radio manx ltd annual report to

for the year ended 31 march 2015

from the directors of manx radio

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 2

index

page

1. managing director’s report 3

2. programming 5

i. statement of programming policy and subvention allocation 5 ii. news, current affairs and weather 7 iii. sport 8 iv. community and events 9 v. specialist public service broadcasting including religion 10 vi. meeting the station’s fm speech quota 11 vii. alternative programming 11

3. audience research 12

4. digital activities worldwide 13

i. website 13 ii. audio streaming 15 iii. facebook 16 iv. twitter 18 v. you tube 20

5. commitment to the commercial sector 21

6. engineering services 23

7. future plans 24

i. transfer of broadcasting infrastructure from dha to manx radio 24 ii. replacement of am transmission service 24 iii. redevelopment of broadcasting house 25

8. corporate governance 26

i. audit committee 26 ii. remuneration committee 26

9. comment from the trustees 27

10. communications commission compliance report 28

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 3

1. managing director’s report

In last year’s report I noted how the various reports of the previous twelve months – Myers Report, Select Committee Report and the subsequent Tynwald debate, had already had a major impact on the station and would also have a lasting influence on the provision of public service broadcasting in the .

2014/15 was the year in which the political aspirations of Tynwald began to be implemented.

Our previous licence was scheduled to expire on 31st March 2015 and a new licence would need to be issued. Considerable debate ensued with the Communications Commission on implementing the will of Tynwald within the existing legislation, however, a new licence came into force on 1st April which reflected the new climate in which we now operate and, for the first time. The Communications Commission take over the role of holding Manx Radio to account following the winding up of the Trust.

The new licence also necessitated the publication of a Statement of Programme Policy (see P5) which detailed the way in which we would now achieve a minimum speech quota of 40% between 0600 and 1900 each Monday to Friday.

This Programme Policy makes a huge commitment to spoken word output. It also required the launch of a new schedule with new speech based programmes and the re- examination of our current output to look at where we could introduce new features so that we didn’t just meet our quota, but also attracted new listeners to the station.

Speech broadcasting is the most costly to produce and necessitated the recruitment of additional staff to allow us to meet our targets. People are the stations’ most important asset but staff costs now account for 60% of the station’s expenditure with around a further 13% of our total budget spent on freelance effort. We, therefore, had to be sure we could support additional staff over the long-term before we embarked on recruiting new programming staff. To that end we knew we could not rely solely on increases to our subvention but would need to develop a long-term financial plan which would see our share of the Island’s advertising cake grow and be maintained over the long term.

With Government funding under pressure from all quarters Manx Radio took the decision that it would need to significantly grow its commercial revenues over the three year period commencing April 2014 if its programming ambitions were to be sustained. The launch of a 50th anniversary advertising product brought in 47 new companies to the station in April 2015 and the development of an affordable social media management service for Island businesses also played its part in an overall 12.49% income growth during the year. It also proved to us that our ambitious strategy could work. The efforts of the whole sales team, under the leadership of Commercial Director John Marsom, must be acknowledged as their contribution to the business over the last twelve months has been exceptional.

As we enter 2015/16 the sales team has been successful in retaining the new businesses brought in for 2014/15 and has a number of new sales products identified for launch throughout the year. Again our plan is to grow the business with double digit growth over the coming twelve months.

During the year Treasury has confirmed, that to ensure they remain consistent with Tynwald’s wishes, the level of subvention will be agreed as part of the overall Government Budget approved by Tynwald each year. The Government Budget approved in February 2015, therefore, confirms the level of funding for the company for 2015/16 and also details funding for the two years to 2017/18, which will be renewed on a rolling basis.

As a consequence Manx Radio, for the first time, became part of the Government’s annual budget setting round. We presented our detailed plan and are pleased that we

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 4 will receive a modest increase for 2015/16 when our subvention will rise by £25,000 to £875,000 for the three year period to March 2018. This is a marked improvement for Manx Radio as it considerably reduces our auditor’s annual ‘going concern’ dilemma.

Further outcomes of the Select Committee report on Public Service Broadcasting debated in Tynwald on 18th March 2014, included a number of actions set to radically transform the operation of the station over the coming years. The most significant decision was the unanimous acceptance of the Select Committee Recommendation which stated:

That the Council of Ministers should bring forward primary legislation to give Manx Radio a permanent existence and status as the independent public service broadcaster of the Isle of Man, and to permit statutory controls on the level of public subvention to Manx Radio.

Consideration was given to the most expedient way of bringing the Recommendation on to the statute books and a decision taken that it should be incorporated into the forthcoming Communications Bill being prepared by the Communications Commission. To that end Manx Radio has been working with the Commission and it is expected that the Bill will be ready to go out for consultation in 2015.

2014/15 will also be remembered as the year in which we celebrated our 50th anniversary. The Governor, Adam Wood, spoke, just as his predecessor Sir Ronald Garvey had in 1964, about the challenges facing the station. He went on to commend us on 50 years of service to the Island and finished by stating

‘In this landmark year, I should like to thank Manx Radio for its first 50 years of service to the Manx community and wish the station all the very best for the future’.

The special commemorative programming also brought in congratulations and praise by the bucket load from our listeners and even John Myers, the author of the recent report on Manx Radio to the Select Committee had his say:

On a personal note, the look of pride on the face of John Grierson, the station’s first General Manager, as he attended our anniversary celebrations, will live with me forever. He confided to me that when the station was first launched he had no idea how long it would survive – perhaps not even 50 days! He was overjoyed that not only had the station grown to become such an integral part of life in the Island, but that it had become such a firm favourite with its listeners. He was also proud that the station was to become the Nation’s Station and enshrined in primary legislation.

The station still faces a number of challenges, not least the challenge of growing commercial revenues within a small community but also of replacing our vintage AM transmitter. However, our audience can be assured that the dedication of the staff will ensure that Manx Radio continues to be relevant to its growing audience as it heads towards a second fifty years of service to the Manx people. anthony pugh may ‘15

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 5

2. programming i. statement of programme policy and subvention allocation

The Manx Radio FM schedule for 1st January 2015 – 31st March 2016 is as follows:

Where is News, Current Affairs and Weather

is Sport

is Community and Events

is Specialist PSB

The schedule also includes 111 News Bulletins per week.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 6

The above schedule ensures that our FM network alone provides a minimum of 40% of speech output on Weekdays (0600 – 1900) as follows:

 News, Current Affairs, Tynwald*and Weather  Sport and TT*  Community and Events Programming**  Specialist PSB including Religion

* Although Tynwald and the TT are primarily broadcast on our Alternative AM Network, considerable content is re-versioned for use on the FM network

** Also includes Traffic, Travel, Road Watch, What’s On, Event promotion, Obituaries, Charity interviews, General interviews, Competitions, and Presenter links.

The schedule is augmented with specialist public service broadcasting outside of Weekdays and at Weekends. Additionally, the network provides event coverage to serve the population with a creditable, local service that increases the speech content significantly. alternative programming

Manx Radio further augments its speech output through the provision of alternative programming to listeners via its AM network including:

 Tynwald broadcasts and House of Keys Question Time  TT and Festival of Motorcycling  Southern 100  Manx Gaelic language programming

NB The speech content broadcast on AM is in addition to the minimum quota of 40% speech output broadcast on FM. digital programming

Manx Radio’s Digital offering via manxradio.com and its iphone and Android apps offers an alternative route to listen to the station’s programming and offers users the ability to Listen Again to selected programmes and to Podcasts at a time to suit their schedules. In addition, the station’s suite of facebook pages and twitter feed offers the opportunity for easy and effective interaction with the station. speech assessment

The speech content assessment is calculated by Manx Radio and is a manual assessment carried out at each change of programme schedule and on one annual ‘sample’ day. It is derived from the programme log (an audio recording of the day’s output) and excludes any alternative programming transmitted on our alternative services.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 7 public service broadcasting subvention allocation

The allocation of subvention to programming for the period 1st April 2014 to 31st March 2015 was as follows:

£ % 1 News, Current Affairs, Tynwald & Weather 445,415 52.40% 2 Sport and TT 95,138 11.19% 3 Community and Events Programming 199,487 23.47% 4 Specialist PSB including Religion 109,960 12.94% 850,000 100.00%

NB It should be noted that the subvention of £850,000 only represents the partial cost of delivering these public service programme strands on Manx Radio. The remainder is met from the company’s commercial activities.

ii. news, current affairs and weather

News and Current Affairs are at the very heart of the station’s output and differentiates Manx Radio from the other Island radio stations.

Our three main peaks in the listening graphs provided by Rajar (Radio Joint Audience Research) all fall at times when we are engaging our audience with rich speech content.

We produce one hundred and eleven local news bulletins each week, broken down as follows:

 Monday to Friday 17 each day 85  Saturday 13  Sunday 13

On average we broadcast around 5,500 new Manx news stories each year and in addition utilise our Sky news feed to bring the audience up to date international news.

Our current affairs output is deliberately focused on peak audience availability, mornings, lunchtimes and late afternoon, with additional programmes at weekends and in the evenings.

For most of the period covered by the report we broadcast sixteen and a half hours of speech current affairs programming each week:

 Mandate AM – Monday to Friday 5.0 hrs  Mandate at one and at five 2.5 hrs  Talking Heads - Monday to Friday 6.25 hrs  Sunday Opinion 1.0 hr  Mannin Line 1.0 hr  Perspective 0.5 hrs  Agenda 0.5 hrs

We are extremely proud of the breadth of the output delivered every week on Manx Radio. Not only do we cover the various political dimensions of the Isle of Man but also seek out the stories behind the headlines in every quarter; from the methods being put in place to protect the Island’s bee population from the lethal virus spread by the Varroa mite, or how citizens and the authorities are defending the coastline and properties from increasingly frequent storms, to investigating the dangers of so called ‘legal highs’.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 8

The news team is also well aware of how UK and global issues can impact on all of us here so we keep a watchful eye on the news feeds from both the BBC and IRN/Sky to ensure that we continue to offer as comprehensive a news service as possible,

In January 2015 we launched a new, all speech current affairs programme called ‘Women Today’. This is broadcast daily, Monday to Friday and adds another five hours to our weekly current affairs output increasing the total to twenty one and a half hours. This programme quickly became one of the most popular programmes offered as a ‘Listen Again’ Item on our website with over one thousand downloads of individual programmes being recorded within the first month of launch.

It is important to point out that it took two full years to get Women Today from the drawing board to launching it on-air, as we needed to ensure that we had sustainable, on-going funding in place to support the programme and the right team of producers and presenters on board to guarantee that we could deliver a consistently high quality daily programme of this kind.

The cost of producing speech based radio compared to delivering an all music based service has been well documented. To give you the scale of the difference between Speech and Music radio, here are the annual costs of Radio 4 and 6 Music in 2012:

 BBC Radio 4 - cost per annum £115.9 million  BBC 6 Music – cost per annum £11.7 million

Bearing this order of cost in mind it is worth noting that we are unlikely to be able to significantly further increase the speech content on Manx Radio without increasing our revenue. Similarly we will have to continue to increase our revenue at least in line with inflation to maintain the current level of speech output.

iii. sport

Manx Radio’s unique relationship with local sports goes right back to the birth of the station in 1964, when the very first test transmissions were broadcasts from the TT of that year.

Road racing continues be at the very heart of our output with live coverage of all the major events being broadcast on AM1368, on our island wide FM network, on additional local restricted service licence (RSL) FM services and on-line using iom.tt and via our iPhone and Android Apps.

Events covered include;

 TT  Pre and post TT races at Billown  Southern 100  Classic TT  Manx Grand Prix.

In addition to race coverage we also run a full event station for the TT over twelve days and for the Festival of Motorcycling (Classic TT and MGP) over eight days.

In the past twelve months we have seen a massive increase in the reach of our dedicated Facebook page for road racing. At the end of the year Manx Radio TT had 81,910 likes, a whopping 50% increase in the year. The users represent a truly global fan base for the TT and other road racing events on the Island who are committed to interacting with the station.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 9

Away from motorcycling we strive to cover as many as possible of the sports played on our island in our dedicated sports bulletins and programmes.

Aside from the sports bulletins in Mandate AM, Mandate at One and Mandate PM we offer dedicated programmes:

 Friday Sport Preview 18.00 – 18.30  Football Focus 18.30 – 19.00  Saturday Sport Preview 12.30 – 13.00  Saturday Live 13.00 – 17.00  Saturday Sport Classified 17.00 – 18.00

With a large contingent of athletes from the Isle of Man taking part in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow during the summer, we increased our sports coverage with five additional half-hour programmes presented each weekday evening live from Glasgow by Ed Oldham.

By using the latest iPhone Apps – Luci Live and iRig, Ed was also able to send back pieces to Manx Radio from any event throughout the day from whichever venue he was at in the city. Some of these were used live in bulletins whilst others were recorded for playback in the dedicated Commonwealth Games evening programmes later that day.

iv. community and events programming

Getting out of the studio and into the heart of the community is a key component of Manx Radio’s programming. Not only does this enable us to reflect the many facets of Island Life but also gives us a visibility that helps to make familiar station voices real people in the minds of the audience.

During the period between April 2014 and March 2015 we mounted over forty outside broadcasts ranging from extended events coverage from the TT, the festival of Motorcycling etc to key set pieces like the IOM Budget OB from the heart of Douglas on Budget Day.

We regularly visit schools on the island and one of our most interactive OB’s during the year was when we covered the visit of Music Lab to the Island in a Saturday morning programme live from St Ninian’s High School.

Throughout 2014 we were celebrating Manx Radio’s fiftieth anniversary and we used every opportunity to involve our audience with the celebrations. One of the highlights of this year in programming terms was the Young Singer Songwriter of the Year competition. This involved every school and youth group on the island, including Sound Check. We also had entries from individuals who were away at university.

We received over thirty original songs and these were sent to a team of judges drawn from the radio station and the musical community on the island. The top twenty were then offered recording sessions at Manx Radio and the songs broadcast on-air on Tynwald Day 2014 in a three hour special hosted by Judith Ley and Marc Tyley.

In November 2014 we celebrated our official fiftieth birthday and invited listeners to choose three songs they believed Manx Radio might still be playing in fifty years time. Hundreds of votes were collated into a unique chart called ’Fifty at Fifty’ which was broadcast throughout the day on Sunday November the 23rd.

Following transmission, digital audio copies of the broadcast were presented to the Manx Museum for safe keeping. These will be handed back to Manx Radio in 2064 and the team of the day will be able to see if any of the predictions of musical longevity were correct.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 10 v. specialist psb including religion

The fiftieth anniversary of Manx Radio gave us many additional opportunities to enhance our public service broadcasting output.

In a series of five, one-hour programmes, John Moss explored the role Manx Radio has played in the fifty years it had been on-air. These programmes were full of fascinating archive recordings as well as new interviews with people who were involved with the station from its humble beginnings in a caravan in Onchan.

The guests included:

 John Grierson – The station’s first General Manager  David Galbraith – Carpenter who fitted out the Manx Radio caravan  Mary Davies – Miss Manx Radio 1966  Chris Musk – Commercial Sales Executive from the 1970s

We also hosted as many of the former presenters, newsreaders, sales staff or anyone we could track down who had a story to tell about the history of Manx Radio in an all-day, station takeover on Monday 24th of November. This was where the voices of the past joined with the voices of today both live in the studio and on the phone from around the world.

Here are just some of the twenty five guests who joined us for this day-long event:

 Stu Lowe – On the line from Canada  Alan Jackson – Live  Andy Wint – Live  Charles Guard – Live  Louise Quirk – Live  Paul Burnett – On the line from London  Susie Richardson – Live  Paul Moulton – Live  Chris Caine – Live  Dan Davies - Live

We also found some of the very early Religious Broadcasts from the archives to compile a reflective edition of Praise which was presented by Judith Ley on Sunday the 23rd of November.

Away from the fiftieth anniversary we re-commissioned John Kennaugh for another two series of ‘In Their Own Time’. This programme gives some of the older members of our community time to reflect on days gone by in a relaxed conversational style. This is the ideal programme to run during the seasonal breaks in the ever popular ‘Countryside’ series.

Both Countryside and In Their Own Time are repeated on Sunday mornings at 9.30am and like all of our speech based programmes, are available on-line at manxradio.com

We continue to reach out to and engage with a wide variety of minority audiences across the week with our Manx Gaelic programming and our specialist music programmes covering, Brass Bands, Opera, Folk, Country and Big Band and Swing.

We use many of these specialist programme slots for our extensive coverage of the Manx Music Festival – The Guild, with over one hundred class winning performances being broadcast during the festival.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 11 vi. meeting the station’s fm speech quota

Before the advent of ‘Women Today’ we were delivering 44% speech between the hours of 6.00am to 7.00pm, Monday to Friday solely on our FM network.

Since January 2015, with the inclusion of Women Today, that percentage has risen to 49%.

These percentages exclude commercials.

vii. alternative programming

Alongside our FM network, we also run the AM network on 1368 KHz as well as an extensive portfolio of programmes available to listen again on-line at manxradio.com

AM1368 is currently used for the daily, Monday to Friday, one-hour opt out on the Breakfast Show to make way for Mandate on the FM network.

Two of our Manx language programmes are broadcast on this network, offering an alternative to the last hour of the afternoon show on Mondays and Fridays.

The network is also used for all political broadcasts from Tynwald sittings or Keys Questions to major sporting events such as TT, the Festival of Motorcycling and local football cup finals.

None of these alternative programmes are included in the speech quota analysis but during a busy week they will take the daytime level to over 60% speech when combined with the FM output.

When our new website is launched in the early summer of 2015 it will also include a series of weekly podcasts. This will provide listeners with additional programming that can be listened to at a time to suit their daily routines.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 12

3. audience research

The 2014/15 period has seen the Manx Radio audience grow slowly but steadily.

Manx Radio 2014/15 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Monday - Sunday Weekly Reach 38,700 38,300 39,300 39,900 42,400 % Reach 54 53 55 55 59 Total Hours 426 399 417.4 386.8 421.1 Average Hours 11 10.4 10.6 9.7 9.9 Market Share 27.9 27.0 28.1 26.7 29.8

The station continues to rank amongst the most successful of all British radio stations as measured by audience reach.

It is encouraging to see the increased listenership figures for Q1 2015 (January to March 2015) the period following the launch of our new schedule in January 2015 which included the new programme Women Today. However, experience shows it is impossible to judge trends from a single quarter’s figures and we will need at least another two quarter’s results before we can begin to draw any meaningful conclusions on the success of the programme.

When we compare listening to all stations in the Isle of Man we see that Manx Radio attracts significantly more listeners than any other radio station in the Island and is the dominant station:

NB Energy FM does not subscribe to Rajar

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 13

4. digital activities worldwide i. website

The Manx Radio website lies at the heart of the station’s digital offering.

All our main news stories are published via the web in a timely manner together with our Sport, Business and Manx Gaelic news. On average we publish around five and a half thousand news stories every year making manxradio.com a ‘must visit’ destination for anyone interested in the life of our Island.

However, the website is much, much more than a newsfeed. Not only does it provide a schedule of all our broadcast activities, access to programmes via Listen Again and information about all our presenters, it also provides a window on the Isle of Man with access to webcams, up to date weather forecasts, ‘What’s On’ information and details of how to access, amongst other things, the myriad of support groups that operate here in the Isle of Man.

Technically, the website is the hub that drives audio and information to the Manx Radio Radioplayer and our mobile apps. This is the way more and more are consuming Manx Radio these days.

Last year we reported 833,633 unique visitors looked at manxradio.com. This year, that figure had grown by 3.1% to 859,633. If we look at the comparative figures for the first six months of the financial year and for the first nine months of the year we see that the increase in traffic was 15.6% and 7.2% respectively. On further analysis, we see that the whole year increase stands only at 3.1% purely because the winter weather was infinitely better resulting in fewer people driven to the website looking for vital flood and snow information! The graph below shows the number of unique visitors to the Manx Radio website during the five year period 2010/15:

Unique Visitors

160,000

140,000

120,000 Unique visitors 10/11 100,000 Unique visitors 11/12

80,000 Unique visitors 12/13 Unique visitors 13/14 60,000 Unique visitors 14/15 40,000

20,000

0

Jul

Apr

Oct

Jun Jan

Mar Feb

Aug Sep Nov

Dec May

NB. The drop in visitors to the site from TT 12/13 is because Manx Radio now actively sends visitors to the dedicated TT site – iomtt.com

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 14

The average number of site visits each month in 2014/15 was 318,998 up 1.06% year on year and totalled in excess of 3.8 million visits during the year. The graph below again shows the impact a mild winter had on visits to the site.

Site Visits

500,000 450,000 400,000 Number of visits 10/11 350,000 Number of visits 11/12 300,000 Number of visits 12/13 250,000 Number of visits 13/14 200,000 150,000 Number of visits 14/15 100,000 50,000 -

Visitors to the site from the ‘Top 10 countries’ during January to March 2015 were:

0.3 0.7 0.7

0.9 0.3 0.2 Great Britain 1.7 4.0 Isle of Man United States Unknown Germany 35.5 Norway 55.9 Argentina Canada Denmark Australia

Throughout 2014/15 we have been actively working on developing a replacement website for manxradio.com. The current content management system by which staff and freelancers update the site is showing its age and makes it very difficult for us to respond to major Island events with dedicated pages. Over time, the site has become the core from which we drive our Radioplayer streaming and the iPhone and Android mobile apps and each time we need to change elements of these services we find ourselves having to pay for site development which is costly.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 15

Additionally, all our news and information is not only accessible via our website and through our mobile phone apps, but through Twitter feeds and via our suite of Facebook pages. Again, we have seen tremendous growth in the use of social media and this is becoming even more important to Manx Radio and needs to be incorporated into our website to bring the wealth of dynamic information available via social media to the attention of an even greater audience.

We are working towards launching the new site, which will also feature a number of user enhancements, early in 2015/16. ii. audio streaming

Not only can Manx Radio be heard on our terrestrial transmissions on FM and AM across the Island, but all our programming and our Listen Again service is also available via computer, through the Radioplayer to listeners worldwide, and via smart phones.

Outside the TT period (May and June), listening figures averaged at 34,354 each month. This is a marked increase on the previous year’s figures which averaged at circa 20,000. It is hugely encouraging that there is growing demand for Manx Radio’s programming via these digital devices.

It is obvious that it is our motorsport coverage, peaking at 152,426 in June, and also witnessing a marked increase during the TT Classic, which are the periods of highest demand. However, the June (TT) figure is a little lower than the 2013 figure of 159,065.

Unique Listeners per month 2014/15 180000

160000

140000

120000

100000

80000

60000

40000

20000

0

A typical month will see connections from over 150 different countries with strong off-Island listening from the UK, the USA and Europe as illustrated below. Isle of Man residents continue to be heavy users of our digital streaming even though they have access to our regular terrestrial broadcast signals.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 16

2% 4% 3% 2% 4% United Kingdom/ 6% 34% Isle of Man/ United States/ 10% Brazil/

17% Mexico/ 18% Colombia/ Germany/ Argentina/ Ireland/ Internet Streaming by Spain/ Geographical Location 2014/15

It is especially interesting to note the increase in listenership from South America over the past 12 months.

1% 2% 1% 2% 3% United Kingdom 3% 8% Isle of Man 39% France 15% United States Germany 26% Ireland Australia Poland Spain Internet Streaming by Other Geographical Location 2013/14

iii. facebook

The new Manx Radio Station Format states:

Manx Radio should utilise and continue to develop the use of social media and its website in order to consider how to reach their audiences and provide a degree of interactivity and personalised choice and look at the balance of broadcast with other services to best match audience need with available resources.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 17

Whilst the website is our primary conduit of current and historic information for the audience, the best way for us to excel at interacting with them is through the use of social media.

Social Media is the umbrella term that has come to be used to describe online networking sites. Manx Radio primarily utilises two of these, Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is a personal network site where users can show friends colleagues, potential and existing business users, what they are up to.

Manx Radio has taken the decision to offer our ‘likers’ access to a suite of Facebook pages that reflect the diversity of the station’s programming output. This means that fans of a certain part of our programming output, or of a certain presenter, will only interact with a group of individuals with a common interest.

To measure the success of our Facebook activity we record the number of ‘likes’ and the ‘weekly reach’ of each page and over the last 12 months we have recorded this information as shown in the following chart:

No measurements taken during this period

It can clearly be seen how our audience has really taken to interact with Manx Radio since we commenced measurements in April 2013. In that short period we have witnessed growth from 27,800 likes in April ’13 to 109,991 in March 2015 - almost 4 times the interest over just two years, justifying the station’s investment in the media.

Our social media platforms, both Facebook and Twitter are proving an invaluable source of news for those who cannot access the station in the traditional manner. In times of bad weather or when a big news story breaks, those that cannot listen to our broadcast don’t miss out as Facebook and Twitter allow us to interact with the audience instantly. Indeed, in these changing times, it is not particularly important how individuals interact with Manx Radio, it is the fact they are interacting that is important.

In this day and age nothing stands still and Facebook itself regularly changes its regulations – both for personal and business users. Over the last twelve months:

 Facebook now removes any users that are inactive (haven’t logged on for a significant period of time). This means that the figures recorded represent active users only  Facebook has also changed how business pages are seen by the users that ‘like’ them. Since 2015, users only see pages that they interact with the most in their newsfeed. Any other pages will only be seen if the page pays to boost or promote

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 18

them. This again makes Manx Radio’s growth even more impressive as the statistics only show the ‘weekly reach’ of active users.

Last November, when Manx Radio celebrated its 50th Anniversary, we used Social Media heavily to post information about our station and promote the Big Presenter Takeover where we invited past presenters back onto the airwaves. This generated a large number of new likes in just five days. We also had over 1,400 users engaging with our posts (liking, sharing or commenting about them).

The snapshot below shows how many were interacting with Manx Radio via Social Media in our anniversary week:

The following snapshot shows a comparison with the same week in 2013. We had less likes, a smaller growth and engagement but before the changes to Facebook our reach was higher.

Our current strategy to increase reach is to ensure we post the most engaging content possible so that our followers feel it is worthwhile interacting with us.

iv. twitter

Our Twitter page has grown significantly over the last year. Twitter is still a new media to many on the Island, but Manx Radio prides itself on being one of the most active and most popular Twitter feeds emanating from the Isle of Man.

The snapshot below shows the total followers, average daily growth and new followers gained during the last week of the business year in 2014/15.

The total ‘mentions’ (‘mentions’ includes users that tweet us directly, retweet our tweets, or include us in some way in their tweets during this week was 75.

During the year we went over the 6,000 follower milestone, which is an outstanding achievement. Users now treat Twitter as just another digital platform on which they can engage with the Manx Radio family and also use it to interact directly with the studio. Users

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 19 tweet us directly for song requests, to take part in discussion shows and generally keep in touch with the station.

During our 50th anniversary, we invited people to join the conversation using the hashtag #ManxRadio50. We also got over 100 mentions in the space of 5 days from well-wishers and those enjoying the station’s output:

In the 2013/14 annual report we stated:

Our priorities in 2014/15 will be to develop this type of interaction via our social media, to continue to grow awareness of Manx Radio and to grow interaction that can be utilised within our programming.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 20

It is clear from the number of interactions mentioned on air that both Twitter and Facebook are becoming a more important means of contacting the station and it is our aim to further increase the interaction of social media within specific shows over the coming year to reflect its popularity on the Island.

However, things don’t stand still and we need to continually monitor the social media space to ensure we are utilising our restricted resources on the most heavily utilised social media platforms.

Whilst even 10 years ago most youngsters would have counted among their possessions a radio, today this is not the No: 1 ‘must have’. That honour now goes to the smartphone where the youth market is consuming radio not necessarily by listening to it but by listening and watching video clips and sharing what they like with their friends. It is, therefore, important to nurture these potential users as they are our listeners of the future.

So, just like the BBC, which has identified that if it wants to be relevant in the future to the next generation, broadcasters have to be active in the social media space and utilise the content they prepare for their radio (and TV) networks in a way that can be easily digested via the mobile phone. To this end the BBC has put a lot of investment in its own You Tube channel and now has over 2 million followers. v. you tube

Whilst not expecting the same success as the BBC, Manx Radio has also launched a You Tube channel which we now use to post all our video content.

Currently, there is only a small number of videos available, but with some enjoying viewership of over 5,000, it can be seen that there is an embryonic demand for this content.

Available are short films for the programmes we launched in January 2015, a look back at our 50th anniversary, our collaboration with in November 2014 as well as a short film on how to make pancakes presented by the station’s well know chef – Alex Brindley!

This initial foray into video content is essential if Manx Radio is to keep up to date and retain its position as a leader in social media on the Island.

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5. commitment to the commercial sector key highlights of the year 2014/15

Manx Radio grew its commercial revenue in 2014/15 by an impressive 12.49% - the result of a conscious effort to grow revenues in the face of a stationary subvention and to meet the costs associated with providing the station’s high speech output quota.

The Tynwald debate of March 2014 in which Manx Radio was endorsed as the nation’s public service broadcaster certainly played its part in giving Island businesses additional confidence to work with Manx Radio. However, capitalising on the situation came through the launch of a number of focused sales products:

50:50

A specially devised advertising product planned to run throughout our 50th anniversary celebratory year went to air on 1st April 2014 with 47 new companies and put us on track to grow revenues from the start of the financial year.

smartsocial

A product to manage SME social media has been very successful and broke its target by 28% in the first year. The revenue stream is important to Manx Radio as it does not impact on our commercial airtime in any way.

smartsocial training

Offering a basic skills, free training course, has been successful in ‘seeding’ the market and finding a rich source of prospective customers for SMART Social. In the 2014/15 fiscal year we have trained 85 individuals from 35 companies.

smart web site

Our SMART website (a special site for business users) created to stimulate interest in our advertising offerings was upgraded during the year. It was integrated onto a new content management platform that allows us full control of the site, reducing costs and increasing usability and ease of uploading content. The site is now fully interactive and is a rich source of sales leads for the Business Team.

office procedures

Overhauling our office procedures is a continuous process in the ongoing quest towards a paperless environment. Much tactical work has been completed with our traffic system supplier in enabling new features to their system that will save sales time and costs. Other weekly office routines have also been automated and are proving extremely effective - in one case reducing paperwork errors by 80% across the year!

Whilst these measures had a positive impact on the company’s bottom line there were, unfortunately, other external hurdles we had to overcome to grow our revenue.

In the course of the year we had two significant client losses in Barry Curran (Traffic & Travel sponsorship) and The Mount Murray Hotel (What’s on Guide sponsorship). The total value to Manx Radio was £30,000 over 12 months. However, we are delighted to report that we were able to replace both sponsorships within a few months.

radio manx ltd annual report 2014 – 2015 22 the manx radio dream catcher appeal

The Dream Catcher charity continued to support many causes on the Island but the pleasure received in providing a new all terrain wheel chair for one young boy was the highlight of the year. Over the year Dream Catcher was able to stimulate activity across the Island that led to £20,000 being raised for the cause which was much appreciated by the youngster and his family.

Our annual fundraising event ‘Heroes in the Community’ gathered tremendous momentum in 2014/15 and benefited significantly from the efforts of Home Strategic joining the Dream Catcher committee as marketing consultants. The evening event was spectacular and raised £28,000 for the charity. in association

Our support programme for events across the Island has again been very successful and included a wide range of events:

Jekyll and Hyde TNT Productions Big Wheel Blues Big Wheel Blues Fawlty Towers Service Players Dance with the Stars JT Productions Stage Ed Summer School Steve Palfreman Southern Show Southern Agricultural Sunset Boulevard Taylorian Productions Royal Show Royal Manx Society Christmas at the Cave Department of Economic Development Santa Trains Groudle Glen Railway Puss in Boots Dreamstars Sister Act Douglas Choral Union West Side Story Manx Operatic Society

The promoters benefited with £40,000 of Manx Radio airtime to promote their events and, in addition, our listeners received over 100 pairs of free tickets.

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6. engineering services peel fm transmitter

After a long wait for Ofcom frequency clearance, an additional FM transmitter was installed at the DHA communications site on Peel Hill. FM coverage in the Peel area was previously served from Carnane and was known to be a weak signal area – particularly for indoor reception. With a decline in AM listening and a growing population in Peel, improvements were necessary.

The new transmitter came into service in December 2014 and provides much enhanced coverage throughout Peel and Patrick. All planning, antenna design and transmitter installation work was undertaken by Manx Radio. new technologies

Manx Radio’s use of smartphone technologies for broadcasting and reporting received a welcome boost during the year with the introduction of 4G mobile networks across the Island. While internet-based communication must always be used with some caution for broadcast work, the enhanced data rates and improved 4G coverage is making high quality live reporting possible from many locations with little more than a microphone and a smart phone with some professional software installed. commercial services

Manx Radio’s engineering team continues to make a strong financial contribution to Manx Radio through provision of engineering services to other companies such as Vodafone, Sure Mobile and Blue Wave Communications.

The contract with Arqiva Ltd, for maintaining the digital TV transmitters across the ten sites on the Island, was enhanced to formally include the BBC’s FM radio transmitters for Radios 1, 2, 3 & 4 at Carnane and the DAB transmitters located at Carnane, Ramsey and Port St Mary. transmission statistics Target Actual

% of continuous FM transmission 99% 100%

Carnane (97.2 MHz) 100% Snaefell (89MHz) 100% (103.7MHz) 100% Ramsey (89.5MHz) 100% Peel (89.5MHz) (from December 2014) 100%

% of continuous AM transmission 99% 100%

% of continuous web access 99% 99.9%

Throughout the year there were no unplanned interruptions to Manx Radio’s FM and AM networks. There were a number of short planned outages, switching breaks and power reductions at Carnane, Jurby and Snaefell, to allow for others working close to the broadcast antennae on the transmission towers.

There were also a couple of short periods when server issues affected web access for one in every three users.

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7. future plans i. transfer of broadcasting infrastructure from dha to manx radio

Following on from the Select Committee report, and a public service broadcaster’s need for transparency, Manx Radio has been in discussion with the Department of Home Affairs regarding the possibility of transferring Manx Radio’s broadcast infrastructure and its associated running costs, to Manx Radio.

In 1979, when the current structure of Manx Radio was setup under Radio Manx Ltd, ownership of the transmission infrastructure was retained by the Broadcasting Commission. Subsequent delegation of functions moved ownership to the DHA. However, practical responsibility and all engineering work associated with the transmitter networks have always been undertaken by Manx Radio’s engineering team. A formal agreement and MOU exists between Manx Radio and the Department.

The DHA agrees that there is no reason why it should retain an interest in the broadcast transmitters and it would benefit both parties if formal ownership is transferred to Radio Manx Ltd.

We are now working towards this transfer and after it has been completed Manx Radio will be in a position to report on its transmission costs each year in the annual report. ii. replacement of am transmission service

Manx Radio’s AM service, transmitted from Foxdale, consists of circa 50 year old antenna systems, tuning equipment, a backup generator and two transmitters 24 and 34 years old respectively. Much of this equipment has already reached the end of its useful life and significant expenditure is required to replace it. No maintenance has been carried out to the masts and rigging since 2000 due to the high costs involved. If the transmitters are to be kept operational past 2019 it will cost £195,000 for antenna maintenance and equipment replacement.

However, AM broadcasting is very old, low-quality technology, AM receivers are becoming less readily available and organisations such as the BBC are actively closing down their AM services. In Ireland RTÉ closed their AM service in 2008 and recently announced the closure of their remaining LW service, which would leave radio broadcasting on FM and DAB.

We must, therefore, consider if any further expenditure on AM can be justified when newer, more effective, higher-quality technologies are already widely used elsewhere and AM receivers are becoming less readily available.

For almost 50 years Manx Radio listeners have benefited from a second transmission network offering considerable programming choice and coverage of important Island events. The second transmission service currently provides over 106 days of unique, alternative programming. This includes coverage of sittings of Tynwald and Keys Question Time, the TT, Festival of Motorcycling, S100, sport programming, budget review and 7 hours per week of alternative morning and Manx language programming that is not available on our FM service.

Realistically there are only two alternatives to the largely obsolete AM platform: FM and DAB/DAB+. However, while a new FM network would carry a single programme service for Manx Radio alone, one DAB network can carry many programme services and would provide a transmission platform for all the Island’s broadcasters and for other, invited, and paying broadcasters. Once the FM transmission network was closed significant savings in transmission costs would materialise.

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Internet or IP-based delivery, whether via the home PC and Wi-Fi, or via Smartphone apps and mobile 3G/4G, is already used by most broadcasters and Island radio stations and while use of IP services will continue to grow and become more important in the future, such services do not currently offer a replacement for terrestrial broadcast radio and are unlikely to become a workable, cost-effective solution for a considerable time.

Manx Radio has concluded that a DAB/DAB+ solution is the most appropriate for the Isle of Man. The Manx Radio Board also believes it would be a backward step for the population of the Isle of Man if we were to consolidate all broadcasts onto the existing single FM network.

Manx Radio has completed a detailed business case which has been scrutinised by an independent transmission expert and will be submitted to the Department of Economic Development (Manx Radio’s sponsoring Department) in 2015. The paper details the arguments for Manx Radio’s second transmission platform, considers the alternative transmission options, costs them and offers a transmission solution for the Island which, over the lifetime of the replacement transmission network, offers considerable savings to Government.

It is proposed for the DAB/DAB+ network to be rolled out Island-wide over a two year period commencing 2017/18, the AM service to be switched-off in December 2019 and in 2020 a steering committee should be set up to decide on a suitable switch-off date for FM on the Isle of Man. iii. redevelopment of broadcasting house

There are now three major aspects of the redevelopment scheme for Broadcasting House outstanding. Namely, the refurbishment of the external fabric of the building, the provision of disabled access throughout the building together with internal refurbishment to the remainder of the existing building and the creation of an off-site disaster recovery facility.

Phase 1 – refurbishment of external fabric of Broadcasting House

This work will commence in June 2015 and includes the replacement of all the windows, the re-rendering of the building and replacement of all the rain-water goods.

Phase 2 – Disabled access and refurbishment of existing building

This scheme is to ensure there is disabled access to all parts of the building and to create an effective working environment for the news and programming staff through the refurbishment of the production floor. This phase will also see the creation of an extension which will allow for safe access from the roadside to the station via a new entrance.

Current indications suggest it may be possible to commence this scheme in January 2016.

Phase 3 – Disaster recovery

Currently, Manx Radio only has the most elementary contingencies in place for the continuation of its broadcasting should Broadcasting House need to be evacuated.

The intention is to provide a disaster recovery facility at the TT Grandstand as this will enable us to re-engineer the TT broadcast infrastructure which in itself is in need of replacement as well as providing a flexible disaster recovery facility. Detailed planning for the scheme will commence during 2017.

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8. corporate governance

The non-executive directors of the company in 2014/15 were:

David North – Chairman Alison Jane Jones – Chair of the Audit Committee – resigned 26th February 2015 Charles Guard Mark Newall Grace Sally Patricia Roberts – Chair of the Audit Committee – joined 18th December 2015. audit committee

The Audit Committee comprises three non executive directors and the Managing Director as Secretary. It met three times during the year ended 31 March 2015 and following the resignation of the Chairman, Alison Jones, the chairmanship was taken by Sally Roberts as of our meeting of the 19th March 2015.

The Audit Committee was set-up to consider matters of financial reporting and oversight in more depth than the full board. In addition, the committee regularly reviews the three year budget, management and statutory accounts, the risk register and other internal reports.

The Committee had regular meetings with Treasury and with the company auditors, PWC, to discuss issues relating to the company. The implementation of the Select Committee recommendations and the proposed wording of the new licence from the Communications Commission were also considered. A watching brief was maintained over future proposals including the company’s membership of the Government Unified Pension scheme. remuneration committee

The Remuneration Committee, which consists of the company Chairman, three non- executive directors and the Managing Director as Secretary met for the first time in March 2015 following a recommendation within the Myer’s Report that a Remuneration Committee be set up.

The Remuneration Committee consists of all the non-executive directors and is chaired by Sally Roberts and will, in practice, meet once a year in March.

Its main role is to oversee the terms of all senior management at Manx Radio to include pension rights and all compensation schemes.

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9. comment from the trustees

RADIO MANX LIMITED PURPOSE TRUST ANNUAL REPORT 14/15

The Trustees were advised that the Purpose Trust would be wound up in 2014 but in fact the Trust remained in place until 31st March 2015 when the new licence was issued and the Communications Commission took over their role.

The Trustees continued to carry out their duties under the Purpose Trust Deed throughout the year monitoring the output and meeting with the Board of Directors to discuss any issues raised.

As stated in last year’s report we are pleased to note that Manx Radio’s position as the National Broadcaster has been formalised and we wish them well for the future.

Caroline Convery

Chair

Radio Manx Purpose Trust

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10. the communications commission compliance report

MANX RADIO – STATEMENT OF COMPLIANCE 2014-15

In the period under report, the Communications Commission received one formal complaint against Manx Radio in respect of photographs of private property being published on a social media site. The complaint did not fall within the regulatory remit of the Commission, but the Commission notes that an apology was issued by the Chair of the Radio Manx Purpose Trust.

Notwithstanding the above, the Communications Commission has no reason to believe that during the period under report Manx Radio did not comply with the terms of the licence under the Broadcasting Act 1993 granted by the Commission to Radio Manx Limited.

On behalf of the Commission.

Dr Carmel McLaughlin Director

29 April 2015