From January 2015, volunteers helping out at Salford City Radio will have to pay to work at the station, following a cut of £15,000 in its grant from Salford Council.
Currently, 87 volunteers work at the community radio station which, this year, has a Council grant of £56,000. A Council report states that the station should be more self sufficient and disclosed that in 2012/13 "advertising related to just 7% of funding"...
The report adds that "the decrease in funding will encourage Salford City Radio to become more self sufficient and should help to provide a more sustainable business model whilst also providing a saving to the Council".
Set up in 2007 with encouragement from the then Eccles MP Ian Stewart and headed up by Councillor Jim King, the station has a licence to broadcast until 2017.
Now, the Council states that the £15,000 cut should be made up by increasing commercial advertising revenue by £6,000 per year, finding grant funding of £5,000 a year, holding fundraising events to make £2,000 a year – and introducing "service user fees" to make a further £2,000 a year.
The fees charged to volunteers will be around £26 per year, or around 50p per week, depending on circumstances.
"We understand the Council have to make cuts because of the loss of funds from
central Government" says Paul Barber, Station Manager at Salford City Radio "We regret this of course and will need to deal with the cuts as best we can.
"We have a 25% reduction which gives us some time to enable us to become more self-sufficient; a move many Community Radio stations are doing nationally" he adds "This cut will be offset by a combination of increased commercial activity, fundraising, grant applications such as the Community Radio Fund and implementing member fees for our volunteers.
"It is common for Community Radio stations that are, or looking, to become self-funding to have fees in place but we have been lucky enough to be able to mostly avoid it due to our public funds" he explains "It was implemented a few years ago when we received a cut but we managed to reduce our running costs the following year allowing us to put a hold on it until now. The fee equates to 50p per week per volunteer.
"Those who volunteer with us love what they do for the community and their own development in terms of media skills" he says "Their individual contributions, in conjunction with general fundraising ventures, will assist in ensuring we have a continued quality service broadcasting to over 30,000 people every month, developing careers, delivering training and providing a much needed platform for many local projects and initiatives to promote their services In addition, we are ramping up our commercial advertising options so would welcome any of your readers to get in touch if they have a business to promote."
For further details see www.salfordcityradio.org or tune in 94.4fm Salford City Radio
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