Apply for Community Radio Fund (United Kingdom)

The Community Radio Fund is allocated by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and managed by Ofcom. The Community Radio Fund helps to fund the core costs of running Ofcom-licensed community radio stations, broadcasting on AM, FM, or via a C-DSP licence on a digital radio multiplex.

Community radio stations serve a range of local communities across the UK. Fuelled by the hard work and enthusiasm of volunteers, they reflect a diverse mix of cultures and interests and provide a rich mix of mostly locally produced content.

Funding Information

• The total amount available over the course of 2024-25 is £411,759.2.

What is the Fund for?

• The Fund has been established to give grants to help fund the core costs of running Ofcom licensed community radio stations. These core functions include:
  • Management
  • Fundraising to support the station (e.g. grants, commercial funding)
  • Administration
  • Financial management & reporting
  • Community outreach
  • Volunteer organisation and support
• Grants will be made as a single lump sum and must be spent within the Relevant Expenditure Period as defined in the Grant Agreement, which is usually 14 months. Grants are for community radio services that are currently broadcasting.

What does the Fund not support?

• Grants awarded under the Fund 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 or copyright fees (such as PPL/PRS or software fees)
  • Fees payable to Ofcom (including but not limited to application and licence fees)
  • Retrospective grants i.e. to cover expenditure already incurred
  • Costs associated with launching a radio station Costs relating to another licence type held by the licensee i.e. a small-scale digital radio multiplex
  • 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

Eligibility Criteria

• 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, they expect the services to continue to broadcast for the full length of the grant tenure if an application is successful.
• 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.
• 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).

Application Requirements

• Download the application form from Ofcom’s website. You may apply in English or Welsh and application forms in both languages are available on the website. Completed applications and any appropriate supporting documentation should reach Ofcom by 5pm on the advertised closing date.
• The application form and supporting documentation should be in Word, RTF or Excel format, rather than PDF. They cannot accept emails with html attachments and any emails with html files will not be delivered. Their email system cannot accept emails with attachments larger than 10 Megabytes, so in the event of all documents exceeding this value any supporting documentation should be sent in a separate email. Please contact the Team before the day of the deadline if you have any problems.
• If there is a compelling reason why the applicant cannot submit the application form and/or the supporting documentation by email, you must contact Ofcom at least a week in advance of wishing to submit their application to discuss this and at least a week in advance of any deadline.

For more information, visit Ofcom.