Isles FM is a local radio station operating from

Stornoway Stornoway (; gd, Steòrnabhagh; sco, Stornowa) is the main town of the Western Isles and the capital of Lewis and Harris in Scotland. The town's population is around 6,953, making it by far the largest town in the Outer Hebrides, as well a ...

in the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides () or Western Isles ( gd, Na h-Eileanan Siar or or ("islands of the strangers"); sco, Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island ( gd, An t-Eilean Fada, links=no), is an island chain off the west coast ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. The station is operated entirely by a volunteer staff, from a building in the Newton area of the town. Isles FM is the trading name of Western Isles Community Radio Limited, which owns all the equipment. It has recently secured an area of land to construct a purpose-built studio near Seaforth Road in Stornoway.

History

The station was initially set up in the living room of a local minister, Reverend Stanley Bennie, and operated for a few weeks at a time under a temporary licence as a trial. After proving that the station was feasible, a permanent licence was granted by the UK

Radio Authority Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

(now

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

) and the station started operating on 1 March 1998. In 2013 the station relocated to custom-built premises in Seaforth Road, Stornoway. Its signal is broadcast from the island's largest transmitter site, Eitshal. Many of the presenters are amateurs, although former presenter Glenn Denny completed a VQ in Radio Broadcasting through

Moray Firth Radio MFR is an Independent Local Radio station based in Inverness, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio Network. It broadcasts to Moray, the Scottish Highlands and South West Aberdeenshire. As of December 2022, the station has ...

, which made him the only professionally trained presenter with Isles FM. Other notable volunteers with the station include Rodney Collins, who was formerly a journalist with

Record Mirror ''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the ''NME'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in ''Re ...

went on to Radios 1 & 2 and was also a member of the

Radio Luxembourg Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg). The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...

team in the 1970s before becoming Managing Director of ILR stations in Scotland and London. One of the younger members of Isles FM, Eilidh MacLennan, has now gone on to work for the BBC as a presenter on Gaelic children's television,

Dè a-nis? ''Dè a-nis?'' (pronounced: Jaay a-neash) is a Scottish Gaelic-language children's program produced by BBC Gàidhlig. It is broadcast on BBC Alba on Wednesday nights at 6:00pm. "Dè a-nis" is Gaelic for "What Now?" History Launched on 30 Septe ...

Programme Content

The station broadcasts a variety of content. The mixture of

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

programming includes: specialist music, chat shows, children's programmes, and news. It is often a source of essential information in times of severe weather and other crises, when transport off the islands by ferry or air may be unavailable, or when roads may be closed.

External links

Isles FM
Radio stations in Scotland Radio stations in the Highlands & Islands {{Scotland-radio-station-stub