BUTE FM ONLINE LISTENERS FIGURE STILL RISING

The number of people who listen to the Bute FM live stream online has increased yet again, this time by 23% on last month!

Canstream site usage data shows that the April 2011 figure has climbed up to 28,166 against the March 2011 figure of 22,778 with the UK again failing to break into the list of the Top 5 countries in terms of total listenership.

This is the second month in a row now that we’ve broken through the 20,000 listeners barrier – with a figure that is higher than the last 4 months of 2010 added together – once again confirming Bute FM as being in the perfect position to promote the Isle of Bute and encourage its worldwide audience.

Well done to all our volunteers and a big thank you to every one of our listeners!

NEW ONLINE RECORD

BUTE FM ONLINE LISTENERS FIGURE SOARING

The number of people who listen to the Bute FM live stream online has increased yet again and this time by a staggering 72% on last month!

Canstream site usage data shows that the March 2011 figure has rocketed up to 22,778 against the February 2011 figure of 13,238 with the UK again failing to break into the list of the Top 5 countries in terms of total listenership.

This is the third month in a row that we’ve broken through the 10,000 listeners barrier – with a figure that is almost equal to the total of the first two months of 2011 added together – and confirms Bute FM as being in the perfect position to promote the Isle of Bute and encourage its worldwide audience.

Well done to everyone involved and thank you all for listening!

BUTE FM ONLINE LISTENER FIGURES INCREASE FURTHER!

The number of people who listen to the Bute FM live stream online has increased again, this time by a further 29% on last month!

Canstream site usage data shows that the February 2011 figure has climbed to 13,238 against the January 2011 figure of 10,202 and, perhaps more surprisingly, online listeners in the UK failed to break into the Top 5 again.

This is the second month in a row that we’ve broken through the 10,000 listeners barrier and it clearly puts us in the perfect position to promote the Isle of Bute and encourage its worldwide audience.

Well done to all involved and thank you everyone for listening!

Presentation made to Bute Community Council on 16/02/11

Below is a copy of the presentation made to Bute Community Council at their meeting on Wednesday 16th February 2011.

“Thank you for inviting us to tonight’s meeting to update you on the Bute FM Community Radio Project and our plans for the future.

Before we look to the future though we must begin by clarifying some misconceptions that have arisen in the past 6 months.

Bute Community Media Limited is a company limited by guarantee which holds Community Radio Licence No. 124 known as Bute FM.  The company is also a charity SC033825.
There is a separate registered trading arm – Bute FM Limited which is not involved in the management or operation of the license.  Any director of this company has one role and that is of a signatory.
The AGMs of both companies were held on August 9th 2010 at which all directors, current at that time, were present throughout.  There were no other attendees nor were the meetings made public as neither is yet a constitutional nor regulatory requirement and no accounts were presented for the same reasons.  At both AGMs, in accordance with procedure, all directors not holding a position of executive office were subject to retirement by rotation and one director was not re-appointed.
Following both AGMs two new directors were then appointed to Bute Community Media Limited in order to expand its directorship base.  One new director brought 35 years of experience in working with community groups to the table, in addition to other business and management skills.  The other brought many years of accounting experience with various business and community groups.

Within days of these changes seven volunteers chose to resign by putting their names to a group email which stated their reasons for so doing.  Over the next two weeks there were five more individual resignations:
To maintain the confidentiality of some of those individuals who resigned, I will not mention nor comment on the reasons stated, as this meeting has an obligation to record and minute such remarks.
It must, however, be stated that several complaints were submitted to Ofcom, the license regulator. Only one of those complaints were considered by Ofcom as having an effect on the license, and, as you now know, that complaint was in regard to the lack of progress on both Steering Group and Community Focus Group memberships. Bute Community Media Limited was found to be in breach of regulations with regard to that matter.

In the intervening time a number of processes have been put in place in order to facilitate the compliance by the service to deliver its key commitments and further its development within the community:

A Steering Group has been formed and has met, which includes a Bute Community Councillor, for which we thank you.  The Steering Group’s responsibilities primarily include: ensuring that the Key Commitments which comprise our licence agreement with Ofcom are met, forming and implementing internal policy, discussing and developing any ideas brought forward by the operational teams and for presenting important information about the service to the wider community.

The Community Focus Group has held its first meeting during which a number of comments and suggestions were made and have since been implemented – such as the introduction of a second country music show – or are in the process of being implemented.  For your information, the Community Focus Group is a forum that allows volunteers and members of the public to air and discuss their views on the broadcasting objectives of the service and therefore shape the future of our programming.

Both of these measures allow us to fulfil our license requirements to Ofcom and provide a basis for future accountability targets.

A system of Membership of Bute Community Media Limited has been introduced and has been open since October 2010 – membership numbers continue to expand in proportion to involvement with the service.

In addition to the statutory requirements of our Steering Group and Community Focus Group, we have introduced a number of operational teams within the management structure of the service to allow the volunteers more say and responsibility for the day to day running of the service.
The future development of the service will take advantage of the wealth of talent offered by our volunteers.
Teams in operation just now include the
Production Team, with a wide range of remits designed to enhance and develop the content of the programming and wellbeing of the volunteers.

An Advertising and Marketing team with the remit to supplement revenue and promote the service.

A Youth Liaison Team, the first sub group from within the Community Focus Group, has formed with a remit of increasing participation in the service from young people, and there are plans for more teams in the pipeline.

These additional teams will focus on encouraging participation and input from others such as Clubs, Voluntary Organisations and Statutory Agencies thus promoting and sustaining community group interaction with the service as a priority.

Volunteer numbers have increased to more than 50 with many of these being active in on-air presentation, and a few waiting on the side lines for their chance to participate in this exciting and still developing project. Future volunteer development and training will fall within the remit of the Production team initially.

Online listener figures have dramatically risen from 3500 per month in the first half of 2010 to over 10,000 from more than 50 countries in January of this year, putting us in a perfect position to promote the Isle of Bute and encourage custom to the island. That said nothing is for nothing in this world and continued additional online listeners also means additional costs to the service.

Audience participation and interaction with the service has steadily increased and the daily average figures are significantly higher than this time last year.  There are regular emails from listeners in Australia and Canada and other expat communities extolling the virtues of the service and thanking us for keeping them informed about the island they remember fondly.

At a number of local events this year we will be conducting outside broadcasts, following a successful trial at the Highland Games last year.  This will allow us to bring these events into the homes of people who are unable to attend themselves.

There is, of course, much scope for further improvement and innovation in the areas that I have discussed and when these are developed they will be publicly announced in order to maximise participation.

To everyone: With your help we can work together to develop and deliver our service to the local community and its worldwide audience.

BUTE FM ONLINE LISTENERS INCREASES YET AGAIN

The number of people who listen to the Bute FM live stream online has increased by a further 54% in the last month.

Canstream site usage data shows that the January 2011 figure has risen to 10202 against our 6 month average, from July – December 2010, of 6611.

This is the first month that we have ever broken through the 10,000 listeners barrier and it amply reflects the good work that all of our volunteers have put in since the changes last year.

Well done everyone and thank you all for listening!

Bute FM Hogmanay / New Year’s Day Schedule

Hogmanay

8am-10am Breakfast with Robert McGowan
10am-12pm All In A Day’s Work with Alan Donald
12pm-2pm Bobby Wilson’s Lunchbox
2pm-5pm Alison & Mary’s New Year Special
5pm-6pm Clara Thomson
6pm-8pm Sandy & Cammy
8pm-10pm Greig Aird
10pm-1am Through The Bells
1am-7am Ed Clark’s New Year American Old Time Radio Show
7am-10am Jukebox

New Year’s Day

?10am-12pm? Morning with Greig Aird
12pm-2pm Lunch with Robert McGowan
2pm-3pm XL Show
3pm-6pm Studio B New Year Special
6pm-10pm Ed Clark’s New Year American Old Time Radio Show
10pm-10am Christmas Jukebox

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE, FROM ALL AT BUTE FM!!!

Bute FM Statement

We accept Ofcom’s decision fully, and accept that as Bute FM was not meeting these key commitments at the time of the complaints being made they had no choice but to quite rightly judge that we were indeed in breach of the terms of our licence.

It was apparent in early August 2010, prior to any complaints being made to Ofcom by members of the public, that Bute FM were at that time failing to meet the two key commitments outlined in Ofcom’s judgement. At that point Station Manager Iain Donald contacted Ofcom to advise them of this, the reasons for these failings and the steps Bute FM had already taken and intended to take in order to address these issues.

You will note, after reading the judgement in full, that Ofcom acknowledge that additional members of the Steering Group have since been recruited to meet Ofcom requirements, and that the Community Focus Group was in the process of being set up. We can confirm that members of the Community Focus Group have now been recruited, and the first meeting of the Community Focus Group is scheduled to take place within the next month, due to members’ commitments over the Christmas period. Ofcom acknowledge that we expect to be fully compliant with our key commitments by the end of this year.

Bute FM thank Ofcom for their support and guidance in this matter, and look forward to continuing to broadcast to the community in 2011.

See Bulletin Number 172, Dated 20th December 2010, at the address below for the Ofcom report:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/broadcast-bulletins/

Bute FM Christmas Schedule 2010

Studio Upgrade

The upgrade has been successful!

For Saturday 4th December 2010

Due to the finishing touches being put to our studio upgrade, from 5pm onwards, the service may be liable to disruption, although every effort will be made to keep this to a minimum.

Please bear with us if this happens as it will only be a temporary problem.

We hope that by doing this we can provide you with a much better sounding Bute FM than ever before!

Thank you for your patience.

Iain D