The Yorkshire Radio Network was a group of three radio stations which shared programmes in the evening and at weekends. YRN was made-up of
Pennine Radio in
Bradford
Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...
,
Viking Radio in
Hull and
Radio Hallam
Hits Radio South Yorkshire, formerly Hallam FM, is an Independent Local Radio station based in Sheffield, England, owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to South Yorkshire and Chesterfield, ...
in
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...
.
History
YRN was based at Hartshead in Sheffield at Radio Hallam, although all of the live programmes came from Studio 2 at Viking Radio in Hull.
The company came about when Radio Hallam merged with Pennine Radio and later took over Viking Radio and the Yorkshire Radio Network began broadcasting on 18 May 1987.
In 1989, it joined the
Unlisted Securities Market
The Unlisted Securities Market (USM), which ran from 1980 to 1996, was a stock exchange set up by the London Stock Exchange to cater for companies too small to qualify for a full listing.
The USM allowed companies to be traded which did not have ...
. Its debut on that market was described as "fantastic".
In 1989, all of the three radio stations'
medium wave
Medium wave (MW) is a part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytim ...
frequencies were used to form a new service called
Classic Gold
Classic Gold was a network of three "Gold" music formatted stations which broadcast on AM in Bradford, Hull and Sheffield. They were the sister stations of Pennine Radio, Viking Radio and Radio Hallam respectively and they were part of the ...
. YRN was bought by the
Metro Radio Group and as Pennine was making a loss they decided to rename it and in August 1991
The Pulse of West Yorkshire
Hits Radio West Yorkshire, formerly Pulse 1, is an Independent Local Radio station based in Leeds, England, owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to West Yorkshire.
As of September 2024, t ...
was born.
For a while YRN used the overnight sustaining service "
The Superstation
The Superstation (or ''Radio Radio'' as it was known in the industry) was set up in 1987 as an overnight sustaining service for Independent Local Radio. Launched in July 1988, the station broadcast from 10.00pm until 6.00am on many of the UK's ...
".
YRN bought
Rediffusion Singapore
Rediffusion Singapore (), started in 1949, was the first cable-transmitted radio station in Singapore. It was a Singapore subsidiary of the Broadcast Relay Services (Overseas) Ltd. It was also Singapore's only subscription radio service.
Redif ...
for the sum of S$9 million in July 1989.
Programming
There was
live
Live may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film
* ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film
* ''Live'' (2023 film), a Malayalam-language film
*'' Live: Phát Trực Tiếp'', a Vietnamese-langua ...
networked programming across the stations each evening broadcast from Viking Radio's
studio
A studio is a space set aside for creative work of any kind, including art, dance, music and theater.
The word ''studio'' is derived from the , from , from ''studere'', meaning to study or zeal.
Types Art
The studio of any artist, esp ...
's at Commercial Road in
Hull. The programmes would mostly start after 8pm weekdays and slightly earlier over weekends.
Ad-breaks were not split so it was not unusual to hear
promo
PROMO (Promoting Missouri) is a Missouri
Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territ ...
s for Viking whilst you were listening to either Hallam or Pennine. However, both "Benny Brown's American Countdown" and "
Rick Dees
Rigdon Osmond Dees III (born March 14, 1950), best known as Rick Dees, is an American entertainer, radio personality, comedian, actor, and voice artist, best known for his internationally syndicated radio show '' The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Coun ...
Weekly Top-40" programmes where bought in and played-out locally by each station, so the commercials were also played separately by the tech-ops at each individual station.
Tim Finlay would often say "''we're on more frequencies than you've had hot dinners!''", those frequencies before the
AM/
FM split were 96.1, 96.9, 97.4, 97.5, 102.5, 102.9, 103.2 and 103.4 MHz and 990, 1161, 1278, 1305, 1530 and 1548 kHz.
For a short-time Howard Pressman presented a weekend afternoon show on the
network
Network, networking and networked may refer to:
Science and technology
* Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects
* Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks
Mathematics
...
. However, there was no reference to which station it was on other than in the jingles, which were only ever played after the ad-break and fired at each individual station.
Jingles
Each
jingle
A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meanings that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually ...
was sung with different endings to ensure each station was fairly represented, for example:
:''"Latest hits, Greatest hits, Pennine, Hallam and Viking"''.
:''"Every hour there's more music power, on Viking, Hallam and Pennine"''.
:''"We're with you all the time, Pennine, Hallam and Viking"''.
:''"Upfront, In front, Hallam, Pennine and Viking"''.
This was a remarkably democratic process and was not present with previous packages. The older jingles would either sing "Yorkshire Radio Network" thus, not naming any station at all, or the order of the stations would be "Viking, Pennine and Hallam" this being unfair to Hallam, which was always last.
Each YRN cut was also sung for each individual station with the same melody. This was to ensure one identity throughout each station regardless of the time of day, for example:
:''"Every hour there's more music power, on Viking F.M"''.
:''"Every hour there's more music power, on Pennine F.M"''.
:''"Every hour there's more music power, on Hallam F.M"''.
The memorable YRN news jingle was re-produced several times, however the
tune remained the same. This jingle was used on the individual stations. It was formed using the melody used at the start of that of 'Viking Radio' (also that of 'Pennine Radio'), and the end of that of 'Radio Hallam'.
Some of the earlier jingles were sung by
soul
The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...
singer
Jimmy Helms
James D. Helms (born September 27, 1941) is an American soul singer, known as a member of Londonbeat but who also had solo hits such as " Gonna Make You an Offer You Can't Refuse".
Early years
Helms was born in Florida. His grandfather was a Bl ...
. Helms later went on to form the group
Londonbeat
Londonbeat are a British dance-pop band who scored a number of pop and dance hits in the early 1990s. They currently consist of vocalists Jimmy Helms, Jimmy Chambers, and Charles Pierre. Former members include multi-instrumentalist William He ...
, they were regular guests on Tim Finlay's evening show, and they even sang him a jingle to the tune of their hit "Failing in love again".
All of the packages were created and written by British jingle production company
Alfasound
Alfasound was a radio jingle production company based in Manchester from late 1970s to mid-1990s founded by Alan Fawkes and ex- Piccadilly Radio DJ Steve England.
Alfasound was responsible for some of the most memorable radio jingles in the 8 ...
, with the final package being a co-production with United States Company
JAM Creative Productions
JAM Creative Productions, Inc., is an American company that produces radio jingles, promo music for television, and commercial jingles for advertisers. It has made more radio jingles than any other jingle company and has become part of America ...
. The YRN 4 jingle package used resings of "Non-Stop Power" - originally created for New York radio station
WPLJ
WPLJ (95.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station, licensed to New York, New York. Owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF), based in Franklin, Tennessee, it broadcasts EMF's Christian adult contemporary formatted p ...
.
References
*John Thornhill. "Yorkshire Radio shares fall 55p on warning".
The Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
. 18 April 1990. p 34.
*Melinda Wittstock. "Yorkshire Radio's profits fall". The Financial Times. 9 June 1990. p 19.
*"Lower ad revenue takes toll on Yorkshire Radio". The Financial Times. 11 June 1990. p 24.
*Clay Harris. "Trans World and Yorks Radio in merger talks". The Financial Times. No 31,205. Financial Times Weekend. 21/22 July 1990. p 8.
*
Raymond Snoddy
Matthew Raymond Snoddy , (born 1946), commonly known as Raymond Snoddy, is a British news media journalist, News broadcasting#Television news, television News broadcasting, presenter, author and Pundit, media commentator. From its inception in ...
. "Yorkshire Radio promises an improved performance". The Financial Times. 12 September 1990. p 25.
{{Reflist
External links
Jingle package 2 for YRNPromo, jingle feat. Jimmy Helms and Paul Massey!Tim Finlay linksYRN News jingle from package 1
Radio stations in Yorkshire
Former British radio networks
Defunct companies based in Sheffield
1989 mergers and acquisitions