In the dark days, “news” was a dirty word in many commercial radio stations. It sent shudders down the spines of Programme Directors and Sales Managers because it couldn’t be sponsored or sold…a waste of valuable airtime surely?

Well at Absolute Radio we like news. Even though we’re a music station, we pride ourselves on producing a targeted, accurate news service that engages with our listeners (we don’t ram the news down their throats, preferring to dangle a few tasty morsels for them to chew on and digest instead)

We have four newsreaders and reporters working seven days a week, and in one guise or another, we have been producing in-house bulletins at Golden Square since 2002. The team is backed up by the mighty Sky Radio News agency, which supplies audio content and stories.

But in selecting the Sky service seven years ago, Absolute Radio set itself aside from much of the Commercial Radio industry. The majority of our competitors signed up to a rival service known as IRN (Independent Radio News) which was already a tour de force in radio.

It began broadcasting on 8th October 1973, the day that commercial radio was officially launched in the UK, and since then has supplied content to hundreds of stations across Britain.

IRN created a unique proposition – it allowed stations to fund the service by handing over advertising spots at the end of each news bulletin. In return, the news content was offered free of charge. This became the favoured choice of most of the big radio groups and there was certainly strength in numbers. IRN allowed stations to share resources, content, training and ideas and had the weight of the major radio owners behind it.

So after much debate, Absolute Radio is joining the IRN network, and from today will take an active role in furthering the name of commercial radio.

Ironically Sky News recently won the contract from ITN to supply the IRN service – so the editorial change is minimised – and for Sky they have proudly seen off a great rival.

There is now a unifying service supplying all news content to UK radio stations and this should allow the industry to “bat hard” when it comes to securing interviews with politicians, celebrities and sporting stars.

More importantly, it’s another way to encourage Commercial Radio to stop looking inwardly and to focus its energy on securing audience numbers from the BBC. The Corporation has the resource, the investment and the talent to continue to produce first-rate news, – but has it got the passion? It’s a sprawling, disparate organisation that’s been tarnished by scandal upon scandal in the last couple of years. Its eye is off the ball, its funding has been cut and its occasional arrogance towards other news providers is startling. Commercial Radio is viewed by many within the BBC as a gnat that can be easily swatted.

At the risk of sounding the battle cry, things are slowly changing and joining IRN is a fantastic step for Absolute Radio.

One gnat is a mere annoyance. Many gnats become a swirling swarm, worthy of caution.

I can hear buzzing…

Andrew Bailey