Ofcom finds 15 community radio stations in breach for late or no financial reports

Regulator Ofcom has announced 15 stations have been found in breach of their licences for not filing their finance reports in time.

Nine of these radio stations subsequently submitted a late report, Ofcom added.

Failure by a licensee to submit a finance report when required represents a serious and fundamental breach of a community radio licence, as the absence of the information contained in the report means that Ofcom is unable to properly carry out its regulatory duties.

Ofcom requested finance reports for the calendar year 2023 from all community radio licensees who were broadcasting for the whole of 2023.

“It is of fundamental importance that Ofcom can verify that a licensee is complying with its licence requirements relating to funding,” Ofcom says. “We therefore require licensees to submit a finance report setting out how they have met their licence obligations. The finance reports from stations also inform Ofcom’s own understanding of the community radio sector, and financial information about the sector features in the Communications Market Report.”

Those stations reporting late were:

• Air FM
• Awaaz FM
• Bute Island Radio
• EAVA FM
• Fiesta FM
• Juice Radio
• Liverpool Community Radio
• Radio2Funky
• Skyline Gold 102.5

The remaining six still have not filed a report:

• 1BTN
• Halton Community Radio
• Juice FM Belfast
• KCC Live
• Revival FM
• Ujima Radio