Poole’s Hot Radio remains in breach for insufficient local content

Ofcom has found Poole’s Hot Radio in breach of its Key Commitments for the second time in 12 months for continuing to broadcast insufficient content specifically about Poole.

The community radio station says it wants to focus on two further areas – Christchurch over 10 miles away from Poole according to Google Maps, and the larger town of Bournemouth to the east of Poole.

But Ofcom says the station must do what it was licensed to do – provide a radio service for the people of Poole, which has a population of over 140,000 people.

After listening to recordings of the station in March 2024, Ofcom found that there was insufficient content to distinguish the service from a service targeting the wider Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area. Though there were examples of Poole being mentioned directly regarding local events, much of the focus was on other areas, specifically Bournemouth which is outside of the coverage area.

Since 2019, Poole has been part of a new unitary authority known as BCP, bringing three towns together as one conurbation, something which the station wants Ofcom to recognise and agree to a coverage area increase.

But even though Ofcom has not agreed to change its FM coverage area, the station continues to provide content for the wider area.

The station is official partner for events outside Poole, including the Bournemouth Air Festival and the Dorset Wine Festival, based in Christchurch, and promotes other events and businesses in places which have their own local community radio stations such as Wimborne and Ferndown in east Dorset.

Since its last breach, Hot Radio says it has introduced a feature called “Positive news from Poole” however, Ofcom commented that for the week monitored it considered that the Licensee had not met its character of service to focus on Poole.

Hot Radio has managed to change part of its Key Commitments by removing the word ‘bulletin’ from its requirement to provide ‘news bulletins’, but again, Ofcom says, even with the word “bulletins” removed from the Licensee’s Key Commitments, there is still a requirement to broadcast news, including local news from Poole.

Ofcom concluded: “We are concerned that just under a year later the Licensee has failed to make all necessary changes to its content to come into compliance with its current Key Commitments, although we acknowledge that the Licensee is now meeting its music commitment and has improved its adherence to its character of service. Furthermore, with the recent approval of Hot Radio’s Key Commitment change to omit the word “bulletins” from its speech requirement we expect it to be more able to meet this requirement going forwards.

“We therefore expect the Licensee to work to rectify these issues immediately. We will monitor this service to ensure that Hot Radio is complying with the Key Commitments.”