The Consolidation of Local Radio

Local radio is a very good thing, but it's also expensive because automatically you can't just cover the whole nation with one set of overheads. It's really difficult, not least if you've got a big newsroom locally, to actually create a sustainable business. So that's why consolidation in the commercial sector has gone the way it has. The BBC is a very expensive animal. They have decided to channel some of their local radio cash into online news instead of local radio. You can on the available BBC budget easily provide local radio on the license fee funding. And I get the reasons why they want to invest more in local online news, but they reckon they can't deliver local radio