Eyre Disappointed With Communications Act

Mediaweek is reporting that former chief executive of the Capital Radio Group, Richard Eyre, speaking at NAB European Radio Conference in London, said that the Government has failed in drafting the Communications Act to, “recognise the scale of change since 1990 when the skeleton of the current radio policy was put in place”, and that the bill has, “perpetuated the nonsense of a separate commercial and BBC governance.”

The NAB event also heard Clear Channel’s Mark Mays suggest that the company would hold off on entering the UK radio market. He said, �My horizon [for acquisitions] is much longer than 2004, 2005 or 2006. If you look further 10 or 20 years, all markets will open up, as we become more of a global village. The history of this company has been very opportunistic in buying things at appropriate prices. We�re going to continue to be opportunistic, but it�s not a requirement that we are in the European market in the short term, or over the next two or three years.”

In response Capital Radio CEO David ‘bad week’ Mansfield, always keen to spar with Clear Channel, suggested that the US and UK markets were highly automous - from a structural and market point of view - and that the US model would likely fail if introduced as is into the UK market. There is some truth to this. But there can be no doubt that the radio markets are significantly closer than the television markets in terms of content and format.