Manx Radio’s £1.4 million public subsidy is supposed to buy the island a broadcaster that delivers news, scrutiny and speech‑led programming.
Instead, the regulator has now concluded that the station repeatedly fell short of one of the most basic obligations attached to that funding – the requirement to provide at least 40% speech during weekday daytime hours.
Station Failed 8 out of 10 Days in Compliance
The Communications and Utilities Regulatory Authority (CURA) has published a damning report in to the taxpayer-funded stations performance.
It is a finding that, across two monitored weeks, Manx Radio failed on eight out of ten days, and that the pattern is so consistent it cannot be dismissed as an anomaly.
The investigation makes clear where the fault line lies. FM output broadly meets the speech requirement.
The problem is Manx Radio Gold, the music‑heavy AM service that drags the combined figure down into the mid‑thirties.
Gold’s presenter‑less playlists, running through the very hours the licence demands speech, leave the station in breach of the Public Service Broadcasting remit it is funded to uphold.
CURA’s language is unusually blunt for a regulator: Gold is “not compatible” with the speech obligations, and the Authority is now minded to issue a Direction forcing Manx Radio to curtail Gold during daytime hours.
“Arrogance” – Directors Need to Go
For a broadcaster that receives more than a million pounds of public money every year, the lack of transparency exposed during the investigation is striking.
Manx Radio challenged the regulator’s methodology but failed to provide detailed logs, audit trails or verifiable data of its own.
It argued that digital content should count, that speech percentage is a crude metric, that “generally” allows flexibility. CURA rejected all of it.
The licence is clear, the exclusions are defined, and online output does not form part of the regulated service. The regulator analysed the actual AM and FM broadcasts, not estimates, not assumptions – and the numbers simply did not reach 40%.
Former Manx Radio broadcaster Paul Moulton has blasted the station’s leadership, accusing the board of “arrogance” for refusing to properly cooperate with CURA.
He insists the regulator’s report proves the 40% speech requirement was simply not met. Moulton says the blame sits squarely with directors Chris Sully and Alex Brindley, arguing that if Manx Radio were a private company “they’d be gone by now” – and should be gone immediately.
He goes further, questioning why £1.3 million of taxpayers’ money is being poured into a broadcaster that, in his view, isn’t investing in the hard end of its operation, suggesting that cash could be doing real good in the hospice or hospital instead of “going into their pockets for better salaries.”
AUDIO: Paul Moulton’s reaction to the report
Taxpayer Funding No Longer Justified
The implications go beyond programming. Manx Radio’s public funding has long been justified on the basis that it delivers a service the market would not: news, current affairs, cultural content and speech‑led journalism. CURA’s findings reopen the question of whether taxpayers are getting what they pay for.
At a time when government services are under severe pressure for funding, how can politicians justify handing Manx Radio around £1.4 million annually? A publicly funded broadcaster failing a core licence condition is not a small matter. It goes to trust, governance and value for money.
