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| RADIO FORTH IN 1980 |
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Being Chairman of a local broadcasting organisation is a great privilege offered to few people. It is also a great responsibility. Being Chairman of Radio Forth is much more than these. By its very nature the station is closely intertwined with the community it serves in a highly personalised and intimate relationship. As an entirely self-supporting enterprise this close contact between broadcaster and listener is crucial because the strands that link them represent the very arteries of the radio station. Cut or block them and the station in its remoteness becomes dry and withered, eventually and inevitably fading into insignificance. Over the few years that Radio Forth has been broadcasting in East Central Scotland our audience has grown and our station has increased in stature.
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I mention this because these early pioneers had a great deal in common with today's Independent Local Radio stations; we. too are privately owned, we too are local, we too are restricted as regards the amount of disc music we are able to broadcast. In those early days a major debate raged on the usefulness, or otherwise, of this newfangled service. The music sheet publishers were delighted, indeed so much so that they took out magazine and newspaper advertisements suggesting that people write to their local radio station asking them to play the publishers' latest selection of fox trots and ballads. Others were less than sure. In November, 1923 a certain F.W. Lloyd wrote: "Does listening permit health in children and make them free from many of the little complaints from which they suffer? Is it due to the fact that they have found a new interest, or is it that the ether waves are bringing some new and unknown force which has action on mind and matter with the little ones?" 50 odd years on, these comments may appear amusing to us but 1 dare say that in another 50 years some of the comments that greeted the introduction of Independent Local Radio will seem equally amusing to our children and grandchildren. Radio Forth was born at 6.00 a.m. on 22nd January, 1975. When 1 look back to that cold dark morning it still seems incredible that we managed to meet the deadline we had set ourselves. Builders and decorators were still at work, a 'c burst water main had flooded the new studio complex only days before, a ceiling had collapsed and engineers were working around the clock installing the new equipment. But we made it and when Radio Forth was heard for the very first time it was through the ingenuity of our Chief Engineer who, at the last minute, had discovered a cable break and was holding the two parts firmly together in his hands while mouthing a prayer as the clock struck six. All the trials and tribulations we had suffered over the months of hectic activity were more than amply rewarded, the response from listeners was immediate and overwhelming. The telephone switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree and throughout the day telegrams and cards poured into the station. Radio Forth had arrived and Forth Country welcomed the new baby with open arms.
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Forth Country will, if it has not already done so, become the social and Economic heart of Scotland. The boom has switched from west to east. Oil, new technology, money, investment, skill, a social core and, above all, people, have created the optimism that has slotted East Central Scotland into the right place at the right time. Radio Forth's success in programming has come about because it has captured and reflected this new emerging spirit of the community: the foundation of Radio Forth's programme policy. The station's friendly and bouncy style starts with a bright 'Good Morning and continues from five in the morning through the daylight hours to early evening when the station spins strands of more identifiable programmes to reflect the growing, selective needs of the local audience. As the evening progresses, the programmes sharpen their style to meet Specific needs.
Nothing is dull on Radio Forth. The approach is to make every topic interesting, entertaining and popular so that everyone can feet that Radio Forth programmes are in tune with their own ideas and thoughts. Programmes in the evening reflect the wide specific interests of the community such as politics, leisure activity, education, the arts, current affairs, celebrity interviews, new and old music with folk, new-wave, traditional Scottish music, big bands, jazz, crossover, progressive rock, vintage rock'n roll, the music of the twenties, thirties and forties, classical, country and western, middle of the road and disco.
This sense of trust, and responsibility is built into the framework of the programming department and the job that each member of staff has to perform. The Record Library staffed by Jan Henderson and Susan Tait; The Arts and Features side supervised by Diane Millar; The Programme Coordinator, Sandy Wilkie, responsible for live music and the day-to-day activity of the output; The Music Organiser, Tom Bell, responsible for the selection of music heard on the station; Saudi White, who looks after the community information and popular format features., Hazel Fowlie, who specialises in the social and religious aspects of the output, and Jill Anderson who handles the administrative side. Those names represent the back-up. That's all. They are the liaison points with the community and the many voices that are heard on air who have been drawn from that community. Names like Dr. Eamon Hyde, who chairs a local history programme, Charles Mercer, who presents classical music, entertainer Bill Barclay, Dick Barrie our Country & Western presenter, Clarke Tait, who hosts the popular Sunday phone-in, Father Andrew Monaghan, producer along with Hazel of so many award winning religious programmes, Maeve Robertson on consumer affairs, Trevor Davies on politics, Donald Ford on sport and lain Agnew on Folk Music. Just a handful of the local names who are now local personalities within their own specialised field of programmes on Radio Forth. And they are all home grown. All members of the rich community that is Forth Country. In the past five years, Radio Forth has established itself in many fields. 'Snowline' is a classic example. Others include special campaigns to find youngsters jobs, to promote the caring attitude of youngsters, to criticise and applaud bureaucracy when required, to focus debate on major local issues, to find Foster Parents, and to shed light on the complicated, and explore the facade of the simple. Radio Forth's first five years in programming terms was to establish a rapport with the community Its function over the next five years is to preserve that rapport while achieving an even greater voice for the community.
So how do we do it? Let us look at a typical day in the life of Radio Forth News. When most of our listeners are still sound asleep our news team is already at work preparing for the early morning bulletins., There is local News, Scottish News and our service from Independent Radio News. A schedule is drawn up. What is happening? What is going to happen? What are the main stories? What questions do they pose? How do we find the answers?
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 The Radio Forth Roadshow |
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 Radio Forth's Jay Crawford with B A Robertson  |
 The Radio Forth float at the Edinburgh Festival |
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 Radio Forth's Bill Torrance with: Top: Frank Muir Middle: The Drifters Bottom: Cliff Richard |
 Radio Forth's Clark Tait talks to Ian Carmichael  Joanna Lumley Visits Forth House |
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 Managing Director Richard Findlay and Jay Crawford and Elton John |
 Radio Forth's Bobby Malcolm with Patti Boulaye  Tom Bell with Cilla Black and Iain Agnew |
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The majority of Radio
Forth revenue comes from the sale of advertising time. This revenue is
split almost equally between local advertising and national
advertising. In the local sales team, there are six sales executives,
each of them covering either a specific category or a specific
territory. One sales person works exclusively on major accounts in
Glasgow for example, while another covers Edinburgh and part of Fife.
After five years of broadcast lng, there are now virtually no major
advertisers in Scotland who are not advertising on radio. The National
advertising, i.e., emanating in most cases, from London, is handled by
a separate sales company called Broadcasting Marketing Services, who,
also sell for six other radio stations, but under the direct control of
the individual stations.
Two very important backup departments for the sales team, are Traffic and Commercial Production. The job of Traffic is to process the advertising from the time that an order is taken until the time that it appears on air. With 21 hours of broadcasting each day and a maximum of nine minutes of advertising in any one hour, there could be over 350 advertisements in a heavily booked period. Each one has to be noted on an advertising log and given an individual number, and it is from this log that the on-air presenter knows which advertisement to play, and at what times to play them. The Commercial Production department consists of two people who are there to help prospective clients with the ' copy" for their advertising. In a typical month, between 80 and 100 different advertisements could be written and produced in Radio Forth's own studios. These advertisements range from major department stores, garages and furniture retailers to small boutiques and shops, but each one receives the same individual attention and approach. All radio advertising is subject to controls and standards laid down by the Independent Broadcasting Authority and there are certain categories of advertising which are not acceptable, as well as restrictions on the way advertisements can be phrased. In this way, we avoid offending listeners as well as making what might be construed as a misleading claim. Radio Forth revenue, has.
shown a steady growth over the five years of broadcasting. In the
financial year ended September, 1975, the figure was less than
£250,000 in the financial year ending 1979, the growth was more
than four times that figure -in excess of £1,000,000. With this
sort of confidence in Radio Forth as an advertising medium, the future
success of broadcasting in East Central Scotland is assured.
AUDIENCE RESEARCH
There are many different ways in which radio listenership can be researched and each will find a strong advocate. We have never considered that the random stopping of people in the street used in isolation can give a true picture of listening habits and preferences. The flaws in this method are too obvious and numerous to mention. The Independent Local Radio stations are researched by an entirely separate research organisation to a methology and series of rigid specifications laid down by an independent research committee on which both advertisers and advertising agencies hold the majority of seats. Since it is unlikely that advertisers would be willing to pay more than a station can realistically charge in light of the listenership that it has it would seem reasonable to suppose that the way in which the research is conducted is more likely to give a true picture of radio listening and preference. Put very simply the research organisation selects a large sample of people in a balanced way in order that the sample is a total match of the demographic profile of the area being researched, age group, sex and so on. Each person is then issued with a diary listing all available radio services and it is in this specially designed diary that they list their radio listening over a set period. After the diary period has been completed, interviewers follow up each person with a questionnaire again listing all radio services. These results are processed by the research organisations computer and the results then made available for publication. The latest available research shows the following picture in Forth Country. In the city of Edinburgh 62% of the population over the age of fifteen listen to Radio Forth on a regular basis. Spreading the net wider to include what we call our Primary Transmission Area the listenership becomes 55%, if we then go further to include the Total Transmission Area (this stretches north to Dundee and South into the Borders) the listening becomes 45%. , The chart below reflects the listenership, penetration that each radio service achieves in the Primary Transmission Area, which stretches from the city of Edinburgh and North to Glenrothes, West to Falkirk and Grangemouth and South to Dunbar and Penicuik.  Audience Research Results For West Central Scotland |
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 The Radio Forth
Transmission Area
The station has a modem studio complex situated in the heart of Edinburgh and linked to its transmitters in Fife by landline The entire studio area was designed and installed by the station's own engineers, while the required acoustics were put into the able hands of an internationally renowned firm of acoustic architects.
There are four main studios, each designed for a specific function but flexible enough for a varied number of very different operations. The presenter's main on air' studio is self operating, that is the person you hear on air is also the person operating every necessary piece of equipment and the person who makes sure the commercials are broadcast in the correct sequence at the correct time. There is a smaller self operating studio, very similar in design to the main one, a large production studio with its own control room containing much more sophisticated equipment than the self operating studios and a news studio, which again is totally controlled and operated by the newsreader. This form of studio design and operation means that the station is able to operate with fewer staff than many other broadcasting organisations but it also means that our staff require extra skills. All studios are routed through the station's Master Control Room, this is the technical nerve centre of the station and houses all the complex equipment necessary to keep the station on air. Some eight miles of balanced audio cabling has been used to wire this complex together into a cohesive unit. In addition to the studios within Forth House the station has several 'remote' studios throughout the area and these can be brought on air at the flick of a switch. A brand new and highly sophisticated 23-feet-long outside broadcast and recording unit has recently been tailormade for the station to replace our older one and of course there's the highly mobile radio car, capable of dashing quickly to parts of our transmission ion area and breaking live into the broadcasting output via its own transmitting aerial. Among major items of equipment the station uses Alice and Pye mixers, Cuemaster cartridge machines, Leevers Rich tape recorders and Technics turntables. As already mentioned our transmitters are in South Fife, the medium wave (AM) transmitter being situated at Barns Farm with a power of 2000 watts on 1548 Khz (194 metres) and the VHF (FM) transmitter is just north of Burntisland with a power of 500 watts on 96.8 Mhz. The VHF transmissions are of course High Fidelity and in Stereo. |
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RADIO FORTH BRINGS THE FIRST SPLIT FREQUENCY PROGRAMMING TO ILR IN THE UK |
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When split frequency broadcasting became the norm around 1989 - 1990, Radio Forth split its services full time; A re-focussed 'Radio Forth RFM' was on 97.3 and 97.6 VHF/FM, while a completely new service entitled 'MAX AM' launched on 1548 kHz (194m) Medium Wave / AM. |
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Chairman - L. M. Harper Gow, M.B.E.
Managing Director - Richard Findlay Programme Controller -Tom Steele News Editor - Bill Greig Chief Engineer - lan Wales Sales Director - Derek Gorman Financial Director - Alan Wilson Forth Beat Community Information - Judi White Outside Broadcast & Programme Co-ordinator - Sandy Wilkie Arts & Special Features - Diane Miller Music Organiser - Tom Bell Librarian - Jan Henderson Commercial Production - Rod Jones Promotions & Publicity - Joan Connell Religion, Leisure & Community Programmes - Hazel Fowlie Traffic Supervisor - Tricia Smith Radio Forth Limited, P.O. Box 194, Edinburgh EH1 3LF Telephone 031 - 556 - 9255 Telex 727374 Hours of Broadcast: Monday to Friday 05.00 - 02.00 Saturday/Sunday 06.00 - 02.00 LINKS
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Radio Forth Today - Forth One (FM service 97.3) Radio Forth Today - Forth 2 (AM service 1548) |
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