Tudno F M

[DaveR]

Hmmm....Three Towns Radio?   

http://radio.about.com/od/createinternetradio/a/How-to-Create-Your-Own-Internet-Radio-Station_3.htm

[Waffagolf]

Community Radio Stations really come into their own in times of bad weather, traffic accidents, disasters like the 93' flooding, snow blocked roads, school closures. It's at times like that that the Community turn to their Community Radio for first hand, up to the minute news on whatever it is thats transpiring at that moment. For the medium of radio, and moreso in many ways, Community Radio, is instant, and programming can change direction in an instant.

Tudno FM's lack of local news is at times astounding. The lack of news at all, at times is jaw dropping. News is fundamental to any radio station, but for Community Radio it can be the backbone and the hook that keeps people from tuning into another station. By provoking serious community issues through debate, by stimulating responses, Tudno FM can provide their own community news stories.

I recently obtained copies of Tudno FMs accounts up to 2010, and was flabbergasted to read that over a three year period, they have spent approx £93,000 on, wait for it, Consultants. Thats somewhere in the region of £100 a day, every day, for three years...ON CONSULTANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since the radio station started, their fundraising activities have yeilded in the region of £9k to £10k, so that being the case, does that mean the £93,000 has come from the public purse? If so, I suggest questions should be asked in relation to why so much has been spent on Consultants, who the Consultants were, what the Consultants provided for their money, who authorised payments, and sight of minutes would be helpful too, and sight of funding applications for such vast amounts of money for Consultants. I'm sorry, but to spend such a huge amount of money over three years on Consultants beggars belief. If it's public money, then the public should be told. If you visit the Charities Commission website or Companies House website, you can get copies of the accounts, it's all in the public domain.

But please don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to do anything else but to get the radio station to provide the service the Community, need, want and deserve, and as public money has enabled it to be there, then Tudno FM must show and prove that the service they are providing is Value For Money, public money, our money. It's not rocket science.

Mountains must be moved to keep Tudno FM going, the Community need it. They may not realise it yet, but they do, but only if the vision of what true Community Radio is all about is adhered to, worked on, and brought about. A Community Radio Station can and should be a vital, no, essential part of a Community. For any Community Radio Station to be successful, it must be run by a team of people who have a 'Passion' for it, it's how it is.

A few years ago I applied for a grant, and sat down with a cup of coffee in Tesco in Llandudno Junction with the head of a particular funding body. This guy asked me to talk to him about the project I wanted the money for. When I finished telling him,he looked at me and said "This is your passion isn't it". I knew instantly he said that, that he would give me the grant, and he did.

Without that grant the project would never have come to fruition, but without the Passion for the project, there would have been no grant.

[Dwyforite]

the trouble i found with tudno fm is its lack of power/signal the last time i listened i was going along the 470 towards glan conwy corner quite enjoying the program till i started the rundown to glan conwy corner,nothing,gone zilch signal gone,at least when i was on the CB i could blast into rhyl during the day and liverpool at night.if a bricklayer /joiner takes his radio to work he should be able to listen to his local radio 15/20 miles away.another point is the lack of a local tone to the station,on holiday in tenerife i would listen to power fm and it would be advertising  certain bars, shops,local builders etc,it also used to run music quizs with small prizes such as two toasties  at the robin hood,an evening  meal for two at a seafood restaurant not big prizes but enough to get people in the bars cafes and at work interested.please forgive if i am not up to date on signal /format on tudno fm because i took the station off favourites on the car radio a while ago

[Waffagolf]

Two points in relation to the signal. 1.) A Community Radio Station such as Tudno FM only broadcasts to a radius of 5km, therefore the signal strength used, is used to cover that radius only, any coverage a CRS achieves outside of that is down to atmospherics.

For example, Tudno FM may have a defined potential audience of say 30,000 people within their Target Service Area (TSA), but due to atmospherics, the actual signal could go out to a potential 83,000 people. But the content of their programming must be dedicated solely to the Community that resides with its TSA. It has to be special to that area only.

2.) When the project was being brought about, NTL were brought in to do a site test from the summit of the Great Orme, and it was agreed and priced up, that the signal would go out from the top of the Great Orme sharing the use of the Capitol FM transmitter (a sprig if you like). It was a done and dusted deal, taking into account the fact that Llandudno has a lot of open water surrounding it, therefore the signal had to go out in a particular direction (not many listeners in the Irish sea). But when the Director who had worked tirelessly to bring this about was forced into leaving through the inaction of others, the others disregarded all the work done, and eventually placed the transmitter on the Ty Hapus building, which meant that the signal strength did not provide the same cover and strength as that agreed for the transmitter on the Great Orme. A missed opportunity that TFM are now paying the price for. It was stupid not to continue with what had already been put in place.

[Waffagolf]

I wish I knew how to put pictures up on here. I have copies of the orginal plans for the radio station which I feel sure everyone would like to see what was orginally proposed. It bears very little relation to what is currently in situ. Again they lost their way. Not the fault of those running the station now I hasten to add. At least I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

[Bri Roberts]

I am sure DaveR can help guide you as to how to upload photos.

If you are like me, you can always e-mail them to DaveR and he will be more than happy to carry out the task.

[Waffagolf]

Here's the coverage plot with colours = to signal. PINK being the strongest signal and BLUE being the weakest. But TFM did not use this for whatever reason.

[Waffagolf]

Here are the signal strengths colours = to strength of signal. A bit technical, but I hope you get the idea.

[Waffagolf]

Here is a plan of what Tudno FM studios was orginally planned to look like. An all self contained unit with the Ty Hapus complex. Money was sourced from Government to fund broadcasting equipment for each of the 4 studios, with each studio having exactly the same equipment in each. Meaning that anyone wanting to be trained up to do a show could be trained up in any studio and only need be trained up once, because all the equipment in each studio was identical. If you had 4 studios with different equipment in each, it would have meant 4 lots of training per person. Not a good idea.

Each studio was supposed to, as we say, 'Talk To Each Other', and be capable of each going 'Live On Air' at the touch of a button. One studio to be on air at any given time. One dedicated to News, one to avoid the need for 'Hot Seat Change Overs' / recording programmes, with the 4th studio being for training purposes to assist in funding bids to help financial sustainability.

You will see a circle in studio 1, that is the space needed for a wheelchair to get in and turn round. Important as 'Opportunity & Access For ALL' is key.

The Production Studio was to have a bank of computers that could be used for research purposes and for editing pre-recorded programmes that had been made in one of the 3 main studios, enabling the studio to be freed up quickly in order to allow others in to record their programmes (studio time is hard to find and can be expensive), whilst editing could be done in the production studio on a PC.

Also in the production studio there was to be an hexagonal studio table with several microphones for debates (face to face, with a technician in Studio ONE driving the programme whilst looking out through the studio window at the interview taking place. You should be able to make out on the plans that there was to be windows in each studio, so you could look from the production studio right down into studio 3.

But ALL this was never brought about, and I think it was complete madness not to do so.

[Waffagolf]

It was originally intended to have raked seating in the main hall at Ty Hapus. This was to be used by various community groups to put shows on etc. Tudno FM could have used that facility to hold Community debates (BBC Question Time type of thing). Seating was to be for 123 people. There was to be a link from the main hall into Tudno FM in order that Community debates could be broadcast 'Live' to the town. Imagine how wonderful that would have been, to have that facility to debate the topics of the Wind Farm, Hospital Services, Council Issues, Parking problems in town...I could go on. But again this never came to fruition and the Community lost out. It would have been great to have local councillors sat in front of a 'Live' studio audience asking them questions and have it go out 'LIVE ON AIR'....WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Trojan]

Derrick Orme seems to have wanted to base the station in an area of deprivation. Nice scenes here of the Tre Creuddyn Estate showing the mind boggling deprivation. 

Tudno FM 2010.mov

[DaveR]

I recently obtained copies of Tudno FMs accounts up to 2010, and was flabbergasted to read that over a three year period, they have spent approx £93,000 on, wait for it, Consultants. Thats somewhere in the region of £100 a day, every day, for three years...ON CONSULTANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found that figure amazing and decided to take a look myself:

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends46/0001111946_ac_20100630_e_c.pdf

In the last year (2010) alone, £34,970 was spent on Consultancy Fees. Who is getting this money and what on earth is it needed for?

[Yorkie]

At that rate it seems that they are employing consultants to see if they need consultants!   

More often than not it is the consultants who pursuade people that they need a consultant!   

Or is the money being drip fed to ?? under the guise of being consultancy fees?   I wonder if anyone from Tudno FM will stand up and give an answer?

[Waffagolf]

Tudno FM is situated where it is because it's in a Communities First area making it much easier to apply for grant funding. If it were outside of such an area, funding streams would not look too favourably on their applications for money. Grant funding is by no means an easy route to money though, you have to jump through many hoops. Forms are designed to put you off applying, not to help you. But if you are prepared to undertake such a vastly complicated and time consuming nightmare, then if you tick all the right boxes, you at least have a chance to succeed.

Derrick Orme has always been extremely helpful and knowledgable about such things. I know of one person who thinks very highly of him and calls him "The Funding Guru". He has of late been putting in many hours of volunteering at the station, in one week alone he put in around 34 hours.

I would like to think questions will begin to be asked regarding payments to Consultants. If you look near the back of each set of accounts you will see that some Trustees of the radio station did receive some consultancy fees (page 11 Item 7 year end 30th June 2010 - Page 11 Item 7 year end 30th June 2009 - Page 11 Item 7 Year End 30th June 2008) I'm led to understand that none of the Trustees who received a Consultancy fee are still involved with the station? But who was paid the other £60,000 plus in Consultancy fees, what for, and why etc etc.?

[Waffagolf]

Item 6:10 of the Community Radio Licence Application Form requires an applicant to, in a nutshell, ask the community what they want to hear on their Community Radio Station. As far as I am aware, the work needed to undertake the sourcing of that required information has never been carried out. Which means, all TFMs programming is in part pure guess work, and, I suggest, more often, purely left to presenter choice, as opposed to what it should be, i.e. Community led as a result of full consultation with the Community.

6.10     Tastes and Interests.  Section 105(1)(b) of the 1990 Broadcasting Act requires that, when considering a licence application, Ofcom takes into account the extent to which the applicant's proposals would cater for the tastes and interests of members of its target community (or communities).

When answering this question, please include findings from any research undertaken amongst members of your target community (or communities) together with any other information which demonstrates your understanding of their tastes and interests.  You should also provide evidence as to why your proposed programming (as previously described above) would be relevant and cater for such tastes and interests.[/b]

On numerous occasions, TFM have been pushed into carrying out the required work in relation to this legal obligation, someone even asked for times, dates and places as to where this work had been carried out, and received nothing in response. For goodness sake, if you are going to plan programming on any radio station you need to know who you target audience is, and in the case of a Community Radio Station, Ofcom request you to ask your target audience what they want to hear. An application must be accompanied by evidence that this work had been carried out. Copies of that evidence was requested by someone who lives in the town, but was never provided, I suggest because the work has never been done.

I would dearly love to see copies of any evidence TFM provided to Ofcom with their initial application, complete with full documented evidence of where, when and how the work was undertaken and by whom.

The following facts and figures correspond to the Colour = Signal Strength as shown above. This information is factual and based entirely on those who reside (at the time of the site survey), in the TFM transmission area. It gave TFM an idea as to who they would be broadcasting to. This taken together with the Ofcom Item 6:10 survey requirements in relation to what the Community wanted to listen to on their station, should have provided TFM with an excellent, and best opportunity possible, to get their programming right and in keeping with Community requirements and needs.