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BRMB
Free Radio Birmingham is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Birmingham and the West Midlands. As of September 2022, the station has a weekly audience of 165,000 listeners according to RAJAR. History Launched on 19 February 1974, on 261 metres medium wave, (1152kHz) and 94.8 MHz FM, BRMB was the fourth independent local commercial radio station to begin broadcasting in Britain after LBC, Capital London and Radio Clyde. Broadcasting a mix of popular music with local news, live football coverage, information and specialist output, the station became popular amongst residents in Birmingham and later changed its main FM frequency from 94.8 to 96.4 in 1986. The original station name, BRMB, was not an initialism (contrary to popular belief – some believed it stood for Birmingham Radio, Midlands Broadcasting). Instead, the original company, Birmingham Broadcasting Lt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Butler (broadcaster)
Tony Butler (born 15 May 1935) is a retired Birmingham based UK sports broadcaster and was one of the first stars of local radio in Britain, known for a distinctive local accent and sometimes controversial style. In 2007, he was honoured by the Sony Radio Academy with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Early career Tony Butler was born in Wolverhampton on 15 May 1935. He began his journalistic career in local papers in Birmingham before beginning to contribute to BBC national and regional radio in the 1960s. His strong regional accent caused problems at the staid BBC and he later recalled how he was encouraged to soften his natural accent. At one point the BBC even provided elocution lessons. BRMB In 1974, he was hired to be the first sports editor at Birmingham's new independent (i.e. non-BBC) radio station BRMB, one of a handful of commercial stations to launch at that time. With BRMB striving to offer something different from the established BBC radio stations, Butler was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xtra AM
Xtra AM was a United Kingdom radio station which was on the air between 1989 and 1998. It was broadcast to much of Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire and was the 'oldies' station which took over the mediumwave frequencies of both BRMB (serving Birmingham) and Mercia FM (Coventry and Warwickshire). The programming came from the BRMB studios in Aston, Birmingham, and the signal was relayed from the Langley Mill transmitter (Birmingham) and Shilton (Coventry). The Coventry station was acquired in 1993 by GWR Group and replaced by Classic Gold, while the Birmingham station continued until 1998 when it was replaced by Capital Gold. History The station was launched on the morning of 4 April 1989, as a response to government disapproval of the simulcasting of programming on FM and medium wave. Xtra AM became a 'gold' station and targeted listeners in the 35 to 50 age range, while BRMB and Mercia both began to cater for a younger audience. The new AM service was launched to much fan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Ross
Les Ross MBE is a British disc jockey in the West Midlands. He was born as Leslie Meakin; 7 February 1949, in Birmingham. Early life and career Ross always wanted to become a DJ and, at the age of 11, wrote to the general manager of Radio Luxembourg. He attended King Edward VI Aston School in Aston, Birmingham and left with 10 O Levels. His first job after school was at IBM, but he left after one year. His next job was as a clerk at Witton Cemetery. At the age of 17, Ross won a DJ competition run by the Birmingham Evening Mail, beating Johnnie Walker, who came in second. Part of his prize was to appear at Radio Luxembourg for an audition, but this never happened. He was offered his first gig at the Mecca Ballroom in Birmingham before moving on to the Birmingham Rollerskating Rink. BBC Radio WM The break he was waiting for came in 1970 when he joined BBC Radio Birmingham (which became BBC Radio WM in 1980), presenting a 90 minute Saturday morning show with John Henry calle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Radio Shropshire & Black Country
Free Radio Black Country & Shropshire is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Shropshire, Wolverhampton and the Black Country. As of September 2022, the station has a weekly audience of 85,000 listeners according to RAJAR. History Beacon Radio began broadcasting to Wolverhampton and the Black Country from studios at 267 Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton on mediumwave 303 metres, and 97.2 MHz (from Turner's Hill) at 6 a.m. on 12 April 1976. The first presenter was Mike Baker and the first song to be played was Eric Carmen's "''Sunrise''". The station originally set out to broadcast ''Beautiful Music'' including soul and country rock with a heavy bias towards American chart music with artists like Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles. The station's original managing director was Jay Oliver, an American who, with his Programme Controller Allen McKenzie (a Scot/Canadian), wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midlands Radio Plc
Midlands Radio plc was an independent radio operator, which operated seven radio licences in Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and surrounding areas in the United Kingdom. Stations owned FM *BRMB * Leicester Sound *Radio Trent *Mercia Sound AM * GEM AM - operated on the medium wave frequencies of Radio Trent. *Xtra AM - operated on the medium wave frequencies of BRMB and Mercia. History Under the control of Ron Coles, Midlands Radio plc was floated on the full stock market in 1990. Following the introduction of the Broadcasting Act of 1990, a number of major groups began to lead a consolidation of the market. This led to Midlands Radio plc being purchased by for 18 million by Capital Radio plc, who then sold Trent, Leicester Sound, and Mercia Sound to GWR in 1993, but kept hold of BRMB. As Mercia and its medium wave frequency were sold in the bundle, GWR announced that 1359 kHz would be rebranded as Classic Gold. This meant Xtra AM would only continue in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire
Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Coventry and Warwickshire. As of September 2022, the station has a weekly audience of 96,000 listeners according to RAJAR. History The station began broadcasting as Mercia Sound at 0700 BST on 23 May 1980, with an opening announcement by Programme Director Ian Rufus, followed by breakfast presenter Gordon Astley and a news bulletin read by Mike Henfield. In 1987, the station moved FM frequencies, along with most ILR stations at the time to 97.0 FM. Shortly after this a new transmitter on 102.9 FM was created to serve South Warwickshire. In 1989, along with BRMB in Birmingham, the AM frequency was split from the FM transmissions to create a new radio station called Xtra AM which played music from the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the station's owners, Midlands Radio, sold the station to Capit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greatest Hits Radio West Midlands
Greatest Hits Radio Birmingham & The West Midlands is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Greatest Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to the West Midlands. The station forms part of Greatest Hits Radio Midlands. History Gold Orion Media was formed in 2009, following the purchase of five Midlands-based radio stations – namely BRMB, Mercia, Wyvern, Beacon and Heart 106 from Global for a sale price worth £37.5 million. In early 2012, Orion announced plans to rebrand BRMB, Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern into one station as a means of generating greater revenue. They were renamed as Free on 26 March 2012. Many of these stations had previously operated an AM-based Gold service, all of which had been subsumed over time into Global's Gold network – Orion continued to run the AM stations as part of the Gold network on a franchise agreement, albeit with additional local opt-outs for extra sports coverage, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ed Doolan
Edwin Myer Doolan MBE (20 July 1941 – 16 January 2018) was an Australian born naturalised British radio presenter who was a veteran of Birmingham's first commercial radio station BRMB, and subsequently the BBC. At the BBC he presented a weekly show trawling through his broadcast archives from noon until 1 pm on BBC WM on Sunday lunchtime. He was honoured by the British Radio Academy, earning a place in the Radio Hall of Fame. He was presented with Honorary Doctorates from Birmingham's three universities and was the first person to have ever achieved that honour. On Doolan's lunchtime show of 22 February 2011 he announced he was cutting down on the number of shows he would be presenting, stating he could no longer "continue the current work schedule". His lunchtime show was on a Friday only from 9 September 2011, and he began presenting a new 9 am – 12 noon Sunday show from 11 September 2011, before reducing his workload even further and switching to a Sunday lunchti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire
Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire (formerly Radio Wyvern) is a local commercial radio station owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Herefordshire and Worcestershire. As of September 2022, the station has a weekly audience of 65,000 listeners according to RAJAR. History Radio Wyvern originally went on-air on 4 October 1982. The original Wyvern name derived from the River Wye and River Severn, the rivers running through Hereford and Worcester respectively (the name was proposed in the 1970s for what would become the county of Hereford and Worcester). The initial presentation team consisted of Sammy Southall at Breakfast, Roy Leonard in the morning, Graham Hughes in the afternoon and rock shows, and Mike George at drivetime. Weekend presenters included Jeff Roberts, Rob Yarnold and Bob Lee. Managing Director from 1984 until 1996 was Norman Bilton who joined Wyvern from Two Counties Radio in Bournemouth and Metro Radio in Newcastl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Crocker (commentator)
Ian Crocker (born 1965) is a football commentator who works for Sky Sports. Crocker grew up in the small village of Sutton Poyntz near Weymouth in Dorset and attended Broadway Secondary School. Prior to his television career, Crocker commentated for Capital Gold in London, alongside Jonathan Pearce and Steve Wilson (who are both now BBC commentators). He then spent several years with BRMB Radio in Birmingham commentating on Aston Villa and Birmingham City. During this period, Crocker began providing occasional commentaries for BSkyB. He covered some live Premier League matches during Sky's first season of coverage 1992/93, before joining permanently in 1997.Archived aGhostarchiveand thWayback Machine After joining Sky, Crocker commentated regularly on Premier League matches, but was best known for his four years (1998–2002) as the voice of Scottish football, covering live matches from the Scottish Premier League, Scottish Cup and Scottish internationals. After Sky lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital London
Capital London is a radio station owned and operated by the Global media company as part of its national Capital FM Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Britain's first two commercial radio stations. Its brief was to entertain, while its opposite number, London Broadcasting (LBC), was licensed to provide news and information. In search of a larger audience in 1974, Capital Radio rapidly moved from a general and entertainment station with drama, features, documentaries and light music to a more successful pop music-based format. In 1988 it became two stations: 95.8 Capital FM and Capital Gold. After some national expansion with the purchase of other radio stations the Capital Radio Group merged with GWR Group in 2005 to form GCap Media which in turn was taken over by Global Radio in 2008. In 2011 Capital was launched nationally, apart from the daily breakfast and weekday drivetime shows, becoming part of the Capital FM Network. In 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independent Local Radio
Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. As a result of the buyouts and mergers permitted by the Broadcasting Act 1990, and deregulation resulting from the Communications Act 2003, most commercial stations are now neither independent (although they remain independent from the BBC) nor local. The same name is used for Independent Local Radio in Ireland. History Development of ILR Until the early 1970s, the BBC had a legal monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK. Despite competition from the commercial Radio Luxembourg and, for a period in the mid-1960s, the off-shore "pirate" broadcasters, it had remained the policy of both major political parties that radio was to remain under the BBC. Upon the election of Edward Heath's government in 1970, this policy changed. It is possible that Heath's victory was partly due to younger voters upset by the UK government closing down the popular pirate radio stations. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
