Capturing the Social Benefits of Community Radio

Martin Steers | Tuesday 4th February 2025 11:03pm

Community radio stations across the UK are regularly asked to demonstrate their social gains and benefits. Yet what this means in practice can be uncertain. To help understand the needs of the UK community radio sector, Ofcom has commissioned independent research to explore ways in which the sector's social gains can be measured and evaluated.

This research is a unique opportunity for the UK community radio sector to share ideas and experiences on the social benefits that the sector provides and how best to capture them. Led by Wavehill, an independent research and evaluation consultancy, the purpose of the research is to explore the potential for a toolbox that community radio stations could use to demonstrate their value to potential funders and investors.

We want to capture the views of all Ofcom-licensed community radio stations in the UK via a short online survey. Feedback from community radio stations will help to shape the research and inform the nature of the resources and toolkits that may be developed in the future.

Further details of the research and how to contact the research team.

To access the survey. The closing date for survey responses is 12 noon on Friday 28^th February 2025.

“We are delighted to have commissioned this research with Wavehill. During our engagement with the sector over the last few years, the lack of available funding for community radio stations has been a constant theme.

“We encourage all community radio stations to engage in this research wherever possible to enable the creation of a framework which will allow individual services to showcase the delivery of social gains they provide to their community. This will help support future funding applications and attract volunteers, both are essential to the long-term sustainability of community radio.”

Paul Mercer, Director, Broadcast Licensing and Programme Operations, Ofcom

“It’s fantastic to see this research happening to help evidence the value that community radio provides for the audiences it serves, their communities, and wider society. A value that we all know exists but has been hard to quantity.

“This research will help move us towards a framework where we can quantify and demonstrate the value and impact of community radio to all stakeholders from local councils, funders, and the national government. It will help us secure more support, especially funding, to make our sector more sustainable in the future and we look forward to working with Wavehill and the CMA on this research. We would strongly encourage all stations to engage in this research in any way that they can.”

Martin Steers – Co-Founder & Director of the UK Community Radio Network (UKCRN)

“We know that community radio stations are very familiar with the term 'social gain’ but are maybe less certain in 2025 with how exactly we define it. The CMA welcomes this Ofcom-commissioned research that is set to explore the positive social impacts of community radio and consider what a social benefit framework might look like and how these outputs are measured.

“As a membership organisation, the CMA encourages stations to have their say in this survey.”

Terry Lee, Chair, Community Media Association (CMA)

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