the projects targeted a particular community of interest, ranging from religious and minority groups to children and older people, others such as Manchester's ALLFM and WythenshaweFM targeted geographical communities.

Access Stations include:

• Resonance FM - in London, run by the London Musician's Collective.
• Sound Radio - serving a range of groups in Hackney in London.
• BCB - serving Bradford's diverse communities, with a mix of ethnic programming, specialist music and sport.
• Desi Radio - in London, serving the Punjabi community.
• ALLFM96.9 - serving the communities of Ardwick, Longsight & Levenshulme in Manchester.
• WythenshaweFM - serving the large housing estate of that name in Manchester.

See http://ofcom.org.uk for downloads of the two New Voices evaluation reports of the scheme

The Ofcom Community Radio Consultation

The Ofcom was issued on 17th February 2004. The consultation gave a brief outline of the Access radio projects, and made some proposals as to how the new sector would be managed. Included in the consultation were a series of questions which interested parties were invited to suggest comments on. These included whether community radio stations should have a cap of 50% of their income coming from advertising, and the order and method by which licenses should be applied for.

The closing date for contributions was 20th April 2004, and since this date all of the contributions have been published on the Ofcom website. Ofcom will shortly publish a summary of the responses, and will then make some decisions on how community radio will progress in the UK.