MFR’s founding chief executive reflects on ‘sad’ end to Highland presenting at station
Axeing the final local presenter from MFR has swept away the “last vestige of it being any kind of community station”, it’s founding chief executive fears.
Thomas Prag, who helped set up the region’s much-loved flagship radio station at the start of the 1980s, has spoken of his disappointment and sadness after MFR’s current owners - international broadcasting giant Bauer Media - severed the station’s last major on-air link to the area.
Cuts to several local broadcasting slots in recent years had already dramatically reduced the Highland output at the station, which receives the rest of its programmed content from other Bauer stations in Scotland.
And the announcement this week that Jodie at Breakfast - a show hosted by Jodie McCluskey every weekday from 6am to 10am - will end next month, means that MFR’s shows will all now be broadcast from cities outside the Highlands from the start of 2025.
The station will instead mirror the exact same broadcast schedules as Forth 1 in Edinburgh, Tay FM in Dundee, and Northsound 1 in Aberdeen - with Jodie’s breakfast slot being filled by the Forth 1 morning host Boogie in the Morning.
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Bauer has since stressed that its Highland news and travel bulletins will continue following the switch; and Highland residents, meanwhile, will be well aware that it still has strong charitable connections to the region through Cash for Kids.
But its move signals an end to the kind of on-air community-centred radio that helped to foster the early careers of numerous broadcasters - such as the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland host Gary Robertson, and also Clyde 1’s Garry Spence, whose show is among those simulcast on MFR.
And Mr Prag believes that is a loss to the area. Speaking to the Courier, he stressed that he had historically avoided commenting on MFR’s comings and goings after stepping back from his role 24 years ago, but that the latest announcement “feels different” and that there is something “wrong” about Bauer’s moves to axe its Highland presenters while “masquerading as a local entity”.
He said: “The old days are gone, today's a different world, the world keeps turning - but you can still think that there's something missing and that it's wrong that a huge company can effectively masquerade as a local entity when it has very few local employees and doesn't involve the community in any significant way.”
He continued: “It's disappointing and it feels like the last vestige of it being any kind of community station has gone. I've never commented about how MFR has changed over the years, deliberately. I'm yesterday's man. It has to change. It had to change, and that was up to the new people. But this feels different. It is very strange to have a local station which doesn't have any programme which is presented from that area.
“This morning the presenter Jodie made a few local mentions about things in local places, and you can report some of that and put it in [the news bulletins instead], but it's not quite the same. And how will that work when there's some kind of major emergency in the area? Will there be a presenter and a team who can respond to that as we used to when there is a major snow event, or power failures and that kind of thing?
“It doesn't feel local. It feels sad in a way to many of us who remember what it was originally set up for.”
He’s also critical of the broadcasting regulator Ofcom for allowing the current owners to strip away the same Highland voice that MFR’s original licence was specifically geared towards protecting.
Calling the regulator “probably the villain of the piece”, Mr Prag said: “Ofcom are the regulators, and Bauer can only do what the regulators allow them in terms of where the programmes come from and so on.
“So they've got a licence for that and in the old days these were very specifically local stations and meant to be part of the community, and Moray Firth was at that time very much so - the community helped run it. Many volunteers were involved and so on.”
Mr Prag is not the only former MFR figure to have commented on this week’s shock news.
Mike Edwards OBE, who was a news and sports reporter and presenter from 1982 until 1990, said: “It was a revolution - I’d never heard adverts on the radio before. When I went on work experience to MFR from Inverness High School, I knew this was where I wanted to be.
“The station was small and had few staff but my goodness me it punched well above its weight. It launched my career and without question, what I went on to do in television news, I owe it all to MFR. I am so sad that serving shareholders has come before serving local listeners.”
A spokesperson for Ofcom said the changes at MFR were enabled by the new Media Act, which was passed in May under the previous UK government and came into force this month. A section in the new act removed the requirement for commercial stations to broadcast locally-made programming.
“The changes to local programming for commercial radio stations, like MFR, are now allowed following the Media Act coming into force earlier this month and are not related to Ofcom policy,” said a spokesperson. “However, stations are still required to broadcast local news and information for audiences, and we'll be consulting on new local news requirements early next year.”
Meanwhile, Victoria Easton-Riley, the content director for Bauer Media’s Hits Radio Portfolio in Scotland, has paid tribute to Jodie ahead of her departure, calling her a “brilliant broadcaster”.
She said: “We share our huge thanks with Jodie, who is a brilliant broadcaster and wish her all the very best on her last few weeks with us and for everything in the future.”
Describing the new changes, she added: “Audiences across Scotland love Boogie and Arlene. Their Saturday show is hugely popular and is Scotland’s most listened to weekend radio show. Also, their Forth 1 Breakfast show Boogie in the Morning is welcoming its biggest number of listeners for seven years, as well as bagging national awards, so I’m delighted that we’re able to bring it to more of our listeners, including those in Inverness.”
It is not known what the axeing of Jodie’s show will mean for the future of MFR’s Scorguie broadcasting hub. The Courier has reached out to Bauer for clarification.
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