Three Merseyside stations are among 15 community radio stations that Ofcom has found in breach of licences for not filing their finance reports in time. Nine of the stations subsequently submitted a late report, Ofcom added.
Liverpool Community Radio, Halton Community Radio, and Knowsley’s KCC Live late reports meant that the Liverpool City Region topped the charts for breaches both regionally and nationally, with two channels in Scotland and one in Preston, Lancashire also on the hitlist.
Failure by a licensee to submit a finance report when required represents a serious and fundamental breach of a community radio licence, as the absence of the information contained in the report means that Ofcom is unable to properly carry out its regulatory duties.
Ofcom requested finance reports for the calendar year 2023 from all community radio licensees who were broadcasting for the whole of 2023.
“It is of fundamental importance that Ofcom can verify that a licensee is complying with its licence requirements relating to funding,” Ofcom said. “We therefore require licensees to submit a finance report setting out how they have met their licence obligations. The finance reports from stations also inform Ofcom’s own understanding of the community radio sector, and financial information about the sector features in the Communications Market Report.”
The stations reporting late were:
- Air FM (Dorset)
- Awaaz FM (Southampton)
- Bute Island Radio (Bute Island, Scotland)
- EAVA FM (Leicester)
- Fiesta FM (Southampton)
- Juice Radio (Preston)
- Liverpool Community Radio (Liverpool)
- Radio2Funky (Leicester)
- Skyline Gold 102.5 (Hampshire)
The remaining six still have not filed a report:
- 1BTN (Brighton)
- Halton Community Radio (Runcorn, Merseyside)
- Juice FM Belfast (Belfast)
- KCC Live (Knowsley, Merseyside)
- Revival FM (Glasgow)
- Ujima Radio (Bristol)
