September 2011

IN CONVERSATION

...with Bill Jagger

This July, the Blyth Valley Community Radio celebrated its second birthday as an FM station, which is why I’m sitting at a table opposite its co-founder Bill Jagger in their Casino studio on Gun Hill on a beautiful sun-lit morning.

Tell me a little bit about yourself – like me you’re obviously not from around here

I originally came from Basildon in Essex and have been in electronics all my life. I went straight into an electronics firm as an apprentice when I left school. So I have always been interested in electronics and I’ve always been interested in radio. That’s how it all started. I never had time to do anything like this when I was in Essex because of being at work at the time. When eventually we left and retired to this area, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll have a go and see if we can start this community radio’.

How did that happen? Did an opportunity present itself?

You can’t just say you’re going to do a radio station. You have to go into it and find out what’s needed because obviously it has to go through Ofcom and you have to be licensed. So I had to find out what all the rules and regulations were and how to go about it. The first thing I did was to put a note in the local paper to see if anyone was likewise interested in helping me start it all off, and I was quite amazed by the response that I got. So we had a meeting and formed ourselves into a little group and got the thing off the ground.

The next thing was to find out from Ofcom how to apply for a licence. We didn’t know what licence we could apply for. Ofcom were very helpful, actually. They came back and said that the best thing was to go for a community radio licence and that we could apply for one in two years’ time.

For the next two years, we just worked out how we could do it and what we could do. We decided to start an Internet radio station as that would give us some idea of how to do it and would get us into the swing of doing regular programmes. So we managed to get that up and running after about a year. So for the first year, while we were waiting for our licence, we were on the Internet.

Then our licence came, so we went straight on to FM and, to cut a long story short, we got two studios, the original one at the Bunker. Why we actually started up at the Bunker was because we applied to several places around here to see if we get somewhere for a studio, somewhere that would be cheap, and St Felix School came up. We wrote to the school, and they said that we should come and have a look. We went up to see them and they offered us the Bunker, which we’re now in, free, and all the electricity we would be using free as well. We are indebted to them because that’s still going on now They still providing it free of charge, of course, including the electricity we’re using, and they’ve allowed us to put the transmitting aerial on top of one of their buildings. The transmitter’s all housed up there as well. St Felix School has helped us out extremely well. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are.

How long did it take in total?

Two years from the initial idea to getting the Internet programme up and running and then a further two years until we got the licence. It all takes time mainly because of getting enough money to buy the equipment and all that sort of thing. We had to try and beg the money from somewhere to do it all.

Where did you find the money?

As well as the offer of the studio and the electricity and such from St Felix, we have had donations from individuals, the local councils (Southwold Town Council and Reydon Parish Council), and businesses in the area – the Red Lion in particular. They have sponsored the Casino studio for us and they also sponsor a programme. They’ve done that from the word go and they’ve spent a lot of money with us. We’re indebted to people like that who continue to support us in that way.

We get sponsors for specific areas like paying the rent for this building, and then, in return, we let them sponsor a programme or that sort of thing.

We do get advertising. One of the Ofcom rules is that whatever money we make from advertising has to be at least equalled by money from other sources, ie from grants and donations.

We have had grants as well from Suffolk County Council, and some local people themselves have come up with donations. We had a particularly large donation from someone in this area, which we used to buy the equipment for the studio we are in now, for the Casino.

You and Sylvia are the originators of it all, but is there a core group of personnel around you?

Yes. By another of Ofcom’s rules, we had to form ourselves into a company. We had to have company directors, so we have six company directors. And then we’ve also got a lot of people that are members of the Radio. All the presenters are members of the Radio, and other people outside who are members just to support us. In total, we have about 25 presenters at the moment, all doing different types of programme, all doing their own thing really. We help to train other people now as well.

Some of the presenters have been on other stations. We’ve got one or two who have been on other stations and are on other stations at the moment, especially hospital radio. They come from there.

Most people have never have never done it before or picked up a microphone in their lives, including myself as far as radio is concerned. I’ve got the technical experience to get the studio wired up and keep it on air and transmitter experience, which Ofcom insists on. There has to be somebody with transmitter experience that can immediately be available should it be necessary. We’ve got another person that’s quite highly experienced in computing who can handle that side of things. We’ve got people from all walks of life who one way or another have some input.

No one gets paid. We’re all volunteers, every one of us. We all obviously thoroughly enjoy doing it because we wouldn’t be doing it otherwise!

Particularly at 7 in the morning!

Yes, exactly!

Do you have any dealings with anyone outside the area?

Yes, there are other community radio stations in Suffolk and we do have close ties with those. We do often work together for certain programmes. We also have a very close relationship with BBC Radio Suffolk. They send people along to give us training, and we’ve just had a whole day’s training with them. We send our people along to them to spend a day with them in their studios. It’s helped us enormously.

How far do you reach?

We’re limited by a particular area we can cover in our licence, so we can only cover Southwold, Reydon and the surrounding villages, an area of about ten miles’ radius. We would dearly love to bring in places like Halesworth and Beccles and even Lowestoft, which we officially don’t reach at the moment. We’re going to contact Ofcom to see if anything can be done where we can bring in those areas as well, maybe a bigger transmitter power or separate transmitters in those areas.

You mean extra studios?

It might even come to that. Our idea was to keep expanding as much as we can. We don’t want to sit back because bringing in other areas will hopefully bring in other interest and advertising. We’ve never got enough money.

We have the potential, but whether Ofcom can do it for us we don’t know at the moment. They might say that we can’t do that, we’ve got to open up other community stations instead, which we would be prepared to do, and we could then link them together.

So what’s the next step?

After opening the Casino this last year and getting the licence the year before, our next step now is to expand if we can beyond the Casino. When we got our first studio at the Bunker, it was our intention to try and expand and get another one, and this came along and now we’re in the Casino. We’re on the lookout all the time just to see if we can expand in whatever way we can, and obviously see how far the finances will allow us to expand. Of course, if we can get other areas, we can get more advertising and hopefully make more money, and take it from there.

How much work was required to convert the Casino?

It was completely empty inside and because it is a Listed Building we weren’t actually able to convert it at all. What we have done is put some carpet on the floor and put some furniture in it. The furniture is such that it is all free standing and none of it is fixed to the walls, so that, if we had to vacate for any reason, we could. We’ve not touched or damaged any part of the structure of the building inside. That’s why absolutely nothing is on the walls apart from a few posters, which can be peeled off. Nothing is screwed to the walls at all.

You must be quite pleased to able to get such a landmark of Southwold like the Casino

Very. When I first thought of the idea of doing a community radio station and we saw this building and saw that it was empty, I thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a studio in there?’. Well, two years later, we were offered it! Southwold Town Council said it was empty and would we perhaps like to take it over? We then obviously had to apply to Waveney District Council for permission to have it as a radio studio. And here we are.

How would you categorise your output?

Our average output is around 75% music and 25%–30% talk. We have all kinds of programmes and all kinds of music. We try to suit every taste in the area, but also we like to have a chat; we have programmes that are just chat programmes, where people come in and are interviewed about their work or what they do. We have a regular monthly programme for the Southwold and Reydon Society. We let them do their own thing. We do interview people, as you know, and that’s carried out by several different presenters. Other specialist music programmes don’t have a lot of chat. We’re also doing the breakfast show, where we have chat, music, traffic and travel updates and news and weather.

With the music programmes, I take it a lot of it depends on the knowledge of the presenter

Yes, we have jazz programmes, and classical music programmes, for instance, so we need people with specialist knowledge, so we do call on people with that to present the shows. The people who present the shows are actually members of Southwold and Reydon Jazz Society or Classical Music Society. Their people come into to do their programmes. But we do have other specialist programmes. I do a Country music programme on a Wednesday afternoon. I’ve got a bit of specialist knowledge as I like that music.

Are you open to suggestions from the public?

Indeed, we invite suggestions from people as to what sort of programmes they would like to hear, and then we try to convince them that they should be doing it!

Do you get feedback from people?

Yes, we are very pleased about the comeback that we get from people. We recently did a survey to try and find out what people wanted to hear and we have acted on that. This is why we now do a breakfast show, because that was one request from a lot of people, and also why we now do the news on the hour (we used to do it every two hours) because people said they wanted more news. So we do listen a lot to what people say.

You’ve just successfully had your second anniversary, did you do anything to celebrate that?

That’s when we started to broadcast at 7 am and started our Breakfast Show, and when we also started doing news on the hour. We had an open door for people to come and see us during the day (4th July). On the first show on air, the Breakfast programme, we had our local MP, Dr Therese Coffey, in the studio to help us get the programme started on the first day and to answer questions and queries from the public. They jammed the switchboard that morning!

What about the Royal Wedding celebrations?

We had very good day when we had the celebrations here on the day after the Royal Wedding. Some two or three thousand people actually turned up in the end. We provided the music for it and also we were live on air for the duration of the Royal Wedding celebrations themselves. We’d love to be involved in the Diamond Jubilee next year.

Finally, would you still welcome volunteers?

We can never have enough people. We’re always on the lookout for people for anything to do with the station, whether it’s the presenting or behind the scenes. Yes, anybody would be made most welcome.

The Blyth Valley Community Radio’s listings and contact details can be found elsewhere in this issue.

Note: this is a longer, uncut version of the ‘In Conversation’ that appeared in the print version of the September issue of The Organ.