Who's On Heart breaches broadcasting code, and listener trust

Do you remember the competition that Heart ran for about 6 months during their daytime shows between 10am and 4pm?  It caused a lot of controversy on some radio forums, and apparently, OFCOM also recieved a complaint about it.

The complaint from a listener to Heart's Devon station, now mostly merged with Heart Cornwall, formerly Atlantic FM, to form Heart South West.  There were three incidents that the complainant reported where the presenter, in this case Toby Anstis, host of the Mid Morning slot from 10am to 1pm across the whole Heart Network, did not make clear that the competition was across the whole Heart Network, not merely the station that the listener was listening to.

OFCOM found that the station had been in breach of Rule 2.15, which states that...

“Broadcasters must draw up rules for a broadcast competition or vote. These rules must be clear and appropriately made known. In particular, significant conditions that may affect a viewer's or listener's decision to participate must be stated at the time an invitation to participate is broadcast.”

 Now, it has to be said, this I think is something of a harsh decision, as I believe the top prize on the competition was around £50,000, or maybe it had gone up to £60,000, but either way, that would be enough motivation for any listener to want to call in.  Also, as OFCOM noted in the decision, only the person who got through to the studio was charged for the call, and others would not be.

But there are a couple of interesting points that are worth remembering here.

The first is the issue of listener trust.  Now this is something that some people in the broadcasting industry either don't understand, or forget about, or think that it doesn't matter.  Yet, listener trust is one of the most important commodities that any station can have, as it helps to build ratings and credibility, two of a radio station's results.  It's very easy to destory listener trust, and once that trust has gone, it's very difficult to get it back.

And Heart, in its very construction, is a station that actively avoids being upfront with listeners.  The fact that 35 stations have become 17 all under a single brand, with 17 hours a day of network programming on weekdays, and 20 hours a day on weekends, yet tries to say with a straight face that it prides itself on it's localness, just doesn't ring true.  A listener to Heart South West in Penzance, wouldn't feel that a station based in Exter and London, is very local to them.  After all, Exeter is 110 miles away, and London is 289 miles away.  Not exactly local, especially when compared to Pirate FM, that is based in Pool, near Redruth, which is only 15.7 miles away, and does locally originated programming for all except 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon

Heart's words and actions are not congruent, and as such, to me as a listener, it does not make me want to trust them as a radio station.

The second point I'd like to make is one that would annoy a lot of the fans of Heart on the various radio forums and sites, but is a very pertinent point.

Heart's parent company, Global Radio, have set themselves up as the big guns in the industry, and with their intended purchase of the entity formerly known as GMG being investigated by the Office of Fair Trading, this breach of the broadcasting code doesn't help matters for them, even if it doesn't hinder them.  And even if this breach is counted against them in that process, which is unlikely, it's not exactly a big minus.  But when you set yourself up as the biggest company in the industry, there will be people who will not like what you do, just as there will be people who do like what you do.

However, some of the reactions that I have seen from Heart's fans, or as I usually call them, the Heartophiles, have been definitely derogatory towards the complainant.  Some of the thoughts about who the complainant might be, are logical and believable.  After all, in creating Heart Devon, Global took 5 different breakfast shows, 4 different daytime shows and 5 different drivetime shows, and replaced them with 1 countywide breakfast show and 1 countywide drivetime show, with network daytimes.  They basically fired a lot of people and  it's not inconcievable that some of them might have an agenda against Heart.  However, it has to be said that a number of those who used to work for those stations that became Heart Devon, still have some very strong friendships with those who still work at Heart.

But it is worrying that the attitude is that the person invloved is somehow either a professional complainer, or someone at a rival station, that's a very damaging attitude to hold.  When you are working at a radio station, you are busy doing so much, that you don't have time to dissect the opposition's output, much as you'd might like to.  I find the whole idea of a rival station getting a complaint submitted to OFCOM to be totally ludicrous.  The other idea of a professional complainer, whilst being more plausible, considering the past actions of organisations like MediaWatch UK, also seems unlikely in this situation.  The professional complainers, such as MediaWatch UK, go after the BBC, or Channel 4, or Sky.  The groups that are anti-Global and anti-Heart, are rag-tag Facebook groups of individuals, many of whom don't even have the time to actively monitor Heart's output all day.

The idea that "normal listeners" don't complain is something that broadcasters have been trying to use for years to discredit anybody who did complain about their output.  It's a dangerous attitude to hold, and is very insulting to listeners, who are the most important people for any radio station.  If you don't value the feedback you get from your listeners, then why should they listen to your station?

All in all, this is small fry, this is a minor infraction.  In the NFL, you'd call this a 5 yard penalty.  It's nothing.  But the reaction of the Heartophiles online, is very disconcerting.  They're treating it, like they've given up a 15 yard penalty, a major infraction, and they've basically attacked the motivation of the complainer, without having any proof, or any eveidence, or even anything slightly circumstancial.  Rather than accept that Heart made a few mistakes, they throw some quite wild unprovable accusations, just so they can feel better.  Such behaviour is unjustified, unwarranted and does not help Heart from a public relations standpoint. 

It's a shame that these so called fans cannot just accept the fact that Heart go caught out on some minor infractions of the broadcasting code and let things be.  But any big company can be regarded as a target, as the BBC, ITV, Sky and NewsCorp have all found out.  And now Global are starting to realise that as the biggest commercial radio company, you are there to be shot at, and some people will take potshots at you, and some will hit the target.  The measure of a company is how you react and recover from those hits and do you make your product better as a result.