The status of the radio station Planet Rock is that it is still up for sale, with the deadline extended until the end of this month: basically nothing has changed for over a month. Its proving harder to sell than a two-bedroomed house in Letchworth.

There was a petition to the Government. The petition was realistic and therefore pointless. It did not ask the government to save the radio station – that is what most people who signed it really wanted, but they know its not something the Government controls. Instead the petition just asked for the Prime Minister to “consider the role of OFCOM in the failure of the radio stations Planet Rock and The Jazz”

The reply to the petition says that:

The Government understands the concerns about the future of digital audio broadcasting (DAB) in the UK. Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, is aware that several DAB stations including Planet Rock and The Jazz have ceased broadcasting recently or been replaced by others, but these are commercial decisions made by individual companies, and ones which the Government has no control over.

Fair enough.  They can’t really say anything else, but the reply does miss the point and does not even mention the role of OFCOM and whether it could or should have done anything.

The real question, and one even further outside the Government’s remit, is how and why a radio station that has a larger audience than most DAB channels can be uncommercial.   If the owners don’t want to run one of the most listened-to specialist channels and nobody else is interested in buying it, what future is there for even more specialised channels?

Quite coincidentally, Planet Rock this week won the Gold Award for digital station of the year at this year’s Sony Radio Awards, and also picked up a Bronze and Silver in other categories.

So it is an award-winning, popular station, and you have two weeks left to buy it!