New Radio Strategies

Shane Brown on “Street Cred” 89.1FM, Birmingham U.K.

Tim Wall’s earlier NRS entry “Thinking through the new economics of sound broadcasting over the internet” discussed the current need for new programming ideas and fresh radio services for listeners. His posting concluded that radio’s future held “considerable possibilities for public service and community broadcasters.” Following on from this theme and in keeping with Robin Valk’s NRS comments on inspiring stations like New York’s WFUV and Digbeth’s “Rhubarb”, I thought I’d report on an innovative station, just two miles from Birmingham City University’s Radio Dept.

Aston FM 89.1 is an example of community radio at its best ( astonfm.com ). They pay their way with regular commercial breaks promoting local businesses and have managed to wrangle a reasonably powerful transmission signal. Unlike many of their tightly rotated competitors, Aston’s playlist exceeds five thousand tracks – so you get an incredibly varied sound to the station. They also provide a legal home for underground radio by sharing their frequency late at night with local “pirates”.

“Aston FM is Birmingham ’s newest local radio station, broadcasting to the whole of Birmingham from Villa Park, 24 hours a day seven days a week, on 89.1 FM and on the internet. Aston FM is the only radio station to broadcast live, all Aston Villa football matches, both home and away. Aston FM is committed to working with all the different communities in Birmingham and giving the City a radio station it can be proud of. We invite guests in for interviews to talk about what is going on in the City and actively encourage listeners to tell us what is happening in their part of Birmingham. We are also involved in training children from local schools in all aspects of radio and helping them put together their own radio shows to be played on the internet.”

As other stations move towards nationally networked content, Aston FM’s been quick to exploit their local presence. But it’s their attitude to specialist programming that really stands them apart. More specifically, the way they’ve embraced local pirate radio culture.

Just to set the scene a little… Pirate radio is common on the U.K.’s FM dial. Heavy regulations, limited access to frequencies and the increasing affordability of equipment means many young broadcasters are simply setting up their own illegal stations. It should be mentioned that unlicensed broadcasting is a criminal offence in the U.K. with a maximum sentence of two years. Convicted pirates can also expect to have their equipment confiscated and be barred from working on a legal station for five years (a long walk off the metaphorical media plank). However, as Miranda Sawyer wrote in the Observer, 2.11.08, “Ofcom research from 2007 showed that 25 percent of the entire London radio audience tunes into pirates (40 per cent of the black audience).” So they must be doing something right…

“Smart, hi-tech and inclusive, pirate stations are paving the way for the future of radio. The future of radio is the internet: the pirates have moved online in a big way. All the biggest stations have live web feeds. Combine this with mobile phone internet access and you can use your phone to tune into a London Pirate when you’re in, say, Glasgow. Then simply plug your mobile into your car radio and away you go. Pirate stations instantly move from being local to national and even worldwide.”

Sawyer’s article used this shift to online radio as an example of “DAB’s increasingly shrinking relevance” – but that’s another story for another day. Pirate radio’s current popularity and community radio’s continued growth meant the two were inevitably destined to meet.

“Street Cred” was a typical underground station until they found a safe home on Aston’s 89.1 frequency. Regular presenter DJ Hevs started out by playing sets on pirate station KRISS FM 95.3 in Birmingham, broadcasting to Walsall and the surrounding areas. However, he was raided by the authorities and prosecuted, prompting him to write on his myspace page; “I lost my music, lost my hope, and was starting to think, is this really worth it?” Thankfully, Aston FM came to the rescue and he’s now legally “smashing up the airwaves, playing the chunkiest 4 x 4 basslines” every Saturday night, 11pm until 2am.

I talked with Gary James from Aston FM about how pirate and community radio has managed to join forces and co-exist in (relative) harmony…

Can you tell us something about pirate radio in the Midlands?

Pirate radio has been going for a number of years in Birmingham. Usually young people have equipment based in tower blocks in the city, broadcasting illegally and often using someone else’s frequency.

Generally pirate radio broadcasts late at night and into the early hours of the morning. It’s a specific – very heavy black, afro-Caribbean music. Something you wouldn’t usually hear on normal radio… but it’s got a massive, massive audience. In Birmingham it’s something like 16% of the listening audience tuning into pirate radio. Sometime between, say, 10 at night and 6 in the morning.

How did your relationship with pirate radio actually begin?

When Aston FM was put together, the company that owns Aston FM approached Ofcom (Office of Communications) and said “look, there’s this massive audience out there that are crying out for this sort of music. Surely it makes sense to make it in someway legal”. So Ofcom went away and thought about it and came back and said “Ok – try it for 12 months – you get a pirate station in to broadcast legally on Aston FM’s frequency from the hours of 9 o’clock at night ‘til 2 in the morning and we’ll see how it goes…”

Obviously, because it’s a legal radio station, there had to be some form of professionalism. The naughty words had to go… no swearing. There was a limitation on some of the music, because that type of music does have some strong content which can be a bit iffy. But it has an audience and it’s after the watershed and if those people want to listen to it then that’s fine. There’s always the “on/off” button.

So it was agreed… And now Aston FM has a pirate group onboard called “Street Cred” who are well known in the Midlands. They broadcast from 9 at night ‘til 2 in the morning, 7 days a week, on our frequency 89.1 FM. But because they can be heard now online, streaming on the Aston FM website, they get emails and text messages from literally all over the world. It’s a massive audience.

How have things gone so far?

The whole thing works well. They’re (Street Cred) happy because they’re not being raided every five minutes and having their equipment confiscated by the authorities. It gives them a professional environment to work in, they’ve got a good frequency to broadcast on – and on the other side of things – the Police in Birmingham have said they like it because while the kids are listening to “Street Cred” they’re not out fighting, involved in knife crime, gun crime, graffiti – and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They’re off the streets and listening to the music they love. Some of the guys that work at “Street Cred” are in some ways heroes to these local kids. If they want to follow in their footsteps it can only be good. Certainly for Birmingham and as far as Aston FM and Street Cred’s concerned.

So those are the positives… There must be some negatives. Do some regular listeners take offence at their station being “taken over”?

Nobody’s really come across and said “we don’t like that” to be honest. We’ve probably got three separate audiences at Aston FM and this is the beauty of the station. And if you like – what makes it unique.

You’ve got day time listening, which is your normal sort of average soft rock, pop-music, chart etc. and local content – what’s going on in the city and around. Then you’ve got another audience for specialist shows Monday through to Friday for two hours, 7 ‘til 9 pm. From country music to hip-hop, to grunge, to dance – you name it – it’s there. And finally you’ve got this other audience that kicks in after 9, which is the “Street Cred” pirate radio audience.

It very much is three different audiences – and we know that from the emails and texts we get. We hope that somewhere there is a cross over between all audiences. We hope that some of the “Street Cred” pirate audience will listen at some time during the day. In fact, we’ve taken 2 of their guys, Lee and Paul, who were working for Street Cred and they now do our weekend breakfast show. So they’ve moved from being “pirates” if you like, to working on the station, doing legitimate weekend shows on Aston FM. Which is certainly not playing “pirate” music – but more normal, middle of the road, 60’s / 70’s / 80’s tracks.

You’ve talked about some of the issues with swearing. Any other problems to overcome?

Initially, they weren’t used to working in a radio studio. They were used to a portable mini-mixing desk, probably with three or four faders on it, a couple of decks and may be a CD player… like something you might find at home. And they love their music loud. Their speakers are usually taller than the presenters. They’d really bang it out – especially the bass. So, in the beginning we’d have a few problems as they’d come into the studios and turn everything up to the max! And it was blowing the speakers. That had to be controlled. They weren’t used to that, they were more used to have their music blaring out. They’d think they were nightclub DJ’s, whacking faders up and down. So there was a bit of that going on and a couple of things were being broken. But, to be fair, I think it was assumed from the Aston FM management that once they were shown around the studio and how things work – they’d be like normal presenters. But of course, no, they came from a completely different mentality. It was a small problem to start with that’s now been put right. They understand it now…

So what does the future hold?

Originally, Ofcom said to try it for 12 months and see how it goes. If it’s successful then they will do what they need to do re. the license to continue it. So everyone’s happy at the moment. Like anything new – the teething problems had to be sorted out. But it’s now working well and it’s giving the audience that’s out there for pirate radio somewhere they know they can tune in – at the same time every night, 7 nights a week, all year round and hear the music and the presenters they’re used to. Without worrying that their station’s about to raided and taken off the air. So it’s working well… Everybody’s gelling now. Their presenters are actually learning the trade of being a presenter and how things work in a professional radio studio.