It is with regret that the Trustees of The Heartland Radio Foundation Ltd. have to announce the departure of our incredibly successful Station Manager Alistair Smith.
During his tenure we have won many awards and accolades as to the quality and diversity of our service as judged by our peers via the UK Community Radio Awards Programme voting us the best Community Radio in Scotland and the second best in the whole of the United Kingdom for the last two years, including many other awards for programme categories and staff quality. However, we have struggled to survive the commercial climate of a Hospitality and Agricultural Community such as Highland Perthshire with the decline in advertising and sponsorship revenues coupled with the rising energy and general running costs.
This has resulted in us seriously downsizing our operation for the foreseeable future which is a direction that does not fully utilise the talents of someone like Alistair Smith. Furthermore, it will involve the Station reverting to its roots as a volunteer driven operation with content solely supplied by our local residents on a voluntary basis.
Thus, we will be discontinuing our efforts to materially support and drive local groups that enhance the quality of life in Highland Perthshire and revert to a more traditional reporting role. Consequently, we have cancelled the proposed Crowdfunding Project. The commitment to serve the listeners, readers and followers remains unabated but will take a different form, employing to its fullest, every communication channel that the Heartland Team has so successfully nurtured and grown: Web, Social Media, Podcasting and the trusty Radio Station will continue to be part of your daily life.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our supporters, advertisers, sponsors and volunteers for their past contributions and look forward to a new relationship based on mutual support and initiative: there is ample space for new budding talents to grow within Heartland and its many outlets, and we look forward to hearing from them. Our doors remain
open and welcoming. We plan to move into this new format at the beginning of April 2023 and look forward to hearing from you.