Community Radio Fund
The first round of the Community Radio Fund 2024-2025 opens for applications from eligible stations on Tuesday 21 May 2024 and will close at 5pm on Friday 14 June 2024.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has made £400,000 available over the 2024-2025 financial year. This means that the panel will allocate approximately half of this to Round One applicants.
Who can apply
Grants can only be made to community radio stations licensed by Ofcom (Stations licensed under The Community Radio (Guernsey) Order 2013 are not eligible for funding.
C-DSP stations, licensed under the Small-scale Radio Multiplex and Community Digital Radio Order 2019, are now eligible for the Fund in addition to stations licensed to broadcast on AM and FM.
Applicant stations must be on air as at the date of their application for their application to be considered by the Panel. Payment can only be made to stations that have launched.
For analogue community radio stations, there should be a minimum of fifteen months remaining on the licence from the closing date for applications. If there are less than fifteen months remaining on the licence, the licensee must have submitted an extension application to Ofcom by the closing date. C-DSP licences do not have an end date. In either case, we expect the services to continue to broadcast for the full length of the grant tenure if an application is successful. Please see the Grant Agreement, which is published on the Ofcom website and will be sent to successful applicants.
Applications can only be submitted by, and awarded to, the licence holding company. The grant must be paid to the bank account of the licence holding company.
There will normally be two rounds of grant awards in each financial year. Normally, if a Licensee has received a grant for a particular station in one funding round, that station will not be considered for a further grant under another round in the same financial year. The licensee for such a station can apply in the next year and subsequent years. Licensees which have been awarded a grant in a previous funding round must report on the spending of that grant before submitting a new application. The grant report form is on the Community Radio Fund page of our website.
Joint applications may be submitted by two or more Licensees, for example to co-fund a shared post. However, one Licensee should be nominated to manage the grant and it will be paid to that company (and not split between two or more).
In accordance with the Compliance Notice made under the Welsh Language (Wales)
Measure 20111, when Ofcom makes decisions about the award of a grant, it must also take in to account the following:
a) what effects, if any (and whether positive or negative), the awarding of a grant would have on opportunities for persons to use the Welsh language; and
ii) treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language;
b) how the decision could be taken or implemented (for example, by imposing conditions of grant) so that it would have positive effects, or increased positive effects) opportunities for persons to use the Welsh language; and
ii) treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language; and
c) how the decision could be taken or implemented (for example, by imposing conditions of grant) so that it would not have adverse effects, or so that it would have decreased adverse effects on—
i) opportunities for persons to use the Welsh language; and
ii) treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language.
Accordingly, to assist the Panel’s consideration of applications, any applicants on behalf of stations based in Wales are asked to provide information in their application about the effects of a grant on the Welsh language, as set out above.
Applications may be submitted in Welsh. Any application submitted in Welsh will be treated no less favourably than an application submitted in English
Restrictions
Grants cannot be given for the following:
Capital expenditure/equipment (for the office, studio, transmission etc.)
Vehicle costs
Volunteer expenses
Cost of building repairs, construction or maintenance
Programming or marketing costs
Utility bills
Rent and/or mortgage payments
Licence fees, copyright fees
Retrospective grants i.e. to cover expenditure already incurred
Funding for the repayment of loans
Company directors’ fees
Costs reimbursed or to be reimbursed by funding from other public authorities or from the private sector
Interest payments (including service charge payments for finance leases)
Statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties
How to apply
Full guidance available at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0032/285692/2024-25-R1-Guidance-Notes.pdf