Community radio: collaboration and regulation

Over the past decade, the UK community radio sector has grown from a handful of experimental broadcasters to encompass a diverse range of some 200 services. By comparison with other types of broadcast radio in the UK, these services are heavily regulated with a variety of requirements being places upon their structures, inputs, processes and outputs. The process by which community radio regulation was developed has underpinned its subsequent acceptance by the sector. Most importantly, current UK community radio regulation was developed in conjunction with representatives of the sector and the fifteen experimental stations launched in 2001 / 2002. The paper considers the relatively 'light touch' regulation of the country's commercial radio sector and the ways in which the new 'Third Tier' impacts on existing mainstream providers, in particular the BBC. It also poses the argument that the recent change in direction for BBC Local Radio might place that service at risk as the community stations more fully realise Frank Gillard’s vision for local radio in the 1960s. There will be an evaluation of the potential threat community radio poses to BBC Local Radio, and asks what, if anything, needs to happen to enable the two to comfortably co-exist. The authors conclude by setting out some of the likely developments within broadcast radio over the short to medium term and examine how legislation and regulation may change as a result and possibly influence the future development of the UK community radio sector.