Phil Riley, Boom Radio CEO, says the plans to continue ahead with launching Radio 2 ‘extra’ “smacks of typical BBC arrogance”.
In a report on the new service, the BBC admits the launch of the proposed Radio 2 extension would significantly hamper Boom Radio’s financial performance, although not to the extent claimed by Boom Radio.
Boom says it wants a million listeners by 2025, and 10 million hours, but the BBC’s plan would impact this goal. It also says its own extra services (Boom Light / Boom Rock) would become unsustainable and be forced to close.
The BBC said in their materiality assessment that when online-only, their service would only generate 3m hours in RAJAR. Ofcom said this would, in their modelling, lead to a 5% audience loss for Boom.
The BBC said across DAB and online together, the service would get 21m hours in RAJAR, so the full service would be seven times as impactful on anyone else – and the clear inference is it would take 35% of Boom Radio’s listening using Ofcom’s own modelling, according to Boom.
BBC rejected this and said: “Our audience and market analysis is robust and extensive, and our approach to these has been agree with Ofcom. We anticipate that 3.5% of the listening to the Radio 2 extension will come from Boom Radio. This equates to around 11% of their total listening at the moment.”
The report also notes that Global and Bauer have launched potential competitive stations since the BBC’s plan for spin-off services – namely Greatest Hits Radio 60s and Classic FM Calm.
In a statement, Phil Riley said: “Boom Radio is hugely disappointed that the BBC is pursuing its plans for a BBC Radio 2 spin-off station. This is likely to lead to a 35% drop in our listening and the potential closure of Boom Radio. We shall again make that case to Ofcom which now must review the plan.
“As a new, independent station — launched by a group of old friends with a dream — we’ve always been highly concerned about the damage this could do to us. We were pleased, therefore, that Ofcom found in July that the proposed station could put us at serious risk — even if only available online — as it could have a significant adverse impact on fair and effective competition, and specifically impact Boom Radio.
“Clearly, the BBC has not listened to those concerns. It prefers to spend unnecessary cash to attack what we do, whilst it demolishes its own news content, local radio and much-loved TV drama.
“The BBC has acknowledged this move could have a ‘significant impact’ on us. We agree that their choice to disregard the evidence and plough on could be the death of Boom Radio. It smacks of typical BBC arrogance to effectively dismiss the original Ofcom decision.
“The BBC claims the public value of the proposed service offsets the damage to Boom. We are struggling to see anything of value that we don’t do already. Why on earth should the BBC use public money to replicate the offerings of Boom Radio, its sister station, Boom Light, or the myriad of other commercial oldies stations?
“This is merely a spoiler project effectively designed to kill off our stations which are valued so highly by their audiences.
“Using the BBC’s own figures, the full launch of this service will be seven times as damaging to Boom Radio as the earlier proposal which Ofcom blocked. (SEE NOTE)
“Following Boom’s launch in February 2021 — operating with a programme spend of just 1% of Radio 2’s budget — Boom Radio became the fastest growing independent radio station in the UK, amassing well over two thirds of a million listeners. BBC bosses have seen this success and now want an unfair piece of the pie.
“The bullying BBC is willing to trample all over commercial competitors just to prove a point. Boom Radio was launched because its founders saw a gap in the market to target the baby boomer generation with the music they were not getting on BBC Radio 2 in its desire to target a younger audience.”
Lorna Clarke, BBC Director of Music says: “We have received a wide range of feedback and reflected much of it in our plans, including significantly redeveloping our proposal for the Radio 2 extension to increase its editorial distinctiveness. Our music extensions allow us to support new music, showcase British talent, resurface performances from the BBC’s unrivalled archive, and help audiences discover a greater breadth and range of music than what’s available on the market.
“The continued growth of commercial radio and the global streamers have shown there’s room for multiple ways to bring genres and decades to life for audiences. Our plans are unique, with context, curation and storytelling done in a way only the BBC can do, meeting the evolving expectations of audiences and providing more choice to licence fee payers.”
Ofcom will now have a six-week window to decide whether to conduct a full review. If the full review goes ahead, it will last six months.
Boom says it will submit more arguments to Ofcom if this happens, with a result announced around the end of June 2025.
