Why a Sustainable Future for Radio Needs More Voices at the Table
The 2026 Radio Review must look beyond existing institutions if it is to support a diverse, resilient and publicly valuable media system.
The Government’s 2026 Radio Review will influence how people receive radio, who can provide services and how broadcasting spectrum is used well into the 2040s. These decisions affect ownership, market entry, local accountability and whose voices will be heard in the future media system.
Better Media has written to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport because independent, community and civic media organisations have not been given a sufficiently meaningful role in shaping the Review. A sustainable media system must support new entrants, locally rooted services, specialist broadcasters and organisations that create social and civic value.
Participation Must Mean More Than Receiving a Briefing
In March 2026, DCMS told Better Media that it would welcome our representations, add us to the list of stakeholders for planned Radio Review sessions and advise us about opportunities to contribute.
When no invitation, timetable or defined route for participation followed, Better Media wrote again in June. We asked how independent, community and civic media organisations would be able to contribute before the Review’s assumptions and priorities became fixed.
A recent briefing from DCMS official Ian O’Neill provided useful information about the Review’s workstreams. Meaningful participation also requires an opportunity to submit evidence, question assumptions, identify missing issues and understand how contributions will affect the final report. If engagement begins after the main parameters have been established, organisations outside the existing institutional structure have little opportunity to shape the questions being asked.
Sustainability Must Include New Entrants
The Government says the Review will examine future listening patterns and distribution strategies and make recommendations to strengthen the viability of UK radio into the early 2040s. It is due to report in autumn 2026. The Government also reports that more than 85 per cent of UK adults listen to radio each week and that 74.6 per cent of listening is already through digital platforms. Read the Government’s Radio Review announcement.
These figures show both radio’s continuing importance and the scale of the transition under way. Long-term viability depends on more than the ability of established broadcasters to maintain their existing services across changing platforms.
A sustainable media system needs affordable routes for new providers, a range of ownership models, services rooted in different communities and enough income, skills and infrastructure to support original programming. Consolidation may reduce costs for some operators while narrowing the number of organisations making editorial and investment decisions. Policy must leave room for renewal.
Spectrum Policy Is Also Market Policy
Debates about FM, AM, DAB and internet distribution can sound highly technical. In practice, decisions about spectrum determine who can broadcast, the areas they can serve and the costs they must meet.
As audiences move towards digital listening, maintaining national analogue networks may become less attractive to large broadcasters. FM and AM can still provide accessible and resilient reception, particularly for people using older equipment or living where digital and internet coverage is less dependable. They can also offer routes to local broadcasting.
The Review should therefore examine what happens to spectrum and capacity that established broadcasters may no longer require. Frequencies released from national or large-scale use could support community stations, civic broadcasters, specialist services, temporary services and new local entrants. Any change must be tested against listener access and public value.
Licence areas, transmission obligations, licence duration and the treatment of unused capacity all influence who can enter the market. Frequency management is a form of market design.
More Stations Do Not Automatically Mean Greater Plurality
The expansion of small-scale DAB has created important opportunities. Ofcom reported in June that 108 small-scale multiplexes were operating, carrying 1,152 programme services, with another 50 multiplexes licensed and expected to launch. Read Ofcom’s small-scale DAB update.
That is a substantial achievement. The number of services alone, however, does not tell us whether the system has become more plural. We also need to know who owns and controls them, how much original and locally produced programming they carry, whether they serve previously under-represented audiences and whether they offer distinct editorial voices.
Ofcom describes media plurality in terms of the diversity of viewpoints available and preventing any one owner or voice from exercising too much influence. Read Ofcom’s explanation of media plurality. The Radio Review should examine ownership, control, content and accountability alongside the number of stations on air.
Diversity Makes the System More Resilient
A media system made up of different organisations, business models, technologies and relationships with audiences is less dependent on the decisions or fortunes of a small number of institutions.
Local and community broadcasters can provide information that national services cannot reproduce. Specialist stations can serve audiences whose interests are too specific for mass-market programming. Independent providers can test formats and services that larger organisations may regard as commercially marginal.
These services also create routes into broadcasting, develop skills and enable communities to participate in public conversation. Their value cannot always be measured through audience scale alone. Better Media’s earlier Radio Review discussion has emphasised fair access to distribution, sustainable independent supply and the civic role of broadcasting.
What Better Media Is Asking For
Better Media is asking DCMS to honour its earlier assurance that we would be included in the Review’s stakeholder engagement.
Before the Review is finalised, independent, community and civic media organisations need a structured opportunity to submit evidence on diversity of supply and ownership, barriers facing new entrants, the future use of analogue spectrum, the effectiveness of small-scale DAB, unused capacity and the social value of broadcasting. DCMS should explain how that evidence will be considered in the final report.
The Radio Review can help create a broadcasting system that is economically sustainable, publicly accountable and open to a wider range of providers. The organisations expected to contribute to that diversity need a meaningful role in shaping the decisions ahead.