A little while ago I argued that local radio should remain just that - local. Ofcom, which today published its vision for the future regulation of the radio industry, appears to agree.
The challenge facing Ofcom was simple, and extraordinarily complicated at the same time. How to ensure that local radio maintains the quality and localness of its content while freeing up the regulatory burden on struggling commercial radio stations so that - shock horror! - they might actually make a profit.
The RadioCentre and the bosses of the UK's biggest radio groups argued that quality was more important to listeners than localness (although that was important too). They asked that most local radio stations should be allowed to broadcast as little as three hours of local programmes every weekday, rising to seven hours for larger stations.
Ofcom appears to have given this request short shrift, with a requirement outlined in its Future of Radio document today for local stations to broadcast 10 hours of local programmes every weekday, which must include breakfast.
Under Ofcom's original proposals, stations would have been required to broadcast four, eight or 13 hours of local programmes depending on their size. So for many local stations the local quota will actually be higher than the regulator initially proposed.
No wonder the RadioCentre, on first inspection of the Ofcom document, said it "broadly welcomed" the proposals. The emphasis is on "broadly".
Ofcom said its research had confirmed its belief in the importance of locally-made programmes containing local material throughout most of daytime. "We are confident that our revised localness guidance proposals strike the right balance between the financial pressures faced by the industry and safeguarding the interests of listeners as citizens and consumers," it said.
We must hope so, because if the business model does not become more financially viable, many listeners might not have any local commercial radio to listen to at all.
"The digital debate has been brought forward and is about to begin - now is not the time to tear up the analogue rulebook," said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards and chairman David Currie in their joint foreword to the Future of Radio document today.
But many commercial radio bosses will be wishing today they had torn a few more pages out. A lot more.
