Edinburgh Sucks! | Is Talk107 formerCouncilFM?

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Is Talk107 formerCouncilFM?

By The Basa ⋅ September 2, 2007 ⋅

It was sad to hear Talk107’s news today leading with the Scotland on Sunday non-story on SNP selling advertising for their conference (by the way SNP, can EdSucks get a press pass?) later in the year.Â The headline screamed Want to lobby the First Minister? Send a Â£10,000 cheque to the SNP, the body of the article told the truth:

“We offer this opportunity to all corporate businesses to join him and other SNP parliamentarians… to discuss any topic.” McCann added: “It is a good opportunity for people to hear what our plans are.”

and

“If people are up there as observers for a couple of days, there is a fair chance they can just buttonhole him at any point and say we are here or we are doing this fringe meeting, nice to meet you, etc etc.”

and

The SNP declares in its pack that it “cannot and will not offer meetings with ministers, the party leadership or senior party personnel in exchange for sponsorship”. And asked whether he could arrange a one-to-one meeting with Salmond, McCann said he could not.

Whilst there is possibly a reason the Scotland on Sunday would scream out such a misleading headline with Scotsman Publications being true labour supporters to casual readers of their publications, it is difficult to figure out exactly why Talk107 would want to go with a distortion of the truth hour after hour as well – especially as presenters such as Mike Graham andÂ Tommy SheridanÂ sayÂ they areÂ the voice of the people.

It may be worth looking at just how much truth comes out of the radio station which has been billing itself as “the fastest growing radio station in Scotland” for months now, REALLY:

In its original licence application of September 2004, The Wireless Group plc published initial audience projections for talk107. By the end of its first year on-air, the forecast was for an average weekly reach of 140,000 listeners (12.5% of a potential 1.1m), each listening for an average of 8 hours per week. However, in the weeks leading up to launch in February 2006, public predictions by station management saw estimates lowered to 100,000 listeners.

talk107’s first RAJAR results, published on 3 August 2006, revealed the station had made poor progress towards that target. In the three months from April to June 2006, the station attracted an average of only 16,000 listeners per week (2%), each listening for an average of 2.2 hours per week, leading to a market share of 0.2%. This was the lowest debut of any UK radio station in RAJAR’s history and resulted in talk107 being Scotland’s smallest, surveyed radio station. The station’s second RAJAR, published 26 October 2006, saw a modest increase in listeners to 23,000 (2%), with 3.8 average hours per listener and a doubling of market share to 0.4%. February 2007 saw another increase to 34,000 and 4.3 average hours. In May 2007, this rose to 43,000 and 5.7 average hours, taking market share above 1%. August 2007 saw talk107’s performance slipping, with the number of weekly listeners decreasing to 26,000, a slight increase in listening hours to 5.8, and a decrease in market share to 0.8%.

Oh, That’s what they call growth!Â Listen to the station with a pinch of salt we would say.Â Â Before the election,Â posters on EdSucks had called Talk107 CouncilFM because of a seeming bias towards the ruling Labour administration but now the election is over should we be calling them formerCouncilFM?

We would be happy to put a spokesperson together if Talk107 would like to discuss on air.

Hat tip to Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_107