Archive for February, 2010
Toolan hits the national headlines
It's always good when a local radio presenter makes the national papers – and this time it's the turn of Key 103's Mike Toolan.
Reports in the Sun and Mail suggest he's dating former Coronation Street actress Tina O'Brien after they attended 'Cirque du Soleil' in Manchester together.
Schofield launches Radio Plymouth
Television presenter Philip Schofield has launched what is likely to be the last ILR station in the UK.
Radio Plymouth, of which Philip is an investor, launched at 10am Sunday after seven years with Bruce Hornsby and the Range – The way it is.
Baker launches ‘Shirt of Hurt’
BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Danny Baker has used his Saturday show to launch the 'Shirt of Hurt'.
Danny will challenge presenters, celebrities, sports stars and the public to wear the shirt of their teams fiercest rival to raise money for Sports Relief 2010. The first victim is presenter Adrian Chiles.
Dickens: “We would buy 6 Music"
Reacting to today’s news about the possibility of 6 Music being closed in a BBC strategic review, the Chief Operating Officer of Absolute Radio has said he would buy 6 Music and operate it better under commercial ownership.
Absolute has twice the audience of the BBC station but a significantly smaller budget.
BBC to close digital stations?
BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, is reportedly going to announce a strategic review of the broadcaster's operations next month, with major cuts and closures in radio.
Around £600m of the licence fee is to be re-allocated with a lot of the money saved by closing 6 Music, Asian Network and re-branding Radio 7.
Absolute Radio hires Juice man
Juice FM's promotions boss Jonathan Jacob is leaving the Liverpool station and heading to London to work for Absolute Radio.
He'll be working on marketing activity for Absolute Radio's digital brands including dabbl and Absolute 80s.
IRN to introduce extra Newslink
IRN is to launch a new 1pm Newslink ad break for a six month period, to test its popularity.
It will complement the existing 6am to 11am spots and will run across Global Radio, Bauer, GMG and talkSPORT on weekdays, starting this Monday.
Jamie’s got jazz on Tuesday
BBC Radio 2 is to refresh its evening schedule on the network from April, launching a new jazz show with Jamie Cullum on Tuesday night and moving Desmond Carrington to Friday.
Both of the new shows will be broadcast between 7pm and 8pm.
Adam Catterall leaving Rock FM
Adam Catterall, the breakfast presenter at Preston’s Rock FM is leaving the station after five years.
The multi-award winning show will finish in May when Adam’s contract ends with the station, although he hasn’t got a new job to go to.
Spring clean at Trent FM
Trent FM is making some programme changes for the spring, which will see presenter Mark Dennison leave the market leading station after 13 years.
Local talent Chris Birks will join from Mansfield 103.2 to present overnights and complete the refreshed line-up, which starts on the 29th of March.
New SPI director for UTV Radio
Global Radio's sponsorship, promotions and interactive director in Manchester is joining UTV Radio for the same role, but covering the entire group.
Nicola Cameron will work with the existing sponsorship teams to help grow business locally.
Northwest How-Do Awards return
Radio stations in the northwest of England are invited for the third year running to submit a free entry to the How Do Media Industry Awards.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, March 5th, with an awards dinner taking place in Manchester on April 29th.
Ofcom awards five new licences
Five more community radio stations have been granted permission to broadcast for a five year period by Ofcom.
In the latest round, the regulator also rejected a further eight applications in the south-east of England for various reasons.
BBC Radio 1 goes to Bangor
North Wales is the destination for Radio 1's 2010 Big Weekend.
Chris Moyles announced the location at a special secret outside broadcast in North Wales this morning on-air.
Edmondson covers Cox on Radio 1
BBC Radio 1's recent signing Matt Edmondson will be stepping in for Sara Cox whilst she goes on maternity leave next month.
Matt currently presents the showbiz news on Fearne Cotton's show each Friday but is very excited about getting his own show.
New chart for BBC Asian Network
The BBC Asian Network is to broadcast the world's first Official Asian Download Chart, replacing the Saturday afternoon opinion-based buzz chart.
Presented by Bobby Friction, the three-hour extended show is set to launch on Saturday 27 March from 3pm till 6pm.
SunTalk nominated for press award
As the radio industry comes to terms with newspapers winning radio awards, SunTalk is reversing the trend by being nominated in the 2010 British Press Awards.
Jon Gaunt's live show has been nominated for the Digital Innovation Award.
New gay show for Brooklands FM
Community radio station Brooklands FM is launching a new show aimed at the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community in North Surrey.
It's the first time the station has broadcast such a show, and adds to the station's schedule of specialist programming.
Andy Parfitt to talk to students
The Student Radio Association has secured the services of BBC Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt to speak at the Student Radio Conference.
Andy will speak to a delegation of over 200 student broadcasters about his thoughts on the future of radio broadcasting.
Radiodays secures Pirate Bay CEO
The upcoming Radiodays Europe conference has secured the services of Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, who believes radio is the future.
Peter, along with 40 other speakers from 16 countires will address the European radio industry in March at the new event in Copenhagen.
New sponsors for GMG Scotland
GMG Radio Scotland has secured three new sponsors, which started at the turn of the year in January.
New sponsors are covering Real Traffic and Travel News, Real's Morning Show and Smooth Radio Glasgow's weekday afternoon show.
RadioDNS officially launched
A new technology which allows internet-connected radio sets to gather information from terrestrial broadcasts has enjoyed its official launch.
RadioDNS, which is supported by many broadcasters around the world, is hoping more broadcasters will become involved.
PD Grad School – event report
UK Radio Consultant Paul Chantler has been attending the annual PD Grad School conference in Los Angeles, California where the interface between Facebook, Twitter and Radio was the focus.
Paul reports exclusively for RadioToday.co.uk..
Production conference confirmed
The second Radio Production in the North Conference entitled The Great Radio Renaissance will take place in Salford Quays, and features an impressive line-up.
Speakers include Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan, 5 live boss Adrian Van Klaveren and GMG Radio's north west MD Andy Carter.
Kerrang pays listeners to help
Bauer's Kerrang! Radio has formed an agreement with Slicethepie, to allow new artists to upload their music to the radio station website.
Listeners will then get paid to review and rate the tracks, with the best ones potentially getting airplay on specialist shows.
FM107.9 wants to go Smooth
Oxford's FM 107.9, currently a station for young people, has asked Ofcom to change the character of the station to become an easy listening station targeted at an older audience of over 45's.
It's the first time such a radical Format change has been proposed, to which the regulator needs to enter a public consultation before coming to a decision.
Radio Plymouth starts testing
One of the last-ever analogue radio stations to be awards a licence by Ofcom will start broadcasting at 10am on Sunday 28th February.
Test transmissions for Radio Plymouth went live just after midday on Thursday on 106.7 MHz FM.
Phill Jupitus relaunches BIRSt
BIRSt, the internet radio station at Bournemouth University invited Phill Jupitus to celebrate its 10th year anniversary relaunch.
He also conducted an interview with BBC Solent discussing the event and his involvement with Radio at Bournemouth.
More football for commercial radio
National talkSPORT has won the rights to broadcast live Barclays Premier League football commentary on games kicking-off on Saturdays at 5.30pm and Sunday early afternoons.
It comes after Absolute also secured the second pick of the Saturday 3pm matches, with the rest going to the BBC.
Digit Al heading to Digital Radio?
AMV BBDO, the advertising agency behind the Digit Al character to promote the digital television switch-over, has been awarded the assignment to work for Digital Radio UK.
The agency will begin work immediately with the objective of meeting the consumer-led switchover criteria, which include driving digital take up among consumers to 50 per cent.
