The Castleknock Print Blog

The emergence of local community radio is a much talked about issue  in Ireland.

There has always been a long history of national radio stations in Ireland with FM frequency spectrum. The well established city stations such as FM104 and 98FM are well known for years in Dublin city to listeners. These stations  started off in the 1980s, ironically in times when we last had a recession in Ireland. One of the leading businessman in Ireland, Denis O'Brien started off his first pirate station, 98FM using funding from the bank at the time, as a bootstrap start up business, when he had practically no cash in the bank.  At one stage, O'Brien was close to losing it all when he was in debt yet managed to survive. There is an interesting video presentation of one of his talks given to young DIT students in the 'Be inspired' conference for young entrepreneurs in D.I.T Aughier St. last year.

The new developments in social networks, emergence of better  technology, improved physical speed,  economic downturn, data storage and infrastructural requirements have meant that national media titles including radio stations are hurting with losses affecting business traditional models.  This has meant that like all media worldwide, total gradual collapse is happening within the media industry fragmentation and revenue hard to find due to ad cut backs and less staff money available for paying back debt from overheads.

Industry titles in radio also are consolidating, with alliances and mergers being considered. Opportunities to buy others rivals is also being a distinct possibility, this can be seen with the joining up of Newstalk joining up with another O'Brien title Today FM.  So what is the next step for the radio industry in Ireland?

Well, more community involvement is becoming more likely on the cards now, and with start up opportunities available, it is a good time to start up a business. There also is good access to technology to create a personal radio station, or even digital radio using latest equipment is low barriers to entry and cheaper to do now than ever. There lies opportunity within radio industry to create an innovative service to challenge the pre-existing status quo of radio giants in Ireland.

We will more than likely see a new focus on revitalizing community radio if the emergence of the transfer over to digital transmission is completed relatively soon. There seems to be financing and funding problems with various consortium's  not able to afford the costs of bidding on a license currently with the downturn.  this has been seen in the last few weeks with the new Digital transmission license for DTT (digital terrestrial tech) being slowed down with the proposed group from Communicorp (O'Brien) backing down recently duw to unforeseen financial circumstances. Now last week, another group from One vision made up of TV3 and Eircom amongst others have been offered a shoot at bidding for the new DTT license form BCI (Broadcasting Corporation of Ireland).

The focus should be on a localized reporting of community issues at a local level, use of audio technology including pod casts, old style reporter/citizen reporter roaming the streets looking to be interactive and interviewing people for stories/opinions. Online, there is untapped level of social networks including people to connect social network tools such as Face book and Link'd in for creating user private/public demographic profiles which if the user reads their privacy protection act and opts in by joining, the radio station can use these knowledge for marketing purposes and personalize their ads, ad words or mobile campaigns to track users movements/preferences online. This will mean overall improved site presentation and relevant value in that content. They could allow users to contribute to blogs, join their face book page, profile themselves and interact more for personalized relationship with users. The presenters could have a, vote in campaigns for the control for say 1 day on how the show/radio station is run with flexible structure, play list, tagging online, user IM or chat, shared live search for items, on archives, group collaboration projects. Users could design the show themselves using innovative and creative content input. The world of social radio or an open source  model opens a world of opportunity for broadcasters and users to partner and move away from mass media, 'one size fits all' model which is dying out due to factors listed early on here.

The idea of community donations to fund the community radio is important to raise revenue,  as does having  ads and classified section listed online for free or for a fee. Another option is to charge for  viewing contents or archieved materials.  For a radio to survive, they must look at all options open to them including extending their service outside traditional remits such as helping other local businesses survive by helping them out with ad words/local PR/marketing campaigns. The radios might look into voice sponsored ads, brand embedded sponsorships, guest blogging ads beside relevant theme, direct emails to local businesses, lead generation etc. In other words radios must extend and broaden their income generating portfolio  through innovative thinking.

There has to be revenue generated in order for the radio to survive but there can be a large open source model used up to the final publishing online on the network airwaves which would be moderated by the final editor. The emphasis should be on giving incentives to young people, in particular, to get involved with local events such as presenting a local sports show i.e. broadcasting a piece on a match locally.  Other features might include points awarded for local projects suggested and pitched on the site.  Additional points would be for comments, rating of other pieces, feedback, blogs written, an action taken and a donation aim reached. Bonus points might be for improvised innovative actions such as raising local community awareness of an issue by generating national media publicity and PR. The community radio becomes the medium through which this action plan empowers  communities like 'The Point'.com.

The movement in a community has to reach a 'critical mass' before it is turned into definite action. Revenue opportunities exist for radios by giving bonus points to users who visit a local businesses website. Maps can be added to allow people find out where other locals are in their community and connect with others online.

There could be a local training course/forum run through the radio such as digital documentary courses/classes or how to use digital equipment for radio/citizen journalism.  It could be supported online through the local discussion groups and local community council initiatives to get locals involved with reporting and making their own piece on radio. Users can live blog on events, twitter for up to date news and work using IM and group collaboration tools. If radio stations recognize the shift towards mass collaboration and embrace these new interactive ideas and new technology, then they can survive into the next century with their profit margins in tact.

One good example of my local radio near to where I live is 'Phoenix FM'. I helped my brother and sister years ago with a nightly music hits show on this local community radio. I also used to work with Phoenix FM as a volunteer with a independent social media advisory/consultancy role.  It would make good sense to work with them and see if I can provide any help and inspire other local stations to challenge listeners in their community to be involved.

I think it is a good idea to have a community radio but the key is to embrace the new interactive model between users/listeners and actual radio station broadcasters. If the stations open up to more innovative open source ideas then they can save their declining industries.