It has been a while since I've written anything media-related here. Oddly, even though I have been rather busy working on interesting stuff, I though I'd write on a topic I know relatively little about: what to do about the poor old U.K. commercial local radio industry. Apologies in advance if I blunder clumsily into a sophisticated debate!

Syndicating , or 'networking', or just plain centralisation has been the major strategy to improve the fortunes of this struggling sector. But this approach is running out of steam. It's time to get back to trusting local teams to produce good content, and time to use technology to enable more creativity, more trust in creative talent, and more localness.

I have some outdated personal experience in radio. As a kid, I produced and presented radio shows for a couple of local stations in deepest, darkest Suffolk. Some very kind and often rather bemused adults taught an enthusiastic yougster the required skills over a few years. By the age of 16 or 17, I could knock out professional-quality programmes with little or no guidance, and got paid a reasonable rate for it.

By the time I was 19, the web was a reality even in Suffolk. I quickly found it was more profitable, and more fun, to make fundimentally interactive websites rather than one-way radio shows, despite the dramatically lower audience. If I were born 30 years later, I am sure I would have started by making podcasts or web services – something interactive and distributed over the Internet, and competing for audience and advertising revenue with today's radio stations. Even if this younger me was interested in radio rather than the Internet, I doubt that today's industry could afford to train and pay me - they're rather busy fighting to survive!

My experience is somewhat illustrative of the trends in the radio industry:

1. Less money for big media companies, as the advertising pot shrinks and fragments
2. Competition for audiences from specialist content creators, and other digital content

The response from the U.K. commercial radio? Syndicate shows across an ever larger network of local stations. Remove control from local staff, and centralise it with their best creative and managerial talent at corporate HQ.

This is a trend that, for good reason, has been going on for 15 years, pioneered by GWR, the group that grew, merged and morphed into GCap then Global Radio, and is now the U.K.'s largest radio operator. They continued to pursue this approach, most recently merging a majority of their large local stations under the Heart brand.

When GWR started their aggressive roll-up strategy in 1994, there were ~100 commercial local radio stations in the U.K. (based on my rough count of the Media U.K. list). Each had been allocated prime frequencies and transmitters, and reached a large urban or suburban audience on FM. Today 33 stations (almost all among of those original prime 100 stations) are consolidated under the Heart brand.

In Ipswich, my home town, people can now listen to "Heart 97.1 96.4", which trumpets syndicated shows from the likes of Jason Donovan and Toby Anstis, sandwiching Nicholas Pandolfi and Paul Morris, a couple of former colleagues who have become big names in the area, and managed to hang onto a rare local show. I've not spoken to Nicholas or Paul in years, but I imagine they get little or no freedom in how they run their show. The playlist, and even 'liner cards' telling the presenter what to say, were tightly controlled from HQ 10 years ago.

There is a huge contrast between the station today and the situation 20 years ago at the Ipswich commercial local radio station, then named Radio Orwell after the river that runs through the town. In 1989 Radio Orwell involved tens of local people, including a substantial news team, specialist Folk and Country music experts, and presenters with personality who made all their own decisions. In those days local radio stations were grand, elaborate, exciting and varied affairs. Perhaps they has a tendency to over-extend themselves and maybe to misunderstand what listeners wanted from them. But they did build strong connections with the community, and almost everything they broadcast was local.

For much of the last decade centralisation and syndication has been a good strategy to reduce costs and keep up with rising listener expectations. It has helped the radio industry to survive, despite trend #1 above: 'Less money for big media companies'. But is it enough?

Does centralisation and syndication also help with the second, newer trend: 'Competition for audiences from specialist content creators, and other digital content'?

It seems unlikely to me that Toby Anstis, or Nicholas and Paul as directed from corporate HQ, can continue to compete with a plethora of niche digital content distributed over the Internet, together with iPods, Spotify et al, and the opportunity to receive radio stations over the Internet from well outside the Ipswich borough limits. Global's response is likely to be centralisation. I'd guess Paul and Nick lose their jobs, and Heart enlists another couple of big stars broadcasting from London, across all 33 Heart stations. Costs trimmed, but more listeners lost. And what next? Surely, centralisation is a strategy on its last legs.

Luckily it's not all bad news for the radio industry. Revenues may be dropping, but costs are much more flexible. People make podcasts and write blogs for free, and technology allows us to schedule an hour of music in a few minutes. Why can't we combine local decisions with smart technology, to produce polished yet cost-effective local output?

It's hard, but I suspect that with a lot of effort from some very innovative people, the right tools, and the right incentives, a small local team could curate the best from their communities into excellent local output, supported and inspired, rather than controlled by the corporate HQ. If it was done well, a teen-age me would have gladly contributed, without the need for substantial training or payment.

Starbucks are the global masters of centralised control. They're legendary for dictating every detail of their stores to deliver a consistent experience worldwide. But with U.S. revenues declining, they've started some small, very different experiments. Maybe big U.K. radio groups should take a leaf out of their book, and test a new approach?

I'm passionate enough about this topic to write a jumbo post… And very keen continue the discussion. Let me know what I've missed and how this could become a reality, either below, on Twitter, or in person.