Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Partners 2 3. SSDAB 3 4. Community benefit 4 5. Customer demand 5 6. Technical plan 9 7. Governance 11 8. Board of directors 12 9. Finance 13 10. Get involved 14 © Shefcast Digital Limited Company limited by guarantee no. 12923673. Registered in England and Wales. Registered address: 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX Shefcast Digital 1. Introduction Shefcast Digital is a consortium of local Rotherham SSDAB service and this is now and community-led media organisations the subject of a public consultation from Sheffield and Rotherham. pending a decision on the licence award. We have come together with an We have established Shefcast Digital as a ambitious plan to launch a new tier of locally-led and locally-owned not-for- local and community digital radio services. profit initiative which seeks to operate for community benefit the SSDAB service for Shefcast Digital brings together, in a new Sheffield and Rotherham and having the partnership, Sheffield Community Media object to promote civic journalism and Limited, a community benefit society community media. supporting community media in Sheffield, together with three established Shefcast Digital will seek to nurture and community radio providers: Commedia support a range of high quality digital Sheffield which operates Sheffield Live! radio services in Sheffield and Rotherham community radio, Pakistan Muslim Centre which respond to the diversity of (Sheffield) which operates Sheffield’s Link interests, cultures and concerns of our FM and Redroad FM of South Rotherham. communities. We have formed this initiative in response This is the prospectus of Shefcast Digital. to the opportunity to develop a new It sets out the background to our generation of digital community media partnership and the SSDAB opportunity. It and, in particular, to apply for the licence explains the rationale and the community to operate the Small-Scale Digital Audio benefit of the project. It presents our Broadcasting (SSDAB) service for Sheffield evaluation of customer demand and our and Rotherham. preliminary roster of new broadcast services. And it describes our approach to SSDAB represents a new tier of delivery including technical plans, broadcasting in the UK bringing more governance, key persons and finance. choice to digital radio listeners and providing a digital platform for local and This prospectus is supported by a detailed community radio services. business plan and financial forecasts for the pre-start period and the first three The first tranche of SSDAB licences have years of broadcast operations, including been advertised by Ofcom, the income and expenditure, balance sheet communications regulator and include a projections and cash flow forecasts, licence to operate a service covering the accompanied by explanatory notes. localities of Sheffield and Rotherham. Shefcast Digital has submitted its We invite you to join us on a new application to operate the Sheffield and broadcasting adventure. 1 Shefcast Digital 2. Partners Shefcast Digital brings together leading Commedia Sheffield , is a not-for-profit community media providers in Sheffield company limited by guarantee which and Rotherham in a joint initiative to holds the licence to operate Sheffield secure, under community ownership, the Live! 93.2FM community radio. rights to operate digital audio Commedia Sheffield commenced as a broadcasting infrastructure in Sheffield radio project for a community festival in and Rotherham. Each of the founding the year 2000 and was incorporated in partners already holds Broadcasting Act 2002. It secured substantial start-up licences with Ofcom, the communications funding to build one of the first regulator, to provide community media community media centres in the UK as services in the locality. part of public investment in neighbourhood access to ICTs. It launched Sheffield Community Media Limited is a the first internet radio in Sheffield and community benefit society established in was later awarded the licence to operate 2012 and which, through its operating the first full-time community radio service arm Sheffield Local Television Limited, in the city, on air since October 2007. holds the licence to operate the local Commedia Sheffield owns the Sheffield television channel for Sheffield, Sheffield Live! brand and website. Live! TV. Sheffield Community Media (SCM) is a community business set up to Pakistan Muslim Centre (Sheffield) engage people through community media Limited , is a charitable company limited and to establish the local TV channel for by guarantee which holds the licence to Sheffield. It formed Sheffield Local operate Link FM community radio. Link Television Limited, as a wholly owned FM was launched in 2016 providing a subsidiary, to apply for the local digital TV music and speech service with a focus licence advertised by Ofcom in 2012. It primarily on the Pakistani, South Asian was the only locally owned and not-for- and Arabic communities in Sheffield. The profit applicant and it was successful in Pakistan Muslim Centre is a community winning the licence to operate the service hub which hosts a range of projects and despite strong competition from two programmes promoting education, health commercial companies. and well-being, and catering for people of all ages. Following the licence award, SCM launched the first public community Redroad FM Limited , is a not-for-profit shares issue by a community media company limited by guarantee which project in the UK and raised a total of holds the licence to operate Redroad FM £100,000 from 116 community community radio based in Kiveton Park. shareholders matched by a further Redroad FM commenced in 2007 with a £100,000 in social investment loan stock. month long trial broadcast and launched The local TV channel was launched as as a full-time community radio service in Sheffield Live! TV in September 2014 and 2010. Redroad FM is a youth radio station has since achieved six years of for South Rotherham broadcasting local broadcasting success providing a 24/7 information, covering issues relating to platform for local news, community young people and playing a variety of information, creative expression and civic music reflective of young people’s engagement. interests and lifestyles. 2 Shefcast Digital 3. SSDAB Since the 1980s, a new more spectrum media content providers looking to build a efficient technology for sound regional or national audience. broadcasting has been developed, known as Digital Audio Broadcasting, which in Under Ofcom’s planned rollout, 240 2020 overtook FM radio listening for the SSDAB mux operators are to be licensed first time but which has hitherto not been over a five year period, each with non- accessible to community broadcasters for overlapping coverage to provide near to reasons of cost and control by large universal access to SSDAB services across commercial radio groups. the UK. The regulatory framework encourages consortia based proposals That is now about to change. Following a and the inclusion of existing community trial scheme, the government passed the radio service providers. Each SSDAB mux Small-scale Radio Multiplex and must guarantee space for community Community Digital Radio Order 2019 and radio services and must demonstrate fair in April 2020, the communications competition for access to a range of regulator Ofcom set out its plans for the digital radio services. licensing and regulation of Small-scale Digital Audio Broadcasting (SSDAB). In 2018 SCM submitted to Ofcom an expression of interest in operating SSDAB SSDAB has become possible as a result of for Sheffield and Rotherham. With the the lapse of patents on the DAB legislation and regulatory framework now transmission standard and the in place Ofcom has published, in development of software defined radio September 2020, its first call for SSDAB transmitters that can be built on open licence applications with Sheffield and source platforms. Today an SSDAB Rotherham among the first 25 areas to be transmission system can be installed for licensed. around £15k, not much more than the cost of an FM system but capable of The legislative framework does not carrying not just one radio service but 20- require the SSDAB mux operator to be 25 different channels. not-for-profit or community owned entities and there are commercial Locations and communities that have not companies that will seek to acquire this been able to establish community radio in valuable broadcast asset. the past by reason of shortage of frequencies will now have the We are confident, however, that well opportunities to do so on the SSDAB designed community-led proposals will platform. Each SSDAB multiplex (“mux”), have a high chance of success provided managed as a community asset, has the they have sound technical plans, broad potential to generate surplus revenue to community support, involvement of reinvest in civic journalism and existing community radio services, a community media through the sale of viable business model and sufficient spare capacity to commercial and other funding in place. 3 Shefcast Digital 4. Community benefit After over 20 years of lobbying by community radio across Europe has community media practitioners, activists shown its contribution to social cohesion, and academics, UK legislation was community development, intercultural introduced in 2004 to enable licensing of dialogue and inclusion. community radio services to broadcast as a distinct third sector alongside BBC radio Today there are over 300 licensed