Guildford’s AM station County Sound Radio will drop live programmes on Friday.
The final show will be breakfast with Dave Johns after which the station will offer “locally produced content” rather than live presenters.
Managing Director Paul Marcus told RadioToday.co.uk of his plans: “Over the past two-years we have been exploring a number of ideas as to the strategic direction of our services. As a result there will be changes to the programming on County Sound Radio with the introduction of some innovative, unique and locally produced content.
“Not only will the new schedule provide great choice for the listener, we are excited to be introducing a pioneering, revenue-generation mechanism which we believe could help viably-sustain commercial radio in the future.”
The station, which is owned by UKRD, broadcasts on 1566AM covering Surrey and north-east Hampshire.
It launched in 1983 on FM and AM then in 1988 became the first UK station to split its frequencies to create two stations, Premier Radio on FM and County Sound Gold on AM. The station as we know it today was re-launched by current owners UKRD in 1996 with sister station The Eagle operating on FM. In the early 90s the service was known as Mercury Extra.
Paul adds: “UKRD have very ambitious future plans to provide a truly multi-platform offering for radio listeners in Surrey and North Hampshire and we hope to announce further details early in the New Year.
“I would like to thank Dave (Johns) for over eight years of loyal service to both the radio station and to the UKRD group”.
Posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2011 at 7:16 am by RadioToday UK