Manx Radio

[dilligaf]

6 minutes ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

Listening figures are dropping and will keep dropping as people curate their own content via podcasts and music streaming services. As has been pointed out previously politicians won't do anything to Manx Radio as long as they keep giving them airtime. Why would they get rid of something that keeps their profile up?

But the local radio station SHOULD give all politicians airtime. The more the better. I would rather listen to our elected bods and hear what they are doing with their time and our money, that listen to the shite that is Energy ( oxymoron) or 3 fm.

Edited July 22, 2019 by dilligaf

[Roger Mexico]

2 hours ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

[...]. I don't get a choice to not pay for Manx Radio as the funds are taken out of direct taxation and those that aren't result in wall to wall adverts that makes Manx Radios actual content unlistenable.

2 hours ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

Think you'll find the news team aren't paid half as much as the senior sales team.

Looking at the figures I quoted in my previous post, I begin to understand something that puzzled me about the suggestions from the last Tynwald Committee on Manx Radio (which like all other suggestions for reform got ignored or voted down).  They wanted Manx Radio to drop the commercial content and become purely taxpayer-funded - which looked very odd when everything is supposed to be commercially-minded.  But if most of the earnings from advertising and sponsorship are being used to pay for the sales team and associated costs and expenses, plus the cost of making the ads, then most listeners might prefer paying very little if anything more and getting rid of the ads.

If the BBC are saying that they could produce a similar (presumably non-ad) station for about £1.5 million pa, then the £ 0.5 million extra that MR spend must be because of commercial side plus excess management (not that the BBC is known for being lean and hungry).  There looks like a big gap between the £ 875k subvention and £1.5 million, but once you take all the other hidden subsidies into account, the gap narrows by a lot and paying for a reformed, ad-free Manx Radio looks a lot more doable.

The only downside is that it would make Juan Turner and Ron Berry very happy.

[Ham_N_Eggs]

31 minutes ago, dilligaf said:

But the local radio station SHOULD give all politicians airtime. The more the better. I would rathe4 listen to our elected bods and hea4 what they are doing with their time and our money, that list3n to the shite that is Energy ( oxymoron) or 3 fm.

I'm not saying it shouldn't. What I am saying is that the politicians won't change anything about the station because they like the free advertising.

 

23 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Looking at the figures I quoted in my previous post, I begin to understand something that puzzled me about the suggestions from the last Tynwald Committee on Manx Radio (which like all other suggestions for reform got ignored or voted down).  They wanted Manx Radio to drop the commercial content and become purely taxpayer-funded - which looked very odd when everything is supposed to be commercially-minded.  But if most of the earnings from advertising and sponsorship are being used to pay for the sales team and associated costs and expenses, plus the cost of making the ads, then most listeners might prefer paying very little if anything more and getting rid of the ads.

If the BBC are saying that they could produce a similar (presumably non-ad) station for about £1.5 million pa, then the £ 0.5 million extra that MR spend must be because of commercial side plus excess management (not that the BBC is known for being lean and hungry).  There looks like a big gap between the £ 875k subvention and £1.5 million, but once you take all the other hidden subsidies into account, the gap narrows by a lot and paying for a reformed, ad-free Manx Radio looks a lot more doable.

The only downside is that it would make Juan Turner and Ron Berry very happy.

That makes sense. There's the engineering side as well or is that a separate entity? 

Edited July 22, 2019 by Ham_N_Eggs

[hissingsid]

Unfortunately, Manx Radio only seems to feature the moaning ones, no positivity is allowed it is like a Beecroft and Caine personal moaning line.    They do not actually do anything worth talking about themselves just rant on about what other people are trying to do.   I do so hope a couple of decent candidates tip up to represent Laxey and lower Onchan in the next election.

[Stu Peters]

2 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Looking at the figures I quoted in my previous post, I begin to understand something that puzzled me about the suggestions from the last Tynwald Committee on Manx Radio (which like all other suggestions for reform got ignored or voted down).  They wanted Manx Radio to drop the commercial content and become purely taxpayer-funded - which looked very odd when everything is supposed to be commercially-minded.  But if most of the earnings from advertising and sponsorship are being used to pay for the sales team and associated costs and expenses, plus the cost of making the ads, then most listeners might prefer paying very little if anything more and getting rid of the ads.

If the BBC are saying that they could produce a similar (presumably non-ad) station for about £1.5 million pa, then the £ 0.5 million extra that MR spend must be because of commercial side plus excess management (not that the BBC is known for being lean and hungry).  There looks like a big gap between the £ 875k subvention and £1.5 million, but once you take all the other hidden subsidies into account, the gap narrows by a lot and paying for a reformed, ad-free Manx Radio looks a lot more doable.

The only downside is that it would make Juan Turner and Ron Berry very happy.

I found my figures on this at the office. BBC Jersey cost just short of £3m annually in the most recent accounts, so I'm not sure how the BBC mandarin reckons they could cover the Isle of Man for half that. But then she would say that, wouldn't she? As to the sales office, I think it makes significantly more than it costs. Without that income either the output or the taxpayer would probably suffer. 

[Sentience]

35 minutes ago, Stu Peters said:

I found my figures on this at the office. BBC Jersey cost just short of £3m annually in the most recent accounts, so I'm not sure how the BBC mandarin reckons they could cover the Isle of Man for half that. But then she would say that, wouldn't she? As to the sales office, I think it makes significantly more than it costs. Without that income either the output or the taxpayer would probably suffer. 

Stu, mon amis, your breath is being wasted on those posters who have obtained GCSE A levels, Masters degrees even in  'Assumed knowledge'. 

You cannot win.

This is a prevalence of all, especially though, in ANY organisations even remotely associated with government.

They have the right, the power and the privilege of being wrong...totally wrong!.....with absolutely NO accountability.

 

Edited July 22, 2019 by Sentience
Clarity

[WKRP]

Stu

Check your Channel Island information if you can as the BBC also run a local TV station for that money. I think around 30 people work for the BBC in Jersey to do both operations and another 30 on Guernsey, I think. Makes what they do here very cheap, three people plus Mr Gawne, paid by BBC, but working for all media.

[foxdaleliberationfront]

Stu, give it up! Manx Radio will never be anything more than a loss-making dinosaur. It should be closed down and filed away in the same draw as horse trams. 

Let one of the commercial stations take over the role of 'public sector broadcaster' if we really must have one. The idea that it's a matter of 'national importance' to have one is a complete joke and does nothing but serve the sense of self importance of Tynwald members... Manx Radio is little more than a hospital radio station operating on a massively inflated budget, masquerading as a national broadcaster. 

VOD - basically a YouTube channel. 

[Stu Peters]

4 hours ago, WKRP said:

Stu

Check your Channel Island information if you can as the BBC also run a local TV station for that money. I think around 30 people work for the BBC in Jersey to do both operations and another 30 on Guernsey, I think. Makes what they do here very cheap, three people plus Mr Gawne, paid by BBC, but working for all media.

Yes, I've been to the Jersey studios so appreciate they do a very short opt out of the regional telly, but I think the figures I have are just an average for all 40 BBC local radio stations.

2017/18 figures also show that:

BBC Radio Wales = £14.6m pa
BBC Radio Scotland = £22.6m pa
BBC Radio Ulster = £17.6m pa.

FLF - it's 'drawer'. YouTube is a delivery method, content (and a huge amount of it) still has to be created. Try it and see how easy it is. Then go back to watching Love Island.

ETA: I think only Ewan's role is embedded and provides to 'all media'. Other BBC staff don't.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Stu Peters

[foxdaleliberationfront]

42 minutes ago, Stu Peters said:

YouTube is a delivery method, content (and a huge amount of it) still has to be created. Try it and see how easy it is. Then go back to watching Love Island.

I have done. It's piss easy. Even teenagers can do it and they don't need a million pound handout to do it!! 

[woolley]

12 hours ago, Stu Peters said:

I found my figures on this at the office. BBC Jersey cost just short of £3m annually in the most recent accounts, so I'm not sure how the BBC mandarin reckons they could cover the Isle of Man for half that. But then she would say that, wouldn't she? As to the sales office, I think it makes significantly more than it costs. Without that income either the output or the taxpayer would probably suffer. 

The BBC is profligate on a massive scale, so I don't think we would want to emulate their costings. As for the sales office, surely it must cover considerably more than its costs. Given the sheer scale of advertising across the schedule, it would be bizarre if it didn't. I question whether the station output could possibly suffer without commercials. Given that their ubiquity is equalled only by their extreme off-button-hitting awfulness, the programme quality would have to deteriorate a very great deal for the net result to be inferior to the status quo.

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Stu Peters said:

Yes, I've been to the Jersey studios so appreciate they do a very short opt out of the regional telly, but I think the figures I have are just an average for all 40 BBC local radio stations.

I've been a bit puzzled by the discrepancy between your figure (£3 million) and the figure of around half that the BBC gave last year.  information is pretty scant, but a clue comes in a report that John Myers wrote about BBC local radio in 2012, just before he did similar for Manx Radio:

Quote

2.1.1 The current cost to the licence payer for BBC local radio is £115m . £71m is dedicated to content and people and £44m to central costs or 38% of the total.

For 40 stations and adding a bit on this gives your average of £3 million.  But that take off that massive 38% for central costs (a lot of which will be covered by central government in the Island) and something around £1.7 -1.8 million looks more plausible.

[Donald Trumps]

Grauniad May 2019

"There were substantial drops in the number of people tuning in to BBC local radio stations, which have recently been reformatted to put more focus on music and local personalities at the expense of news"

Edited July 23, 2019 by Donald Trumps

[flaps]

The program content of Manx Radio is very good, but the quantity of adverts is rendering it unlistenable. The same annoying jingles every few minutes soon make me have to turn it off, even when it's a show I want to hear. The thing is, the market is changing. Why would anyone listen to annoying jingles over and over, when you can put on a streaming service without them? Commercial Radio needs to offer something fresh and worth tuning in for. I wouldn't mind Manx Radio going fully public service, as long as it didn't go mad with the costs. What they do, they actually do very well. 

[TheTeapot]

9 minutes ago, flaps said:

 The thing is, the market is changing. Why would anyone listen to annoying jingles over and over

People still listen to Steve Wright.