Colourful Radio is a commercial

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

broadcasting on DAB across London, Birmingham, Manchester as well as online. Colourful Radio's output is split between news, current affairs and urban music hit-list.

History

Founded in 2002 by Kofi Kusitor MBE,Love Lambeth - A very colourful radio
Love Lambeth. Colourful Radio was officially revealed in January 2004 as one of the UK's first internet audio streams. Legal commercial broadcast licences for London-wide and UK DAB were also gained in the same year. In September 2005, Henry Bonsu (former presenter on BBC London 94.9) joined the station as presenter of its Drivetime show. Following a live presenter-led pilot in October 2005, Colourful Radio officially launched as a fully-fledged legal commercial radio station on 30 May 2006 with a mostly speech-heavy schedule online and on

BSKYB Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB)), trading as Sky, is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, broadband internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers ...

satellite.Johnny Dee
"Colourful radio makes for bright listening"
''The Guardian'' (TV & Radio Blog), 3 April 2009. In August 2008, Gordon Mac (formerly director of Kiss FM) joined to refresh the station line up and help improve its music output. Colourful Radio officially launched on London DAB on 2 March 2009,''Radio Today'' , Industry News , "DAB Radio now in full colour"
with Gordon Mac as Head of Station, and Henry Bonsu as Director and Head of Programmes. In June 2011, Gordon Mac decided to leave Colourful in order to start a new venture Mi-Soul.Gordon Mac leaves Colourful Radio to launch new venture"
Record of the Day. The demise of

Choice FM Capital XTRA (formerly Choice FM) is a British digital radio station owned and operated by Global. It broadcasts on 96.9 and 107.1 FM in Greater London, and nationally on DAB, Global Player and television platforms. It specialises in hip ho ...

in October 2013, left Colourful Radio as the only legal commercial radio station in the

black music Music of the African diaspora is a sound created, produced, or inspired by Black people, including Music of Africa, African music traditions and African popular music as well as the music genres of the African diaspora, including some Caribbean mus ...

market.Elizabeth Pears
"Is Ethnic Media Becoming An Endangered Species?"
''The Voice'', 19 October 2013. In 2014, the station moved to new studios in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

. In February 2017, the station joined DAB in Manchester, and in March DAB in Birmingham.

References

External links

Colourful Radio website
{{London Radio Radio stations in London Internet radio stations in the United Kingdom