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Community Radio - The Early Years Expanding Independent Local Radio ILR - Where Did It All Go Wrong?
The Brief:
Construct a fully operational radio studio - for under £10,000.
Chris Hibbert, IBA Principal Engineer (Quality Control), describes how the IBA took up the challenge at the 1987 Radio Academy Festival.
The challenge was two-fold: put together an inexpensive radio studio of the type which emerging Community Radio groups might afford, but which was also suitable for various radio organisations to broadcast from nationwide during the 1987 Radio Academy Festival.
The IBA Engineering Division took up the challenge - with considerable success.
The Radio Academy held its 1987 Festival in July at Bristol University. The organising committee felt it would enhance the atmosphere of the Festival this year if there was a studio from which Independent Radio and BBC National and Local stations could originate their programmes throughout the two days of the Festival. So Paul Brown, the IBAs Head of Radio Programming and a member of the Festival organising committee, approached Engineering Division to see what we could do to help.
Dual Purpose
As one who has been involved with the setting of technical standards for Independent Radio studios over the years, I was keen to take the opportunity for the IBA to answer the critics of our Code of Practice, and to demonstrate that it is possible to put together a good-quality radio studio quite inexpensively
The Festival was held this year in the wake of the Government Green Paper on Radio, and so we thought it would be appropriate to construct the type of simple self-operation studio which might be suitable for Community Radio use. We named it the Festival Community Studio, not only for the reason already explained, but also to illustrate the sense of community that exists within the Academy, which is made up of members from all parts of the radio industry.
We decided at an early stage not to construct a studio which would meet exactly the acoustic performance standards normally required by the IBA. In everyday broadcasting, adequate acoustical performance of studios is very important so that listeners are not distracted by unwanted sounds, and operators find microphone placing and signal control less demanding. But broadcasts from special events can be treated differently; in fact, we wanted a certain amount of 'atmosphere' to help paint on-air a picture of the Festival.
'Bathroom Effect'
It was thought necessary, however, to provide an enclosure which would enable the broadcasters to work with some security. So an exhibition enclosure with perspex windows was chosen. Having surrounded ourselves with highly reflective surfaces we had to treat the inner walls acoustically to avoid the 'bathroom effect'. However, as there was. no ceiling this allowed the 'atmosphere' to be collected by the microphones but eliminated the need for air conditioning, although some fans were installed so that the studio occupants did not bake.
Having set the acoustic standards appropriate to the event, the search then started for the necessary equipment to set up the studio. Our aim was to use inexpensive and, where possible, British equipment. This limited our choice somewhat but, with the help of ASC Ltd, we were able to assemble a 12 channel mixing desk with microphone inputs for the presenter plus two guests, two gram units (Technics SL-1200), two cartridge players (for jingles etc) and a carttridge record/replay unit.
There was also a reel-to-reel tape machine and a cassette recorder and, as there was a telephone line available, we installed a balancing unit and telephone which be used for 'phone-ins'. Other essential pieces of apparatus included headphones, an off-air check receiver and monitoring loudspeakers with amplifier.
All of the equipment was checked to see if capable of meeting the IBA standards; it was encouraging to find that in fact it did! It was all housed in a proprietary-built wrap-around' console which was contructed from mellamine-coated chipboard and metal extrusion. The addition an on-air lamp and a quartz kitchen clock (with minutes added to the face by the IBAs Graphics team!) brought the total bill to £9,420.00
| Here,
then,
was
our
'typical' Community Radio
self-operation studio. It
was not going to be possible to use it exactly as it stood because it
needed to be connected to the BBC National networks and to the Local
Radio stations which had been sporting enough to agree to use it. In
its natural habitat the Community Studio would connect simply to a
low-power VHF transmitter located, say, on the roof of the building.
However, the broadcasting organisations using it on this occasion were
remote. So distribution amplifiers, communications equipment and lines-
testing equipment were therefore added. These are not included in the
bargain price! The Hot Seat The Academy organising committee, in their enthusiasm, had drawn up a full schedule for the studio throughout.the two days: Thursday 16th July: 0930 to 1100 Ken Bruce, BBC Radio 2 1100 to 1130 BBC Radio Bristol Interviews 1130 to 1400 Al Read Show, BBC Radio Bristol 1400 to 1730 Paul Phear Show, GWR 1730 onwards LBC Festival inserts Friday, 17th July: 10930 to 1130 Simon Bates BBC Radio 1 1130 to 1400 Steve Ellis Show, Severn Sound |
 John
Whitney, Director General of the IBA, chats with Steve Ellis of Severn
Sound radio, one of the many presenters who went on air from the IBA's
specially constructed studio at the Radio Academy Festival
|
We negotiated with British Telecom the circuits necessary to enable our studio to be connected to all the participating companies' home studios. They provided us with a stereo circuit out of the building by radio link to their Network Switching Centre in Bristol. From there, it was split to BBC Bristol, GWR in Bristol and Severn Sound in Gloucester. There was also a mono feed to LBC. The BBC were then able to route the signals on to London from their regional centre. This meant that all the participating organisations received the output of the studio continuously. The addition of monitor return lines from out-of-area stations and control lines completed the necessary communications and distribution system.
Close Co-operation
So how did it all go? At the risk of being challenged, although we had the odd hiccup, it was a success - it had to be a 'first' in radio broadcasting to have BBC and ILR programmes transmitted sequentially from a simple studio built by the IBA for under £10,000. It should also be borne in mind that all the presenters were totally unfamiliar with the equipment and had little time to settle in and get used to the controls.
The interviewees in our studio included Gillian Reynolds, Tim Blackmore, Hugo Young, Mike Smith and John Whitney, the IBAs Director General, on LBC and Severn Sound. Although we were on the air, visitors were welcome and had I been a salesman I could have sold several of the studio packages throughout the two days.
I am grateful to my colleagues in the IBA Engineering and Information Divisions for all their help in this venture. Thanks go also to the Engineering Department of GWR Radio and BBC Radio Operations. I was particularly glad to have the help of a colleague from the BBC, not being used to their ways of operating. Even then between us we managed to lose the first few minutes of Simon Bates' show when we put a jack plug in the wrong hole! Sorry Simon - that was the only mistake in the two days.
Chris Hibbert, IBA Principal Engineer.
[Source IBA. 1987]
Chris Hibbert kindly adds: "Here are a couple of pictures to go with the text. I am the guy standing on the left and the guy on the right is from BBC Bristol - sorry it was a long time ago!" - [March 2011]
The Community Radio Studio -
Photograph kindly submitted by Chris Hibbert in March 2011
The 1987 Radio Festival Studio by Quentin Howard
Being GWR's chief engineer at the time I helped Chris Hibbert and Len Lewis of ASC Ltd get the studio and the BT circuits together. I remember there was no direct dialogue between "us" in ILR and "them" at the BBC - it all had to go through the IBA. In those days there was a divide - hostility even - between ILR and BBC.
In live operation we noticed a stark contrast between the BBC and commercial radio. Basically, the BBC network presenters appeared unable to self-op the desk, in particular they couldn't get music and speech levels anywhere near right. Ken Bruce's Radio 2 programme on the first day was a bit of a technical disaster and there was consternation at BH (the hotline from BH Control Room to the Radio Festival studio was red with expletives). We thought there must be something very wrong with the mixer. Things settled down for the subsequent Radio Bristol and GWR programmes and we realised the concept of trimming levels on prefade must be an alien concept to these big name network presenters. We had to think up a way to allow secondary control of this pretty basic desk before the next day's live Radio 1 programme (we could't use a compressor, these were forbidden under IBA rules). I offered to drive the desk for Simon Bates but this idea was firmly rejected by BBC brass (I later heard there was no way they'd allow an ILR engineer to control BBC output!).
Instead we jury-rigged the auxilliary bus from the mixer to a second sub-mixer so that the two gram and two cart channels could be controlled as a group and returned it back into the main mixer, hoping to give BH something like a balance. BH still wasn't happy but probably couldn't do much about it, particularly in the presence of the industry's big wigs at the Radio Festival.
Simon Bates' levels were still all over the place and the engineers at BH were hopping mad, blaming Chris and me for every incompetence under the sun. At 11.30am, Steve Ellis took over from Simon Bates. In the 60 seconds we had to hot-seat it, Chris ripped out the auxilliary sub-mix and Steve went on-air live to Gloucestershire with no fuss whatsoever. The feed was still going to BH and 10 minutes later the hotline rang, it was the BH control room monitoring our output. "What have you done?" they asked, "the levels are perfect now. What equipment are you using that you didn't give us?" With a wry smile Chris replied,"We did nothing, It's an ILR self-op presenter, they just know how to control levels better than your lot."
As a commercial radio engineer I found the panic coming out of BH fascinating. I have no doubt heads rolled because what went out on Radio 1 and 2 really was pretty awful. Of course the experiment was never repeated and rarely talked about afterwards. But the IBA had proved their point - studios didn't have to cost a fortune despite the often blamed IBA Code of Practice, and this high profile demonstration paved the way for acceptance of more modestly priced equipment. Eventually the IBA Code of Practice was scrapped altogether but whether that was a good move or not is another matter!
Quentin Howard
2010
The Community Radio Studio 1987
- Photograph kindly submitted by Chris Hibbert in March 2011
Chris Hibbert comments:
"You can just make out Quentin Howard (later to build Classic fm) sitting second from right in the picture showing the location (above and right).
Sorry, I can’t remember the BBC man’s name. He was from BBC Bristol technical operations and was sent to find out what was going on when Simon Shute, BBC head of national radio operations in London, found out where the OB feed was coming from! Jonny Beerling, head of Radio 1, had not told Simon about the arrangement.
Much consternation at Broadcasting House that a BBC national broadcast was going to air with no BBC technical operators."
Chris Hibbert comments: "You can just make out Quentin Howard (later to build Classic fm) sitting second from right in the picture showing the location (above and right).
Sorry, I can’t remember the BBC man’s name. He was from BBC Bristol technical operations and was sent to find out what was going on when Simon Shute, BBC head of national radio operations in London, found out where the OB feed was coming from! Jonny Beerling, head of Radio 1, had not told Simon about the arrangement.
Much consternation at Broadcasting House that a BBC national broadcast was going to air with no BBC technical operators."
Community
Radio - The Early Years
Expanding
Independent
Local
Radio
ILR
- Where
Did It All Go Wrong?
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