Trade body: radio stations "over-regulated"

Andrew Harrison, the head of commercial radio trade body RadioCentre, has called for a further relaxation of regulations governing how the industry operates.

Telling the Financial Times that the UK's commercial radio industry was "over-regulated," Harrison claimed that media regulator Ofcom needed to further loosen regulations in order to permit the sector to better compete with BBC Radio and a plethora of new online audio services.

"There is no doubt that if you look at the number of regulators working in radio and the sector's size that - compared with TV - radio has a high regulatory burden," Harrison told the paper. "What we need is for Ofcom to set a liberal environment so licence holders can thrive and make money. That is in the listeners' interests."

Earlier this week, UKRD announced plans to hand back one of its FM licences in protest at Ofcom's regulatory regime. The regulator declined UKRD's request to allow Star FM in Stroud to share programming with a neighbouring Star-branded station in Cheltenham, although it said it would permit the two stations to be co-located.

Harrison, a former marketer with Nestlé and Procter and Gamble, added: "If stations can't make a success from licences, it is listeners who will lose out. The broad thrust we want is for less regulation, less format restriction and more opportunity to secure long-term revenues."