Downtown Radio is a

Hot Adult Contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

music radio station based in

Newtownards Newtownards (; ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtow ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, that serves all of

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

using a network of FM and DAB

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

s. As of December 2024, the station has a weekly audience of 309,000 listeners according to RAJAR.

History

The station, also known as DTR or simply Downtown, began broadcasting on 16 March 1976 - the same day as

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (11 March 1916 – 23 May 1995) was a British statesman and Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1964 to 1970 and again from 197 ...

resigned. The station had a mini scoop, breaking the news over an hour before BBC Radio Ulster. Downtown Radio has very much become part of the broadcasting landscape of the entire nine-county

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

. Many of its presenters, such as Trevor 'Big T' Campbell and Candy Devine, are household names - Campbell and Devine have been with Downtown since it began broadcasting. Initially, Downtown was only contracted to broadcast to the Greater Belfast area, on AM and (later ) FM. However, following the collapse of plans for a station in the

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest City status in the United Kingdom, city in Northern Ireland, and the fifth-largest on the island of Ireland. Located in County Londonderry, the city now covers both banks of the River Fo ...

region (Northside Sound) in 1983, Downtown applied to the former

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to extend its coverage. Transmitters covering the north west, the Causeway Coast and Fermanagh/South Tyrone were opened in 1986 and 1987, and the station briefly rebranded itself as "DTRFM" to reflect its new audience reach. The station reverted to Downtown Radio again in 1990 following the introduction of its sister station,

Cool FM Cool FM is an Independent Local Radio station based in Newtownards, Northern Ireland. The station is owned and operated by Bauer and forms part of Bauer's Hits Radio Network. The station began broadcasting in 1990 when its parent station ...

, although the latter only broadcast on the 97.4 frequency in the Greater Belfast area. Other transmitters remained with Downtown. New FM transmitters in South Down/

Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...

, and Mid and East Antrim opened in the 1990s to improve reception in those areas. The station has been very highly regarded in the past for its news output, and was a regular stop-off point for radio journalists covering

The Troubles The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...

in Northern Ireland over a 30-year period. It was the first radio station in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

to offer hourly news bulletins. Changes in management made in 2007, as well as the success of the peace process, have led to Downtown reducing its news output somewhat. It is notable for being one of the few

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stations to still cater for minority tastes such as gospel and

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. The country music programmes broadcast several times a week are among Downtown's highest listenership ratings. In December 2012, Downtown opened a small studio in

ahead of the city’s year of being

UK City of Culture UK City of Culture is a designation given to a local area (specifically a city before 2025) in the United Kingdom for a period of one calendar year, during which the successful bidder hosts cultural festivities through culture-led regeneratio ...

, situated in the Food Quarter within Foyleside Shopping Centre. It remains open and in use, mainly at the weekend with presenter-led programming on Saturday afternoon and Sunday covering a range of events in the region. On 12 November 2023, it was announced that the station would cease broadcasting on medium wave (AM) before the end of the year.Bauer to turn off AM services in Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland
Radio Today, 12 November 2023 AM programming ceased on 7 December 2023.

Frequencies

*96.4 MHz: Ballycastle, Ballymoney, Coleraine, Dungiven, Limavady, Portrush, Portstewart *96.6 MHz: Dungannon, Enniskillen, Omagh *97.1 MHz: Larne (East Antrim) *102.3 MHz: Antrim, Ballymena, Clough Mills, Magherafelt, Randalstown, Rasharkin, Templepatrick *102.4 MHz: Derry, Strabane *103.1 MHz: Armagh, Newry *103.4 MHz: Newcastle (Mourne) *103.4 MHz: (from Carnmoney Hill): Belfast, Newtownabbey, Holywood, Carrickfergus

Notable past presenters

Past presenters include

Eamonn Holmes Eamonn Holmes (; born 3 December 1959) is a Northern Irish broadcaster and journalist. He co-presented the breakfast television show ''GMTV'' (1993–2005) for ITV, before presenting ''Sunrise'' (2005–2016) for Sky News. Holmes co-presente ...

and Frank Mitchell.

References

External links

Official website
{{coord missing, County Down Bauer City network Bauer Radio Radio stations in Northern Ireland Mass media in County Down Newtownards Radio stations established in 1976 1976 establishments in Northern Ireland Adult contemporary radio stations in the United Kingdom