The Local Radio Day initiative is back to celebrate all that is good about the sector on Monday 12th October 2020.
With significantly fewer local radio stations operating than this time last year, the day has never been more important. It sets out to highlight the value local radio brings to listeners and communities.
The Local Radio Alliance is partnering with BBC local stations, along with community and commercial services. A huge thanks to The Radio Academy, Community Media Association, and Community Radio Awards for their support.
This year’s theme is ‘Communities making waves: turning the tide on isolation’.
Local Radio Alliance was founded by Dom Chambers to explore how local radio can strengthen communities and help improve lives. “Audiences have been drawn to locally trusted voices offering both information we need as well as distracting us with great entertainment and music choices.
With the extraordinary year we have been having it was inevitable that our theme would be about communities taking action. We want to celebrate the heroes and organisations that stepped up in a national crisis to help their fellow people.
I hope shows will mention some of the hundreds of volunteers, engineers and staff that made sure the local airwaves were full of news, information and entertainment as lockdown kicked in.”
With restrictions in many parts of the country, the emphasis for this year will be on broadcast content. We hope in future years that we can get back to being physically out in the community.
Pledge to Talk
All BBC Local Radio stations have been running Make a Difference since the start of the lockdown. BBC Sussex and Surrey are taking this further with their Pledge to Talk campaign.
“We’re going to be asking our audiences to make a pledge to talk to someone who they haven’t spoken to in a while or at all – with the aim of checking in on how they are. For example, someone might pledge to talk to a family member who’s just gone back to Uni and are finding it hard.
People can make their pledges by calling BBC Sussex and Surrey or logging them on the station websites. This will run throughout the day on the 12th.”
BBC SuSSEX and SURREY, Editor, Mark Carter
Jeff Martin from Erewash Sound in Derbyshire spent years campaigning for a local radio station. He wanted to give the area a distinctive voice and has succeded. On the day the station will be turning on a second transmitter which will help build a larger local audience.
Vijay Umrao runs the multilingual radio station EAVA FM. He said: “EAVA FM is supporting the day. This is because we believe grassroots programmes are the future of a healthy society for broadcasters and listeners.”
Maxine Stride, Director at Local Radio Alliance said, “Whilst COVID restrictions have meant that the scope for broadcasters to get out into the communities is limited, the pandemic has also highlighted alternative ways to stay connected – including social media.
People of all ages have embraced technology as a way to reduce isolation and join their community in conversation, so there’s never been a better time to get involved across socials. It’s an impactful tool both for the radio industry and its listeners.”
Local Radio Alliance has released a free resource pack to everybody registered through localradioday.co.uk. The pack includes inspiration for participation, social media post templates, audio assets and more. We have collected a few examples of station celebrations in previous years on Twitter on our participation page. Registrations are welcomed right up to the day. Followers can use #LocalRadioDay to join in the conversation as well as by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
The article above is also published in RadioToday.
