GaydarRadio is a podcast on

Mixcloud Mixcloud is a British online music streaming service that allows for the listening and distribution of radio shows, DJ mixes and podcasts, which are crowdsourced by its registered users. In April 2018, Mixcloud announced that it raised $11.5 mi ...

streaming service, which used to be a British digital radio station for

gay men Gay men are male homosexuals. Some bisexual men, bisexual and homoromantic men may dually identify as ''gay'' and a number of gay men also identify as ''queer''. Historic terminology for gay men has included ''Sexual inversion (sexology), in ...

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

s and gay friendly people, on DAB multiplexes in London and

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

and also online. It was broadcast 24 hours a day, with live programming from 5am to midnight during the week, 7am to midnight at weekends. GaydarRadio, which was based in

Twickenham Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...

in the

London Borough of Richmond upon Thames The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames () in south-west Greater London, London, England, forms part of Outer London and is the only London boroughs, London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller ...

, ceased broadcasting on Monday 7 January 2013 when the station's DAB channels were acquired by

Gaydio Gaydio is a radio station for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ+) community in the United Kingdom, and is broadcast on 88.4 FM in Greater Manchester, 97.8 FM in Brighton, on DAB digital radio in Greater London, parts of the Home ...

Format

The station played a mix of

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

and mainstream

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...

, interspersed with chat and news. In contrast to much of the UK radio industry, the editorial focus is on personality rather than a strictly formatted music mix. This more relaxed style allows the presenters to talk with their listeners about gay life. The music became more club-orientated during the late evenings and also at the weekend when ''Club Nation'' presents the best feel good music non stop. This music policy also got the station a huge following from the

straight Straight may refer to: Slang * Straight, slang for heterosexual ** Straight-acting, normal person * Straight, a member of the straight edge subculture Sport and games * Straight, an alternative name for the cross, a type of punch in boxing * Str ...

community. The station encouraged interaction between presenters and listeners via text, email and online. It has a reach of 488,470 (Ipsos MORI/Rajar 18 May – 26 July 2010) listeners a week in the UK, plus another 2.2 million listening online around the world. GaydarRadio was based in

in South West London, in a building called Queen's House, a name that provided a frequent source of amusement for the presenters. In October 2007 the station relaunched its website as part of GaydarNation and the following month launched GaydarRadio Jukebox offering music downloads of its most popular tracks and exclusive mixes. GaydarRadio Jukebox ceased to exist in 2009, and has since been re-branded as part of 'CD Pool Sixpack' by its parent company. In the autumn of 2011, GaydarRadio completely re-branded its online offering, removing the GaydarNation brand and merging the lifestyle portal with the main radio website. The refocussed GaydarRadio online brand now focusses almost entirely on gay news and music related showbiz news. Gaydar Radio closed down in 2013 and its frequencies were transferred to

Former schedule

*Early Breakfast runs between 5am and 7am, presented by Addison White. *Breakfast runs between 7am and 11am and is co-presented by Neil Sexton and Debbie Ryan, featuring a multitude of seasonal or themed competitions and 'The Coming Out Story', which tells the story of a listener's contributed experience of coming out to friends and relatives. The show is heavily driven by audience contributions via Twitter, email and SMS, with a host of regular correspondents. Regular contributors share the latest news and events from their corner of Gay UK, with Andre Harmsworth, from national newspaper 'Metro' giving a showbiz round up every Thursday and

John Kennedy O'Connor John Kennedy O'Connor (born in 1964) is a television and radio broadcaster, author, and entertainment commentator. He was born in North London, England, but is a naturalized citizen of the United States. He has written, reported and broadcast f ...

reporting from the USA on live events such as the

Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Awards are awards presented for excellence in both international film and television. It is an annual award ceremony held since 1944 to honor artists and professionals and their work. The ceremony is normally held every Janua ...

the Oscars The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...

and the

Grammy Awards The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

. the show is broadcast live Monday to Friday, with a prerecorded Saturday show. *Simon "The Legend" Le Vans presents the morning show, taking requests and looking for a "daily threesome" where listeners are invited to suggest a selection of tracks appropriate to a topical oddball news story. *"Producer Robin" Crowley presents afternoons from 2-6 playing music. *Phil Marriott presents the latest new music for GayUK weekday evenings from 6-10pm. Phil also runs the station's Friday mix show, branded 'Club Nation'. *Tony English presents Saturday night's Club Nation. *Weekend shows start with Robin Crowley then Neil and Debbie, with Simon Le Vans, Tony English, Phil Marriott, Andrei Harmsworth and Matt Crabb also presenting their own shows along with through-the-night broadcasts from live London gay clubs .

Management

*The Programme Controller was Robin Crowley ("Producer Robin") *The Station Engineer was Quentin Nield ("The Pocket-sized Engineer"). *Senior Presenter was Simon Le Vans. *The Station Producer was Neil Sexton. *The Music Controller was Phil Marriott.

History

The first proposals for an audio stream on the

Gaydar Gaydar (a portmanteau of '' gay'' and ''radar'') is a colloquialism referring to the intuitive ability of a person to assess others' sexual orientations as homosexual, bisexual or straight. Gaydar relies on verbal and nonverbal clues and LGBT s ...

website came from broadcaster

Mark Ovenden Mark Ovenden F.R.G.S. (born 20 June 1963) is a broadcaster and author who specialises in the subjects of graphic design, cartography and architecture in public transport, with an emphasis on underground rapid transit. His first book ''Metro ...

and radio engineer Quentin Nield. Ovenden was at the time working at the

Ministry of Sound Radio The Ministry of Sound Radio (MoS) began service as a UK-based radio station operating since 1999. It was accessible on the Ministry of Sound website as streaming audio until March 2016. MoS radio's DJs included: DJ Bailey, X-Press 2, Hed Kandi ...

and set up a meeting in Spring 2000 between the owners of Gaydar and his boss James Bethel. Bethel proposed to provide the service to Gaydar for £100,000 annually. Instead GaydarRadio was started in 2001 as an internet-only station, being an audio offshoot of the dating website and independent of outside assistance. According to the first station director Jamie Crick, the entire station was originally played off a single PC on a table propped up with a gay clubbing directory. Following its success, it moved onto the

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

platform in 2002 before leaving on 18 February 2011 after a "substantial decline" in its audience figures through the platform. Meanwhile, another gay radio station called Purple Radio, which launched a few months before then, Gaydar Radio with the backing of

Kelvin MacKenzie Kelvin Calder MacKenzie (born 22 October 1946) is an English News media, media executive and a former newspaper editor. He became editor of ''The Sun (United Kingdom), The Sun'' in 1981, by which time the publication had been established as Br ...

and Lord Waheed Alli, was broadcasting as part of a bouquet of services provided by the Digital Radio Group (then part of the

GWR Group GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed on 9 May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Inde ...

). Purple was run from the Hanover Grand nightclub and tried a number of pioneering nightly broadcasts from gay bars and clubs but this proved far too costly and the station took the decision to merge with Gaydar Radio. Gaydar Radio took the decision not to continue with Purple Radio as a separate output and put in a successful submission to the Radio Authority to take over Purples' frequency, and gained a DAB outlet on the London 3 Digital multiplex in 2004. In 2003 while Bethel was working at

Capital Radio Capital London is an Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment as part of its national Capital (radio network), Capital Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Bri ...

group, Gaydar Radio was part of a successful application to be on the Sussex Coast DAB multiplex – part of this deal was an unrealised provisional agreement for the Capital group to find space to add the GaydarRadio service to its bouquet available on the

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

multiplex. In 2006 the station won Best Radio Station at the BT Digital Music Awards. At the 2007

Sony Radio Academy Awards The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academy ...

(the UK Broadcasting "Oscars"), GaydarRadio went on to win Digital Terrestrial Station of the Year. It also collected the same award at the 2007 and 2008 Commercial Radio 'Arqiva' Awards. On 3 January 2013 QSoft announced that the DAB licences for London and the Sussex Coast would be transferred to

from 7 AM on 7 January 2013. The Twickenham studio will be closed and all programming will be controlled from Manchester. On 4 January 2013, during Gaydar Radio's live broadcasting hours between 7 AM and 10 PM, the presenters and fans celebrated an emotional goodbye. Phil Marriott, who is on air between 6 and 10 PM on weekday extended his last show by 1 hour. Live broadcasting on the station ended at 11 PM on 4 January, with the weekend consisting of pre-recorded material and automated playlists. In the final breakfast show, Gaydio's John Ryan assured listeners that they can expect a similar playlist from Gaydio and that due to the licence requirements for the station's FM frequency in Manchester, there will be local opt outs. Gaydio will also provide streaming on the Gaydar dating websites.

Presenters

There are several presenters.

Reporters

Former presenters

* Richard Newman *

Stuart Miles Stuart Miles (born 20 February 1969) is a British radio and television presenter, who has worked on the children's programme ''Blue Peter''. Career Miles studied at Bournemouth University where he developed an interest in college radio, follow ...