BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 receive the equivalent of £80m in free promotion a year from the corporation’s TV channels, rival Global Radio has claimed.
Will Harding, the chief strategy officer at the UK’s biggest commercial radio group, has also said licence fee payers are not getting value for money because the BBC stations overlap too much with their rivals.
“[We are concerned at the] scale of BBC’s cross-promotion,” he said, giving evidence to the House of Lords communication committee on Tuesday. “We estimate that as much as the equivalent of £80m of advertising of BBC radio happens on BBC TV [annually]. A lot of that is valid. But our concern is too much [promotion] is devoted to programmes on Radio 1 and Radio 2 which aren’t showcases of public service broadcasting.”
Harding added that the BBC stations’ output was too similar to their competitors.
“The BBC is not perfect,” he said. “I don’t believe Radio 1 and Radio 2 offer value for money for licence fee payers. They are much more similar to [what’s offered on] commercial radio than BBC management would have us believe. [For example], there is not enough public speech content on Radio 1 and Radio 2. What there is, is broadcast almost exclusively outside peak broadcast hours.”
He added that the BBC’s 54% share of the total UK radio market means there needs to be more scrutiny of the impact of its intervention on commercial rivals.
“We are absolutely not proposing they should be shut down or privatised but they have to adapt,” he said. “They are producing content to similar to what we produce. It’s not good enough. They can’t just bury the other stuff in the schedule to tick the box with the regulator.”
