Petersfield's Shine Radio: Digital Community Station of the Year 2022

After taking a few days to fully digest the news, and recover from our road trip to Bedford, I just wanted to say how grateful we at Shine Radio are to the Community Radio Awards for giving Petersfield the recognition it deserves.

We were honoured to receive the Gold award for Digital or RSL Station of the Year 2022 at the ceremony on Saturday night.

Digital Station of the Year 2022? COMPLETED IT MATE! ✅

What an incredible multi award-winning night for @shineradio at the @CommRadioAwards - never been prouder to be part of such a hardworking team (and second family) utterly dedicated to serving local listeners 💚 pic.twitter.com/EOR8zprDpT

— Harrison RB (@HarrisonRBRadio) November 20, 2022

The awards for #CRAs22 Digital and RSL Station of the Year go to:
🏆 Petersfield's Shine Radio - @shineradio
🥈 Poppyland Radio
🥉 Radio Ysbyty Gwynedd - @YGRadio pic.twitter.com/9aPENvA8V8

— Community Radio Awards - Sponsored by PlayoutOne (@CommRadioAwards) November 19, 2022

In addition, two of our programmes were awarded in the Best Podcast category - The Shine Radio Recipe with Noni Needs and Dogs with Jobs picked up Bronze and Gold respectively.

TWO wins for @shineradio in Best Podcast at the @CommRadioAwards! Huge well done to Kate Fairweather (Dogs with Jobs) - and also bronze for @nonineeds (The Shine Radio Recipe) 👏 pic.twitter.com/YHbhRtZKm0

— Harrison RB (@HarrisonRBRadio) November 19, 2022

Drum roll 🥁 please the awards for #CRAs22 Podcast of the Year sponsored by @autopod_ go to:
🏆 Dogs with Jobs - @shineradio
🥈 Self Injury Support - Gentle Activism
🥉 The Shine Radio Recipe with Noni Needs - @shineradio pic.twitter.com/xqfkh9uG9v

— Community Radio Awards - Sponsored by PlayoutOne (@CommRadioAwards) November 19, 2022

In October 2021, just 14 months after launching our linear service, we were over the moon to win Silver for Digital or RSL Station of the Year - and that was with COVID restrictions meaning the events coverage we pride ourselves in was limited.

In the last year, the team has produced dozens of outside broadcasts as well as continued holding decision makers to account and sharing remarkable human stories from across "the Petersphere".

We enjoyed fierce competition in our category. Congratulations to our fellow nominees who have been incredibly gracious and made it such a challenge for us to come out on top.

The overwhelming majority of my fellow volunteers had no past experience of radio presentation, conducting interviews or editing audio before joining. They're now industry award winners - and I don't think it's quite sunk in yet!

While a linear music station cannot reflect every demographic or taste (our daytime programming is targeted at those aged 35-54), news and other speech content has wider appeal and specialist programming carves out its own niches allowing our multi-platform brand to reach a broad local audience overall.

Ultimately, our success is thanks to the people of Petersfield - and that includes Shine Radio colleagues who live or work locally just as our listeners do.

Is there anything more exciting than US election coverage?

This is more of a TV post so forgive me (although the two mediums are now arguably closer than ever before thanks to social media and new simulcast operations!)

I've been unable to switch off CNN’s midterm elections coverage. It's always so well executed and engaging - the slickest of the slick.

As a Brit, watching live data and in-depth analysis while polls are still open is unthinkable and fascinating. It’s a totally different ball game. In our elections, a UK broadcaster would be in breach simply for suggesting bad weather might affect turnout.

I’m all for being fair and balanced. Nothing I’ve heard tonight has been blatantly partisan; just concise presentation of the facts and number crunching that may encourage more people to cast their ballot - which is something to celebrate, surely?

It could be argued the US approach raises the risk of those who are politically unengaged facing pressure from politically engaged friends and family to further a particular agenda, but that has always happened and will always happen regardless of what the TV or radio is reporting.

Social media is at odds with broadcast media on polling day in that the former is talking about nothing other than politics and the latter isn’t allowed to talk about politics - therefore people are largely getting information (or perhaps misinformation) from unregulated platforms.

As long as broadcasters are impartial and stick to the facts, why couldn’t we take a more relaxed, interactive and modern approach over here too?

(And bring about electoral reform so every vote counts - actually, that’s another post for another time!)

Taking the Local out of Local BBC Radio

In the biggest shake up of Local BBC Radio to date, more regional and national programme sharing has been announced as part of a plan to redistribute £19m from broadcast to online and digital news production.

• Weekdays 6am-2pm: locally-produced output will continue on each of the 39 stations in England
• Weekdays 2pm-6pm: 18 regional shows
• Weekdays 6pm-10pm & Weekends 6am-10am: 10 regional shows
• Weekends 10am-2pm: 12 regional shows
• Every night 10pm-1am & Sundays 2pm-6pm: all-England network show
• Stations will still provide local sports coverage on Saturdays and will continue to opt out for match commentaries

You can read more about the changes here.

Further details were outlined at a staff meeting on Tuesday including that every Local BBC Radio presenter is at risk of redundancy with a need to reapply for jobs or go through a selection for retention scheme.

Jason Horton, Acting Director of BBC England, was grilled by Pat Sissons and listeners on BBC Radio Solent and it's worth a listen (only the BBC would interview a Local BBC Radio manager on Local BBC Radio justifying cuts to Local BBC Radio!)

My immediate thoughts are with every talented employee or freelancer affected by this brutal plan.

I know it sounds cliché but there have never been more alternative ways to utilise your skills and I’m sure exciting opportunities will arise.

If you're a long-time reader/follower you'll know: I'm a huge supporter of both the BBC and local radio - and when BBC stations do it well, they do it VERY well.

For example, in the event of a major local incident, purveying trusted information is one thing but truly being the hub of your community in that situation is about connection, comfort and reassurance.

In the same way, when times are tough we turn to our neighbours; we venture out to the pub and share experiences with locals.

Local BBC Radio is an astonishingly expensive beast - £117m per annum to be precise - and it's hard to justify when effective commercial services that no longer exist were able to operate on a fraction of the cost.

I wouldn't call for budgets to be slashed to match that, as the BBC should be distinctive and produce content the private sector couldn't afford or lacks the resources to provide, but there's no reason why it couldn't be delivered cheaper and more efficiently - focusing heavily on older audiences in communities the listener and the station would both call home.

Sadly, more networking and further regionalisation was always going to be the first port of call. Why does it always seem to be the programming, and consequently the consumer, that is first to bear the brunt of changes?

Frankly, if a broadcast region is so big and disconnected from real life that it can’t make an impact locally, it might as well be national. Network a big name who appeals to the core demographic and grow audiences that way.

What's so frustrating is the disparity between vast swathes of staff, who get it, and BBC management.

Either continue being authentically local, offer a targeted and polished national product or do both.