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…
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The Labour government is beginning to assemble a substantial programme of media policy. BBC Charter renewal is under way. A new Media Green Paper considers the future of Public Service Media and the prominence of trusted news online. The Amplify Local Media Action Plan addresses the sustainability of local journalism. Ofcom is being encouraged to…
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Ofcom has now published its final Licensing Priorities for Broadcast Radio statement following the consultation earlier in 2026. Better Media argued that future radio licensing should place greater emphasis on access, plurality, competition and the sustainable growth of smaller, independent and community-based services. Several parts of Ofcom’s final position closely reflect those points. Small-Scale DAB…
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Better Media’s response to the government’s Watch This Space consultation starts from a simple proposition: the future of UK media should not be designed solely around the preservation of established institutions. It should be built around the information, cultural and democratic capabilities that citizens and communities need. The submission welcomes the consultation’s recognition that technological…
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The following is the full text of the response Better Media submitted to Part 1 of Ofcom’s ‘Review of Local Media in the UK’. Credit to our member Rob Watson for doing the majority of the work preparing this response. It was submitted on September 2nd, 2024. This is Better Media’s response to Ofcom’s Local…
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The following is an open letter to Angela Rayner, the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Lisa Nandy, the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom, written by Better Media member Rob Watson for Decentered Media on 10th July 2024. We republish it here…
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Over the past few weeks, we at Better Media have been working on putting together a submission to the Ofcom consultation on its proposed Plan of Work for the financial year 2024/25. Our submission focused on much-needed reforms to radio spectrum allocation, a need for more detail on the planned Local Media Review, and some areas…
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Over the past few weeks, we at Better Media have been working on putting together a submission to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) consultation on future licensing arrangements for analogue (AM & FM) community radio. In our view the DCMS proposals are based on flawed evidence and assumptions, and as such we advocate…
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Over the past few weeks, we at Better Media have been working on putting together a submission to the Ofcom consultation on proposed changes to the performance measurement framework (PMF) it uses to assess the BBC’s performance. The proposed new PMF updates the existing framework from 2017, but in our view it is lacking in several respects.
Over the past few weeks, we at Better Media have been working on putting together a submission to the Culture, Media and Sport committee in response to their call for input to the government’s draft Media Bill. The Bill, drafted in March, is intended to update the Communications Act 2003 and provide new guidance for the development of public service broadcasting (PSB) in a time of major change throughout media. Our submission was completed and submitted on 11th May.