The John Griff Column: Buddy – can you spare a dime?

This week, an appeal started running for a community asset that reaches out to people predominantly based in the county town but also to those close by, be that at home, at work or in transit through the area. Staffed largely by volunteers, it has for years been a quiet, and yet constant companion to those who have partaken of its output for whatever reason. Now, it is need of help in order to survive. 

This week I write in support of the local, community run radio station, NLive Radio. For the purposes of full disclosure I am myself one of the volunteer presenters on the station, hosting a couple of the Drivetime shows on a Monday and Tuesday afternoon. I am not, however, anything to do with the running of the station, or its management. 

NLive Radio has hitherto been based in the University of Northampton’s residential premises - students live above it. Looking out onto Victoria Promenade and the Morrisons car park (with a bit of Beckett’s Park if you crane your neck a little), the station provides output around the clock, most of it made and delivered in-house. Calling it a community asset is correct – increasingly, local community groups are finding it difficult to get their voices heard as larger broadcasting outlets have retreated from local output and representation either altogether, or on a reduced local hours basis. And now NLive Radio is facing a very real, existential threat. 

The reason is simple. The University of Northampton has withdrawn its funding for the radio station and has served notice that it must vacate its current home within the next few weeks. Just as is the case with many corporate organisations, the economy is no easier than it is for private families, and economies are having to be made. In the further education sector there are particular difficulties, so as the market becomes increasingly commercial and revenues far less reliable, it has to look at its assets and labilities. Just like the much vaunted and world leading leather education centre on the Midsummer Meadow campus saw a glittering arrival but then closure comparatively soon after, all aspects of what the university’s operation have to be looked at with more than a degree of dispassion. NLive Radio is a minnow in the university’s economic pond – but it still represents a cost that many corporates would rightly question. That is has chosen to withdraw its funding of the station and serve notice on its premises as rapidly as it has is, perhaps, indicative of something else. 

Make no mistake, there is no rancour here. Community radio stations come and go all the time and NLive Radio recognises that it has been extremely lucky to have enjoyed the university’s patronage for so long. In saying a hearty – and sincere - ‘Thank you’ to the university’s board, the station has to now pick itself up from a major blow, dust itself off and regroup. Plans are being made to relocate the station, maintain output and carry on serving the community. A new Charitable Incorporated Organisation will need to be established in order to give the station separate legal identity and governance. The hope and expectation is that there will be little, if any, audible interruption – but none of it will come without substantial cost. Behind the scenes (and while some paid members of staff have been lost), a new NLive Radio is in the process of being built – and it will need help along the way. 

This week the station went live with a message to the wider public – “Please, help us”. Backing the message is an appeal – quite literally looking for the kind of crowd funding needed to put the new organisation on its feet. Expertise remains within the station to continue the business of broadcasting – the funding needed is for immediate operating needs, securing new premises to operate out of, and establishing a sustainable economic future. The total amount needed is not by any means stratospheric – the challenge is to raise the required funding in the short window of time that the station has been given to reorganise and relocate. 

Community stations like NLive Radio are still and will still continue to be outlets for local information, engagement, companionship and entertainment. Volunteers both on and off the air draw no income or expenses – indeed, many of them contribute to the financial existence of something that they place a particular – and personal – value on. Without such stations the community as a whole would further lose the voices of groups who contribute so much to the fabric of the area. The knock-on effects of not having them would be way more than financial.   

Please, can you help? 

To find out more about the appeal and contribute to it, go to www.nliveradio.com/loveus