RADIO STATION RAPPED FOR PLAYING TOO MANY HITS John Plunkett – MediaGuardian A Southampton-based radio station owned by Canadian media giant CanWest has been given a "yellow card" warning by Ofcom for playing up to twice as many top 20 hits as its format allows.
Original 106, CanWest's third radio station in the UK, was launched in October last year as an "album-led music service".
But an Ofcom investigation - understood to have been sparked after a complaint by a rival broadcaster in the south of England - found it was playing a higher percentage of top 20 hits than the 35% its licence allows.
In its weekday peaktime output, past and present chart hits including Duran Duran's The Reflex, Junior's Mama Used To Say and Whitney Houston's How Will I Know made up 67% of its output.
Ofcom said an "unacceptably high" number of the songs played by the station were mainstream pop hits.
"That is not to say that other tracks from these artists might not be suitable for Original 106's format, or that Original 106 could not play any of these individual tracks in the future," said the regulator in its ruling.
"Rather, we were concerned that the overall proportion of tracks that were considered to be out of format was unacceptably high."
The station will operate under a yellow card until Ofcom deems that the issues have been addressed.
If Original 106 continues to break its format requirements, the regulator could take further action, including the ultimate sanction, the withdrawal of its licence.
Original 106 was the first analogue radio licence in the UK to be awarded an "adult album alternative format". But it has struggled to make an impact in its market in its 12 months on air. Out of a potential audience of 1.6 million listeners in Southampton, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and the Isle of Wight, it had a weekly reach of 32,000 people in the first six months of this year, according to the latest official Rajar figures.
Original 106 had a reach of 2% and an audience share of just 0.5%.
Monitored across three 24-hour periods, Ofcom found on average 44% of its output was top 20 hits. It rose to 56% during daytime and 67% at weekday peak time.
Original 106's format requires it to play predominantly album tracks from the full range of adult orientated genres, including adult rock, adult soul, R&B and blues, adult mellow and adult eclectic from the 60s to the present day.
CanWest became the first foreign non-European media company to be awarded an FM licence in the UK two years ago.
Its other UK radio stations are Original 106.5 in Bristol and Original FM in Aberdeen.
CanWest is one of Canada's largest media companies, with more than 65 domestic TV, radio, newspaper and online brands. |