Radio News

Manx Radio secures extra funding to continue operating

Manx Radio has been successful in its Report to the Isle of Man Government, Tynwald to secure the future of the service. The station will now get almost £1m in 2020 after Tynwald approved a £95,000 increase. In October 2018, a Tynwald session into the funding and structure of the Islands Public Service Broadcaster was unable to reach a conclusion on the future of Manx Radio. At a further meeting in January 2019, Tynwald instructed Manx Radio’s board to go and write a report to “develop a sustainable operational and funding plan to be...

RAJAR Q3 2019: London and national brands round-up

Zoe Ball has lost another 364,000 listeners to her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show in the latest radio listening figures from RAJAR. It means more than a million weekly listeners have switched off since she took over the breakfast show from Chris Evans in January. In the period 24th June to 15th September 2019 (Q3/2019), Radio 2 breakfast had a weekly reach of 7.902m – that’s down from 8.266m in Q2 and 9.047m in Q1.While Zoe is still the presenter of the UK’s biggest breakfast show, the figures are the lowest for the slot in a decade – since...

RAJAR Q3 2019: Regional and local radio facts and figures

The big stories from the regions are that Heart has increased its audience despite rolling out a national breakfast show, and Greatest Hits Radio stations are taking a beating under their new names. Global - For the Heart brand, overall, it has seen an increase in listeners since taking its breakfast show national. It now has 9.8m weekly reach compared with 9.7m last quarter and 9.6m last year. In the regions, seven Hearts went up including Scotland and North East England, nine went down including West Midlands and two stayed the same...

John Humphrys joins Global to cover Classic FM Breakfast

Former BBC Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys is joining Global after over 30 years at the BBC. He will host Classic FM’s More Music Breakfast from Monday 28th October to Friday 1st November inclusive from 6am to 9am, as he stands in for regular presenter Tim Lihoreau. Moira Stuart, who presents the breakfast news bulletins, will also be with him for the week. John Humphrys said: “I’m struggling to think of a greater contrast with my old job: the bliss of Beethoven and Brahms instead of Brexit and backstops! Maybe there really is another world out there!”

talkSPORT wants to start turning off AM transmitters

talkSPORT has asked Ofcom to reduce the transmission coverage of its AM national commercial radio licence by 2.4%. The regulator has provisionally agreed the changes but will carefully consider any comments from stakeholders before making a final decision because it will mean some listeners will lose their ability to receive talkSPORT on the AM band. talkSPORT says that there has been a decline in analogue listening at a rate faster than it had predicted and the listening at the sites it wants to close, based on RAJAR data, is no longer...

Global to launch 24 hour rolling news radio station

Global is taking its London rolling news service national and around the clock as it launches LBC News on D1. LBC News will be on 1152 AM in London, in addition to Global Player and social media. With the strapline “Where The News Never Stops”, the station will operate under a full news update in 20 minutes every 20 minutes format, with presenters including former Sky News presenters Martin Stanford, Lisa Aziz, Ian Payne as well as Jim Diamond. LBC London News currently broadcasts in London for 13 hours a day, with the rest of the output taken from LBC...

BBC Radio 1 launches a national on-air treasure hunt

BBC Radio 1 revealed a new on-air competition this morning in which listeners are invited to take part in a national treasure hunt. Radio 1’s Treasure Hunt will kick off at 7.30am on Thursday 24th October on Breakfast, when a Golden Ticket will be hidden in four different locations around the UK. Greg James will gradually reveal clues about their whereabouts throughout the show. The first listener to find one of the Golden Tickets will win a pair of tickets to Radio 1’s Big Weekend, Reading & Leeds and Glastonbury Festivals. The other three Golden Tickets will be destroyed...

Pet Sounds radio show returns to Classic FM to help cats and dogs

Classic FM is partnering with the RSPCA next month to broadcast two special programmes to help keep anxious pets – and their owners – calm and relaxed this fireworks season. Pet Sounds, hosted by Classic FM’s weekend presenter and dog-lover Bill Turnbull, will be broadcast on Saturday 2nd November, with a second programme on Guy Fawkes Night itself, Tuesday 5th November. They follow Classic FM’s inaugural Pet Sounds programme last November, which saw digital listening hours on the day increase by almost 70% compared to the rest of the month...

BBC Radio 2 announces In Concert series for 2019

BBC Radio 2 announces the star-studded line-up for this year’s In Concert series. The five concerts will kick off with Stereophonics (Friday 1 November, 8pm). This will be followed by Jeff Lynne’s ELO (Thursday 7 November, 7pm), Craig David (Thursday 14 November, 7pm), Robbie Williams (Friday 29 November, 8pm) all from the BBC Radio Theatre in London. Dido will perform the final concert of the series (Monday 9 December, 7pm), from Maida Vale studios. The intimate performances will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2...

talkSPORT to cover nine football games in one day

Nine football commentaries will be broadcast by talkSPORT this Boxing Day – with multiple streams available via the station’s app. The station will cover games kicking-off at 12.30pm, 3pm, 5.30pm and 8pm, plus the live game the following day – and the New Year’s Day fixtures. The coverage will be led by talkSPORT’s football team, including Reshmin Chowdhury, Stuart Pearce, Adrian Durham, Sam Matterface and Trevor Sinclair forming part of a three-year rights package. All six 3pm games will be played simultaneously on the...