Researching local radio

Research of local Radio: Wish FM is a British Independent Local Radio that serves the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester and the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside. The station takes its name from the initials Wigan and St Helens.

The station broadcasts on 102.4 FM from a transmitter powered by a wind-up generator at Billinge Hill on the border of Wigan and St. Helens and has been on air since 1 April 1997. It was the first license applied for and won by Tony Dewhurst and Jeff Graham of the recently formed Independent Radio Group. The studios are in the Orrell district of Wigan, but in early 2007, the station's owners approached UK media regulator OFCOM to ask permission to move the station's base to Newton Le Willows, Merseyside, as part of a plan to share a single building with two other stations from the UTV Radio group: Tower FM and Wire FM. However, after selling-off Stockport-based Imagine FM, UTV Media decided to keep Wish FM in Orrell, and moved Wire FM and Tower FM into the Orrell base.

Wish FM now covers sport heavily with Home & Away Commentaries on Wigan Athletic matches in the Sky Bet Championship. Season and a deal to do commentaries on both Wigan Warriors and St Helens RLFC Rugby League games ahead of the 2014Super League season.

Wish FM carries a network evening programme, called Total Access, from 7pm on weekday evenings.

The target audience for this radio station would be male dominated and from the age of 24-40 years because of their use of music variety and because of the latics live they use. By using Wigan Athletic in their local area to talk about and make segments about they are creating an audience which should appeal to the local area.

BBC Radio Lancashire is the BBC Local Radio service for the county of Lancashire, in North West England. It began as BBC Radio Blackburn on 26 January 1971 on 96.4FM, then adding 854 kHz AM in 1972 and changing to its current name on 4 July 1981. It broadcasts from studios in Blackburn on 95.5 (Hameldon Hill, Burnley), 103.9 (Winter Hill, Horwich), 104.5 (Lancaster) FM. The 103.9 FM signal comes 2,500 feet (760 m) high on the Winter Hill transmitter, and its height gives it the greatest coverage over Lancashire, North Manchester, although nearby, can just about pick up the signal. Winter Hill also carries national radio (including BBC National DAB), TV, Digital One, and the commercial stations 105.4 Real Radio (formerly Century 105), Rock FM (formerly Red Rose Radio) on 97.4FM and Smooth Radio on 100.4FM. Winter Hill also broadcasts two other local digital multiplexes - MXR North West 12C and CE Digital Manchester 11C (it is a digital transmitter for Radio Manchester). Radio Manchester is very clear in the south of Lancashire as is Radio Merseyside. The Lancaster transmitter also carries TV, BBC National DAB stations and Digital One. Beginning on 1 October 2001, the DAB signals have come from the EMAP Digital Central Lancashire 12A multiplex located at Winter Hill and Pendle Forest (near Nelson). Pendle Forest also started broadcasting BBC National DAB stations in April 2004.

BBC Radio Manchester is a BBC Local Radio station broadcasting to Greater Manchester and north east Cheshire in North West England. The radio station broadcasts 24 hours a day from studios at MediaCityUK in Salford Quays via a transmitter at Holme Moss, with a small repeater at Saddleworth that covers Tameside and Saddleworth. It can be heard on DAB radio and via internet streaming. It is a department of the BBC North Group division.

BBC Radio Manchester (1970–1988) BBC Radio Manchester launched on 10 September 1970 as the first local radio station in the city of Manchester. Initially broadcasting from studios at Piccadilly Gardens in the city centre, the station's long-standing home was New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road. Radio Manchester originally broadcast on 206AM (medium wave). Presenters included Alan Sykes, Roy Cross, Sandra Chalmers, Mike Riddock and Alex Greenhalgh. In the mid-1970s, Radio Manchester was notable for the "Midway through the Day" programme which introduced strip programming and ran from lunchtime until 7.00pm. Presenters changed throughout the day and it was the precursor of the now common chat and music format. At the same time Radio Manchester began an evening programme from 10.00pm to midnight which often repeated interviews from "Midway through the Day".

Opt-out stations In 1983 and 1984 the radio station ran a series of experimental community stations, each of which used the 1296 kHz AM frequency in turn. The stations were BBC Radio Bury (late 1983/early 1984), BBC Radio Oldham, BBC Radio Rochdale (eight weeks from 14 May 1984), BBC Radio Trafford (which operated from a mobile studio in a school playground) and BBC Radio Wigan (summer 1984). The stations were part-time services which opted out from the main BBC Radio Manchester service.

BBC GMR (1988–2006) From October 1988 until 3 April 2006, the station was named BBC GMR (Greater Manchester) and, for a brief period in 1997, GMR Talk, BBC Greater Manchester Radio. Programmes included a phonein with Allan Beswick (now the station's weekday breakfast presenter), late-night music and comedy show Michelle Mullane around Midnight and GMR Brass, a brass band music programme. GMR was part of the BBC Night Network.

In 1996, BBC GMR began broadcasting from a second transmitter from Saddleworth on 104.6 FM, (which had and continues to serve as a transmitter for Key 103 for over 20 years). This meant, areas of the Upper Tame Valley including Saddleworth and Tameside, down to Hyde saw improved coverage, which was poor at times from Holme Moss especially indoors.

BBC Radio Manchester relaunch (2006-present) After 18 years the station reverted to its original name, Radio Manchester. The first voice on the relaunched station was that of Tony Wilson followed by long-time local personality and breakfast presenter Terry Christian, the first song was Manchester by the Beautiful South.

At 6.00am on Saturday 8 October 2011, the station ended its transmissions from its Oxford Road studios and began broadcasting from MediaCityUK in Salford Quays. The final show from Oxford Road was presented by Darryl Morris and the first from the new studios by Andy Crane.

BBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC Local Radio service for the English metropolitan county of Merseyside, and Halton in north Cheshire. It was the third BBC local radio station, launching on 22 November 1967, initially serving the south west of historic Lancashire. According to RAJAR the station has a listenership figure of 339,000 which represents a reach audience of 20%, implying that one in five persons in Merseyside listens to the station.

BBC Radio Merseyside broadcasts from its studios in Hanover St, Liverpool on 95.8 MHz (Allerton Park), 1485 kHz (Wallasey) and DAB. The Allerton Park transmitter also transmits Radio City on 96.7 MHz. Both have the same coverage.

DAB signals come from the EMAP Digital EMAP Liverpool 11B multiplex] from Billinge Hill (between St Helens and Wigan), Hope Mountain (between Buckley and Wrexham) and Radio City Tower (on top of Radio City's studios).

On 15 July 2006, BBC Radio Merseyside moved from its former home in Paradise Street, Liverpool, to a new purpose-built studio building on the corner of Hanover Street and College Lane in Liverpool.

This building has three ground-floor studios next to a public performance space. An open learning centre is on the first floor and the main office is on the second floor. It's the third building Radio Merseyside has occupied since it was launched in 1967 from studios on the sixth floor of a councilowned building, Commerce House, in Sir Thomas Street. The station moved to Paradise Street in 1981.

I feel that all 3 of these radio stations part of the BBC are aimed towards a middle aged group because of the music variety but also the topical questions raised on the programmes as they include controversial political topics usually.

Capital Manchester is a local radio station owned and operated by the Global Radio as part of the Capital radio network. The station broadcasts from studios at Exchange Quay, Salford.

The transmitter is on top of the City Tower (the former Sunley Building) in Piccadilly in Manchester, the same place as 106.1 Real Radio XS and XFM's transmitter and all 3 services share the same broadcast antenna system which is located on the centre tower and is illuminated with red Aircraft warning lights at night.

The 102 MHz frequency in Manchester has a chequered background, initially it was occupied

by Sunset 102 which included regular shows from house music innovators 808 State and a Saturday evening rave show from Sammy B; both were cited by Dave Haslam in City Life to have been instrumental in reflecting and developing the early rave culture in the city. However, due to occasional threats of violence on air and other breaches of the licence the station was closed.

The licence was readvertised and quickly won by Faze FM who launched Kiss 102 on 16 October 1994. The licence win was spearheaded by Eugene Perera's Level Broadcast, aided by Mike Powell's

Infinity Radio consultancy, and included shareholders UKRD, Eastern Counties Newspaper Group and 3i.

The station became a victim of its own success when months after opening a second station, the Yorkshire regional Kiss 105, the station's board accepted a ÂŁ17.6 million takeover bid from the Chrysalis Group for a company that had cost just ÂŁ600k to set up three years earlier.

Chrysalis rebranded the station as Galaxy, 11 days after transfer of ownership, as a direct result of EMAP, the Kiss brand owners, and refusal to franchise the Kiss name to Chrysalis. The music policy was toned down, integrating R'n'B into the playlist and disspensing with many of the specialist programmes and presenters. Nevertheless their investment in advertising and change of music policy was able to grow the audience further.

The station was rebranded as Capital on 3 January 2011 as part of a merger of Global Radio's Galaxy and Hit Music networks to form the nine-station Capital network.

Capital appeals towards a younger audience, adolescents mainly because of the music used on the show. The music shows a general trend of music within the last 5 of years or maybe 10-15 years sometimes, the music on the show is mostly modern, can have club music as well and this appeals to a younger audience more than an older audience because younger people enjoy this type of music more.

Heart is a radio network of 21 adult contemporary local radio stations operated by Global Radio in the United Kingdom, broadcasting a mix of local and networked programming. Eighteen of the Heart stations are owned by Global, while the other three are operated under franchise agreements.

Heart began broadcasting on 6 September 1994, as 100.7 Heart FM being the UK's third Independent Regional Radio station, five days after Century Radio and Jazz FM North West. The first song to be played on 100.7 Heart FM was "Something Got Me Started", by Simply Red. Its original format of "soft adult contemporary" music included artists such as Lionel Richie, Simply Red and Tina Turner. Reflecting this, its early slogan was 100.7 degrees cooler!

Heart 106.2 began test transmissions in London in August 1995, prior to the station launch on 5 September. The test transmissions included live broadcasts of WPLJ from New York.[1] The Heart programming format was modified in 1996. The new format saw the "soft" AC music replaced with a generally more neutral Hot AC music playlist. Century 106 in the East Midlands became the third station of the Heart network in 2005 after GCap Media sold Century. Chrysalis' radio holdings were sold to Global Radio in 2007.

There are two theories of how the original Heart station was given its name. One is that it got its name from being based in the heart of Birmingham. The more commonly held theory is that it is taken from the phrase Heart of England which Birmingham and often the wider West Midlands region is often referred to as.

When GCap Media was taken over by Global Radio in 2008, it announced plans to dissolve the 41 station One Network, with one station (Power FM) becoming part of the Galaxy Network, four stations (BRMB, Beacon Radio, Mercia FM and Wyvern FM) forming a West Midlands regional network (which was latterly sold to Orion Media along with Heart 106), seven stations joining Capital FM to form The Hit Music Network and the remaining 29 stations forming the Heart Network. Heart East Midlands was sold to Orion Media due to the same competition concerns that had forced its earlier sale to Chrysalis.