Q102.9 FM Public FilePublic File
Each local commercial station in the UK has obligations with regard to its programmes, including its music and local content. These obligations are set out in the station Format which forms part of this station's Public File. The Public File is also available in hard copy by post upon request by any member of the public, and serves as one indicator of each station's output. Comment on the contents of the Public File should be made to the station or to the industry regulator, Ofcom.
To contact us please click here
Licensed area: Londonderry area
Frequency/ies: 102.9MHz
Station Format
Q102.9 is a locally-orientated broad music and information station for Londonderry. The station plays variety of music, primarily targeting the 18 – 35 year old market.
Operational Information
Service duration: 24hours
Locally made programming:
Studio location:Locally-made programming must be produced within the licensed areas of Ballymena, Londonderry, Omagh & Enniskillen, Coleraine, Cookstown, Magherafelt & Dungannon or Newry.
Locally-made hours:At least 7 hours a day during daytime weekdays (must include breakfast).At least 4 hours daytime Saturdays and Sundays.
Programme sharing:All programmes may be shared between the Ballymena licence, the Londonderry licence, the Omagh & Enniskillen licence, the Coleraine licence, the Cookstown, Magherafelt & Dungannon licence and the Newry licence, subject to satisfying the character of service requirements above.
Local News
At least hourly during daytime weekdays and peak-time weekends. At other times UK-wide, nations and international news should feature.
Speech | Excludes advertising, programme/promotional trails & sponsor credits |
Peak-time | Weekday breakfast and drive-time, and weekend late breakfast |
Daytime | 06.00 to 19.00 weekdays and weekends |
In conjunction with Ofcom’s published Localness Guidelines.
Community Diary - enables charities and non-profit making organizations to
publicize their events. Just get in touch and tell us the details of your event, and
we'll voice it, and put it on the Community Diary slot on Q102 fm, which goes out three times a day.
£20 a day, £40 for 3 days, £70 for 5 days.
Sample Playlist
Alesha Dixon - Breathe Slow
Flo Rida - Right Round
Kelly Clarskon - My Life Would Suck Without You
Lady GaGa - Poker Face
Lilly Allen - The Fear
Taylor Swift - Love Story
The Script - Talk You Down
Shontelle - T-Shirt
Lionel Richie - Just Go
U2 - Get On Your Boots
Beyonce - Halo
Jennifer Hudson - If This Isn't Love
Kings Of Leon - Revelry
Ne-Yo - Mad
The Fray - You Found Me
Katy Perry - Thinking Of You
Nickleback - I'd Come For You
Pet Shop Boys - Love Etc
Will Young - Let It Go
Programme Schedule
To view the current ''on-air' presenter schedule, please click here.
Localness Guidelines
Locally-made programmes:
It is the obligation of each station to deliver the level of locally-made programmes output as defined within the Format in whichever way it sees fit within its licence conditions. The guidelines set out the areas of issue that may be questioned by Ofcom if it has cause to investigate a station’s localness output. The extent to which any particular guidelines have been considered may vary, dependent on the context of the complaint.
While stations are free to network programmes outside the requirements regarding locally-made programming in their formats, they are still expected to be able to respond to local events in a timely manner, providing live local programming in the way and at times that audiences expect.
FM Local Stations:
Each FM station should produce a minimum of 10 hours a day of locally-made programming during weekday daytimes (this should include breakfast). Programming should include local material across those 10 hours as a whole, although there is no expectation that local material would be included in each of those individual hours if this is not appropriate.
Each station should produce a minimum of 4 hours a day of locally-made programming at weekends (in daytime) which should include local material.
In exceptional cases, if a station can put forward a convincing case as to why it should be treated differently, for example, as a specialist music station, and so have to provide less local material and less locally-made programming than the guidelines suggest, Ofcom will consider such requests on a case by case basis.
We will also apply the FM guidance set out above to any AM local commercial station where at least half the population within its Measured Coverage Area (MCA) is not also within the MCA of an FM local commercial station.
Daytime is defined as 0600 to 1900 both weekdays and weekends.
Local Material:
Local material can be both characterised and delivered in a number of ways (news, information, comment, outside broadcasts, what’s-on, travel news, interviews, charity involvement, weather, local artists, local arts and culture, sport coverage, phone-ins, listener interactivity etc.), therefore precise definitions can be unhelpful.
All stations should broadcast local news throughout peak-time both on weekdays (breakfast and afternoon drive) and weekends (late breakfast). Outside peak time, UK-wide, nations and international news should feature.
What is it?
Station programming of specific relevance which also offers a distinctive alternative to UK-wide or nations’ service;
Content drawn from, and / or relevant to, the area is often the major point of difference between stations, and therefore licensees should be able to identify a range of local aspects of their stations and how they are providing output specific to their area;
The feel for an area a listener should get by tuning in to a particular station, coupled with confidence that matters of importance, relevance or interest to the target audience in the area will be accessible on air; and Programming likely to give listeners a feeling of ownership and / or kinship, particularly at times of crisis (snow, floods etc).
What it isnt?
Localising news (e.g. conducting vox pop interviews in one area and playing them out as if from another or inserting local place names into UK-wide stories) without local news / information generation would not be regarded as a contribution towards localness;
Pure promotional off-air activity such as station promotion in the area (vehicles carrying station logos, roadshows, etc.) are not in themselves substitutes for localness without on-air activity involving something other than self-promotion;
Competitions / promotions that invite and involve listener participation from outside a station area would not be regarded as a contribution to localness; and
The Communications Act 2003 [Section 314] stipulates that advertisements are not regarded as local programming within the context of localness and Ofcom's localness guidance.
These statements are guidelines which recognise local material can be delivered in many ways, which are neither mutually exclusive nor individually obligatory. For instance, regular featuring of local music or artists is not a pre-requisite ingredient for the delivery of local material, but would certainly be regarded as a contribution towards such delivery. Similarly, the organisation of roadshows and the presence locally of promotional vehicles are regarded by Ofcom as important aspects of radio station activity, but could only be regarded as a contribution towards the delivery of local material if such activity manifested itself constructively on-air, as Section 314 requires Ofcom to consider only what is included in programmes.
News Provision
In addition to the above general guidance we want to outline the sort of factors likely to be considered by Ofcom if the provision of local programming at a particular station is questioned. Such factors are guidelines only, but the extent to which they may appear to have been considered might influence Ofcom’s findings in the event of Ofcom ‘output’ scrutiny.
• All stations should broadcast local news throughout peak-time both on weekdays (breakfast and afternoon drive) and weekends (late breakfast). Outside peak time, UK-wide, nations and international news should feature.
• For listeners, it is the quality, relevance, timeliness and accuracy of the news that matters, not where it is read from. Any group of stations may therefore operate news hubs in any way which makes operational sense for them. However, in order to provide a comprehensive local news service in touch with the area it is covering, Ofcom believes each station should have direct and accountable editorial responsibility for covering its licensed area. It also believes that the appropriate provision of professional journalistic cover, based within the licence area, on days when local news provision is a Format obligation, is a reasonable minimum expectation. Any individual station should have procedures in place to be able to react to and report on local news events in a timely manner. Therefore, while Ofcom understands the need to record news bulletins this should be as an exception rather than a rule. Ofcom also draws the attention of licensees to the research findings and listeners’ expectations that peak time bulletins should be live (or pre-recorded only shortly before transmission); an expectation we believe is reasonable.
Co-location and programme sharing
Stations can apply for co-location; in deciding whether to allow co-location, the sort of factors Ofcom may take into account are:
• Size of station: there may be stronger case for co-location and/or programme sharing where at least one of the stations has a licensed area with a population of fewer than 250,000, and especially those under 100,000, although we would not rule out requests from larger stations in exceptional circumstances.
• Distance and affinity between the areas: there is likely to be a stronger case for co-location where the stations concerned are not too far apart geographically and are able to demonstrate a cultural affinity between the two areas.
• Financial: there may be a stronger case for co-location where stations can demonstrate that co-location is required to ensure the financial viability of the stations concerned.
However, there may be other factors to be taken into account, and Ofcom will treat each co-location request on a case-by-case basis. Ofcom does not rule out allowing co-location for larger stations in exceptional circumstances. The decisions as to whether to allow co-location and/or programme sharing are independent of each other.
FM stations can also apply to share programming within their 10 hours of locally-made programming on weekdays to form a small regional network, but should still provide 4 hours of bespoke (i.e. specific to each station) programming with local material every day, including breakfast on weekdays. This should be locally-made within the licensed area unless co-location has been agreed. The criteria used to decide whether to allow such programme sharing will be the same as those used to decide upon co-location, set out above.
Automation
It is up to each station to decide how best to produce its locally-made programming and so there are no restrictions on the amount of automation (e.g. using voice tracking) that a station may use. To the extent that such programming forms a part of local hours (as defined in the station’s Format), any such automated programmes should be locally-made and to the extent it comprises part of the station’s local material should take account of Ofcom’s localness guidelines. However, as with news, licensees are expected to take into account listeners’ expectations and be able to react to events on a timely basis when it comes to automated and live programming.
Newsroom Contact Information
Head of News - Damien McGinley
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News and Sport Editor:
James Devlin - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Sales
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Production
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| MON-FRIDAY | SATURDAY | SUNDAY |
| Hourly bulletins 0700-2100 | Hourly bulletins 0900-1400 | Hourly bulletins 0900-1400 |
| Headlines on half hour 0730-1130, and 1330-1730 |
current news stories
Thousands of people are cheering outside Derry's Guildhall as
relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday gave the Saville Report the
thumbs up.
A spontaneous cheer rose as the families of the killed waved the
report through the Guildhall windows.
Meanwhile Prime Minister David Cameron was speaking in the House of Commons.
Thirteen people died in 1972 when British soldiers opened fire on
civil rights marchers in Londonderry. A 14th died later.
--
On the 15th July Londonderry won The UK City of Culture 2013.
Londonderry was in the running, along with Birmingham, Sheffield and Norwich.
A big screen was erected in Derry City Centre with a
live feed of the announcement from Liverpool.
Recent programming highlights:
Malachai Cush interviewed X Factor star Eoghan Quigg in the station. The Chieftans were one of the other celebrity interviews done on the station during the first part of 2009. Breakfast show presenter Natasha Miller hosted a fashion show in support of the charity The Prince’s Trust.
How to Complain
All compaints should be addressed to
Mr Robert Walshe
CEO / Programme Director
No 1 Millennium Park,
Woodside Ind Est
Woodside Rd, Ballymena.
You can email Robert by clicking here.
Ofcom, the industry regulator, can be contacted through its website - http://www.ofcom.org.uk/
