Communities Making Waves

The Local Radio Day initiative is back to celebrate all that is good about the sector on Monday 12th October 2020. Whilst there are significantly fewer local radio stations operating than this time last year, the day will continue to highlight the value local radio brings to listeners and communities. BBC local stations are taking part along with community and commercial services, and the day is supported by The Radio Academy, Community Media Association, Community Radio Awards, the Local Radio Alliance and the BBC. This year’s theme is ‘Communities Making Waves: Turning the Tide on Isolation’.

The Local Radio Alliance was founded by Dom Chambers to explore how local radio can strengthen communities and help improve lives. Dom said, “Audiences have been drawn to those locally trusted voices offering both the information we need to hear as well as diverting us with great entertainment and music choices. With the extraordinary year, we have been having it is inevitable that Local Radio Day is about communities taking action. We want this day to be a celebration of those heroes and organisations that stepped up in a national crisis to help their fellow people. In sharing these stories, I am sure shows will find time to mention those hundreds of volunteers, engineers and staff that made sure the local airwaves were full of news, information and entertainment as lockdown kicked in.”

With restrictions in many parts of the country, the emphasis for this year will be more around broadcast content than physically getting out into the community. BBC Local Radio has been running the Make a Difference feature across all their stations since the start of lockdown. BBC Sussex and Surrey are taking this further for Local Radio Day with their Pledge to Talk campaign.

The Local Radio Alliance has released a free resource pack to everybody (see URL below). The pack includes inspiration for participation, social media post templates, audio assets and more. Registrations are welcomed right up to the day. Followers can use #LocalRadioDay to join in the conversation, as well as following Local Radio Day on Facebook and Twitter.

(Sources: National Press, Radio Today)  

www.localradioday.co.uk