At just before 6am on 8 October 1973, LBC hit the London airwaves becoming the UK's first licenced Independent Local Radio station to launch. It was followed by Capital Radio a week later.
The gradual rollout of ILR followed years of political opposition from all sides which believed only the BBC should be entrusted with the privilege of providing radio services.
In the 70s & 80s, broadcasting really was a privilege because radio & TV were the only form of instant entertainment media and spectrum was so limited with generally one commercial station per city or county (except London).
Because of this, the early years of ILR were driven by a need to serve everyone and stations were providing a very eclectic music and content mix including anything from pop to classical music, news to religious programming and radio plays.
With little to no competition, it didn’t matter what crap you put out - listeners and advertisers were always going to lap it up because they had nowhere else to spend their time and money… if only it were that simple today!
The late 80s/early 90s brought about a seismic shift in the commercial radio landscape as the IBA (forerunner to The Radio Authority and now Ofcom) allowed licencees simulcasting on FM & AM to split and create two separate services.
County Sound became the first to do so in June 1988 with the launch of County Sound Gold on 1476 - a classic hits format that would later be replicated on medium-wave in most areas.
In the early 90s, more licences started to be awarded in areas already served by at least one other ILR station in a bid to increase listener choice. These tended to be different formats or in smaller communities / bigger regions than the existing service.
Three national commercial radio licences were eventually advertised in 1992 - one of which had to be a non-pop music station, another predominantly speech and another open to all formats. Each would be awarded to the highest bidder.
These ended up as Talk Radio UK (now talkSPORT), Virgin 1215 (now Absolute but no longer MW) and Classic FM (after plans for a musical theatre station fell through as it didn’t have sufficient financial backing).
DAB
The arrival of DAB in the late 90s/early 00s, thanks largely to Quentin Howard and GWR, was met with scepticism from much of the industry - even once the initial hurdle of ridiculously expensive receivers had been cleared.
The expansion of DAB faced many challenges over the following years with numerous operators threatening to withdraw their support or pulling out of the platform altogether at various points.
Fast-forward two decades and DAB, together with enhanced DAB+ technology, is now home to more than 500 radio stations on either one of two national commercial, one of many regional or one of a rapidly increasing number of small-scale multiplexes across the UK.
DAB also enjoys the greatest market share of any listening device and has enabled a whole host of new radio formats that may otherwise struggle to gain momentum and be financially viable as online-only projects.
The UK is undoubtedly the world’s most successful DAB market - something we owe to a thriving and innovating commercial sector and the power of working together over many years.
Deregulation
Much of the regulatory burden on commercial radio dates back to the aforementioned early days with barely any rivals and stations were guaranteed to benefit purely from holding a scarcely available licence to broadcast in their respective communities.
Nowadays, not only is there more radio you're up against, digital media and online advertising is available at our fingertips so continuing to tie one platform down to rules that stem from those established some forty years ago despite so much lesser regulated competition would be a death wish.
The first wave of deregulation came after the Digital Economy Act 2010 when Ofcom allowed co-location and content sharing (effectively stations merging) within approved areas as well as a reduction in the minimum number of locally-produced weekday hours from 10 to 7 in return for more local news in daytime.
The second wave came following a consultation in 2017 whereby Ofcom scrapped the need for local breakfast shows, slashed the number and increased the size of approved areas (essentially mirroring TV regions) and further reduced the minimum amount of programming that had to be produced from within them from 7 to 3, again, in return for hourly local news bulletins throughout the day and at peak times on weekends.
Theresa May's government intended to go further in its response to the 2017 consulation with a plan to abolish all localness requirements and music formats set out in commercial radio licences.
Successive Tory governments have reaffirmed their commitment to these proposals with last year's Broadcasting White Paper stating it would happen "as soon as parliamentary time allows". (I appreciate they've been a bit busy down there at Westminister - especially when you factor in the long holidays and party conferences).
Of all the subjects I've covered in my blog and debated with passionate anoraks, the loss of local brands and programming is the ultimate greatest hit (no pun intended).
On a personal level, I have fond memories of listening to Kestrel and Eagle in North Hampshire (the latter being an inspired example of traditional proud local radio). My earliest days in a radio studio were at Power and Ocean in Segensworth and I was involved in small local commercial radio from a young age. Words cannot express how much I miss it.
It is a harsh truth that commercial radio was only historically local because of a regulatory framework that said it had to be.
In order to lessen the BBC's initial national pop radio monopoly, before DAB had gained the strength to deliver viable audiences, consolidation of FM transmitters was essential. The result was radio, finally, being viewed as a serious and credible advertising medium on a national scale embraced by major agencies.
We could produce a list of the stations that did "the local thing" really well and the presenters who truly embraced walking down the same High Street, eating in the same cafes and knowing the same shortcuts as the people who chose to be in their company each day. Or a list of unconvential ways to deliver more cost-effective but equally powerful local radio that could have been more widely adopted.
Local still matters, of course, which is what makes the BBC's ill-judged regionalisation strategy so devastating - I won't ramble on about that here, but it's an important point… where the market has decided to leave a gap (which, in a free market economy, it should be allowed to do - hence deregulation) is where a public service broadcaster with a guaranteed budget of £117m should really step up.
Today and the future
I truly believe the structure of our radio industry is far healthier now than ever.
We have such a wide variety of well-resourced national BBC and commercial multi-platform powerhouse brands peppered with community (and a few commercial) stations, many of which are not-for-profit with minimal running costs, and small enough to be genuinely close to their listeners.
While I’d like to see an even more united radio industry, the continuous work of Radiocentre and Radioplayer for example, backed by the main players to speak with one voice, has been crucial and is something to cherish.
Commercial radio may not be predominantly delivered locally anymore, but this never guaranteed outstanding quality in itself. Good radio is good radio, regardless of where it is made or the platform it's on. Localness might be something that makes it particularly good but, then again, it might not in which case something relevant from further afield is better. Whether a football match is any good has nothing to do with where the ball was made.
I, for one, am delighted that radio continues to reach 88% of the UK population in 2023 - a figure that has remained virtually static since the surveys began - despite constant predictions of its demise.
Commercial radio alone now reaches 70%, represents more than half of all listening and, just in the last year, reported a record £740m in revenues.
Let's keep reinventing ourselves while continuing to do what radio will always do best with friendly humans who make people smile and laugh or stop and think.
Happy 50th birthday commercial radio - and to all, both at a local and a national level, who have contributed enormously to its success over the last five decades. Long may it continue!
