Radio boss in battle of the airwaves

RADIO Warrington’s bid to gain a five year FM licence could be dashed – with licence provider Ofcom claiming there is no room left on the airwaves and only accepting bids for an inferior quality medium wavelength for the town.
Steve Lewis, (pictured) station manager at the town’s community radion station is angered by the decision and is urging Warrington Borough Council and others in the town to join his fight against the ruling.
He is particularly angry after a lot of time and effort went into putting forward a bid in 2007, which failed, with a licence being granted to another station which has since gone bust,while Warrington’s commercial station has moved out of town to neighbouring Wigan.
With new licence applications coming around again, Ofcom, state only AM (medium wave) applications will be considered.
Steve said:”It states that there are no FM frequencies available in Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington, Chester, Leeds, Bradford, Scunthorpe, Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham. However there are some for Lancashire, Crewe OR Nantwich, Huddersfield OR Halifax OR Dewsbury, Sheffield and finally Southport.
“We would argue that Warrington is a good distance from any other community radio station and is not served by any other station because as it falls on the borders of Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester and is not served by any of these.
“It is also not served very well by BBC Radio Merseyside, Lancashire and frankly, if Ofcom had approved our application in 2007 when there were more frequencies around, rather than approving groups so irregular geographically, then there would not be a problem.
“Also if Wire FM had been made to abide by their original community commitment instead of moving to Wigan and nationally networking 60 per cent of their output then there would not be a need for community radio so it could be argued that Ofcom have caused this injustice in the first place.”
In September 2010, Warrington South David Mowat MP wrote to Ed Richards, Chief Executive Officer at Ofcom and the following month he had a meeting in London with Adam Higgitt, Ofcom’s Director of Government and Parliamentary business. In his subsequent letter, Mr Higgitt stated that Merseyside, Cheshire and Greater Manchester would not be invited to apply on FM and that Warrington would be likely to be added to that list.
However, the fact still remains that Warrington is a long distance from many other licensed community radio stations in the north west and that with a little effort, a suitable one could be found around the lower end of the waveband.
Steve added : After all, a community radio station is only supposed to have a range of 5km.
“If we are unsuccessful in getting this decision reversed and are forced to apply for a license on AM with all of its technical difficulties along with
listener’s unwillingness to listen to bad quality sound, then a community radio station for Warrington is likely to fail which would be a great shame and a great waste of time and effort for everyone.
It can’t be right that so many towns have community radio stations with lovely clear FM radio stations and Warrington is forced to endure crackly (AM) medium wave!”
Messages of support for Warrington receiving an FM licence can be emailed to Steve at stevelewis@radiowarrington.co.uk