BBC Local Radio

Angela Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) on securing this important debate. I ask every Member who is attending today to go back to their office at 11 am and to put in a request to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee for a debate in the main Chamber as soon as possible, because the subject is sufficiently important to be worthy of such a debate. There is consensus, and we need to make the trust totally aware of the importance of local radio.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I encourage the hon. Lady to ask hon. Members to write to their noble Friends in the other place, so that Lord Patten can listen directly to their parliamentary views.

[Angela Smith]

I completely agree.

My local station is BBC Radio Sheffield. It was the country’s second local radio station, and it started broadcasting almost 44 years ago in 1967. Last November, it was voted the station of the year at the prestigious Gillard awards. We feel that our local radio station is the best in the country, although not all Members in the Chamber would agree with me.

One thing is for sure—BBC Radio Sheffield plays an important part in ensuring that local people keep in touch with the world around them. As one local journalist said to me last week, “BBC radio serves a lot of people, many of whom may be poor, old and working class, and not very well served elsewhere on the radio network.”

[Sarah Newton]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Angela Smith]

No, because the hon. Lady has intervened three times already.

In the previous Adjournment debate on this topic, I talked about the popularity of some of our presenters. However, I want to focus today on how the proposals published by the trust will impact on my radio station. That impact threatens to be drastic. During the week, output will go regional at 1 pm and drive-time broadcasting will be local, but the output will then go national after 6 pm. On Sundays, local broadcasting will end at 1 pm. The total reduction in local broadcasting is way beyond the 20% cited by the trust—it is nearly 50%.

The station’s popular afternoon show, hosted by Paulette Edwards, faces the chop. As Yorkshire Members will know, there was a pilot recently in Yorkshire where that afternoon slot was shared regionally. It is fair to say that the pilot was not successful, with the vast majority of respondents to the consultation commenting that they wanted to see the return of the dedicated south Yorkshire show hosted by Paulette Edwards. I agree with them. I do not want to hear about a lost dog in York or a cat stuck up a tree in Leeds, and I am sure that the people of Leeds and York do not want to hear about the ups and downs of south Yorkshire sport, particularly its football clubs.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the shift towards more regional programming is about not only the hours broadcast, but the threat to the local knowledge of that station? Such knowledge really matters when it comes to events such as the Gloucestershire floods or even to reporting the current fantastic run of victories by Cheltenham Town football club, which is currently near the top of league two.

[Angela Smith]

I agree. As the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) has pointed out, under the proposal, coverage of local football teams playing away from home would be abolished. At present, BBC Radio Sheffield listeners enjoy commentary from Seth Bennett, Paul Walker and Andy Giddings. When Sheffield Wednesday play Huddersfield Town soon, I do not want other people’s commentators telling me about my team’s performance at that match. Similarly, the hon. Gentleman will not want to hear Seth Bennett commenting on Huddersfield when his team comes to Hillsborough to be beaten very soon. If implemented, the proposals will mean that almost 20% of locally employed BBC Radio Sheffield staff might face redundancy, with a full-time equivalent reduction of nine posts out of 40, which would seriously impinge on the station’s ability to provide a rounded and informed local service.

Turning to the comments made by the hon. Member for Colne Valley, we are where we are with the freezing of the licence fee. Unfortunately, the BBC must find savings, whether we agree with them or not. It is right to defend local radio and to point out that the BBC has decided to protect Radio 4, BBC 1, much of children’s TV and the BBC Proms series, which will receive investment at the expense of local radio. Although local radio is the most expensive BBC radio service, with running costs of £118 million, it delivers 40 stations and has an audience of more than 7 million listeners. In comparison, Radio 4 costs approximately £96 million and Radio 5 Live costs approximately £60 million, with both delivering a significantly smaller audience than local radio. Almost 250,000 people listen to BBC Radio Sheffield every week, which equates to 19% of the market. Unsurprisingly, sports coverage is very popular. On Saturday afternoons, 25% of the local audience turns the dial to BBC Radio Sheffield, which says much about the quality of our sports coverage.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

On sports coverage, does my hon. Friend agree that many people who listen on a Saturday afternoon are very vulnerable? They do not have sufficient finances, they are less well off and many of them are disabled people who cannot get to sports events. To stop feeling totally isolated from society, they rely heavily on local radio to give a quality service at least once a week.

[Angela Smith]

I agree, and I shall make that point more fully shortly.

The average age of a BBC Radio Sheffield listener is 54, and although sports coverage and the breakfast show enjoy a lower age profile, from 10 am onwards the audience is made up of older people, many of whom regard the station as their key and sometimes only contact with the world around them. Two thirds of the station’s audience are classed socially as C2, D and E, and many people listen to no station other than BBC Radio Sheffield. It is true that Radio 2 and our commercial radio, Radio Hallam, have a bigger audience than BBC Radio Sheffield, but BBC Radio Sheffield’s share is significantly higher than that of Radio 4, which gets 12% a week, or 157,000 listeners, and Radio 5 Live, which gets 9.9%, or 126,000 listeners a week.

Those figures suggest that audiences value a local offer, yet in the proposals, Radio 4 would be protected and local radio would be cut. Again, in an organisation with a historical culture of top-down management, we are seeing centralised decision making at the expense of the localism that I thought we were all in favour of nowadays. BBC local radio is unique, because no one else in the BBC or in the commercial sector offers a similar service. As a BBC journalist who used to work in local radio said to me only last week, the amount of time given to producers and researchers at Radio 4 for making features is so much longer than in local radio. I know they have had some of the fat cut over the past few years, but they still have an amazing luxury of time over their colleagues in local radio. I would not want to see Radio 4 cut drastically, but it could take its fair share of cuts.

BBC local radio represents public service broadcasting at its best. Its audience will suffer a significantly reduced service if the cuts go ahead on the scale proposed. However, because, by its nature, its audience is disparate, the chances are that their views will not be expressed in the consultation. That is why this debate is important and why it should be heard in the main Chamber. I urge colleagues to request that today, so that our constituents’ views can be aired properly.