News story about the thirtieth birthday celebrations of UK local commercial radio station 'Radio Forth' in the Edinburgh market, written by Grant Goddard in January 2005 for The Radio Magazine.

1. NEWS: EDINBURGH'S 'RADIO
FORTH' CELEBRATES
THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY
by
GRANT GODDARD
www.grantgoddard.co.uk
January 2005

2. News: Edinburgh's 'Radio Forth' Celebrates Thirtieth Birthday page 1
©2005 Grant Goddard
'Radio Forth' celebrates thirty years of broadcasting this week, in the very
month when its owner, Scottish Radio Holdings, is expected to be the object of
a takeover bid by EMAP.
At 6am on 22 January 1975, then programme controller Richard Findlay
launched the station with the hit song 'January' by Edinburgh group Pilot. The
first presenter on that day, Steve Hamilton, remembers being terrified. “We’d
rehearsed for about two months beforehand,” he told the local press,
“pretending we had an audience and getting the hang of the equipment –
some of us never quite managed that! There was real excitement. We were the
second commercial radio station in Scotland – Clyde was about a year and
half before us. What made it great was that in those days, radio was run by
people who lived and loved music, not by accountants."
Richard Findlay’s son Adam was appointed to the same post his father
eventually held, Radio Forth managing director, last September and faces
challenges from both EMAP and the new talk station 'Dunedin FM' licensed by
Ofcom to launch later this year. "Yes, there are a lot of threats on the horizon,"
admitted Findlay. "The threats are far stretching. Dunedin will have an impact
on us. But on what level, it remains to be seen. Their format is entirely different
from what we have. In terms of offering competition to our format … I’m almost
certain that won’t happen."
Colin Somerville, former music director at Forth FM, said that in recent times
the station has lost some of its community feel that had made it successful with
listeners. "The strength of community was once very strong,” he told the local
press. “People still talk today about the 'Snowline' which was launched in 1978
during a particularly severe winter and which proved just how effective local
commercial radio could be. But then there became a need for the station to be
seen as more sophisticated, as rivals to the likes of [BBC] Radio One, and
that’s when Forth and many others found themselves in real difficulty."
Somerville said that the main threat to Forth is from the regional station 'Real
Radio' that launched in January 2002 (replacing 'Scot FM') and which now
commands a 14% share of listening in Edinburgh. During that time period, the
two Forth stations’ combined share has fallen from 19% to 16%. Somerville
said the solution is for Forth to get back to basics and to do more for the local
community. Forth management say that they have exciting plans to reinforce
that very message during the station’s thirtieth birthday year. But such plans
may be pre-empted by EMAP’s acquisition of the entire operation in the next
few weeks.
[First published in 'The Radio Magazine' as 'Forth Celebrates 30 Years', #667, 22 January 2005]
Grant Goddard is a media analyst / radio specialist / radio consultant with thirty years of
experience in the broadcasting industry, having held senior management and consultancy
roles within the commercial media sector in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. Details at
http://www.grantgoddard.co.uk