The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Thread

I imagine a lot more people commute from Bradford and Huddersfield to Leeds than do Scunthorpe and Grimsby to Hull. There isn't a mile-wide bit of water in the way for a start.

Radio Leeds’ name has always been a difficulty for the station in building its listenership outside Leeds, and in Bradford in particular, hence why they had plans to change the name to BBC West Yorkshire FM back in the early 90s. They constantly have to work to convince people in Bradford that they *are* their local station despite the name with initiatives like the recent search for the Voice of Bradford. For Humberside to call itself BBC Hull would instantly alienate everyone south of the Humber.

Interestingly it's the reason BBC WM rebranded from Radio Birmingham - the people of Wolverhampton and the Black Country, as well as later Coventry and Warwickshire, didn't approve of the name.

BBC CWR started and folded and came back in 2005 of course but there was always a hostility to the 'Greater Birmingham' name from the other parts. Maybe the people of Bradford didn't disapprove as much to the station naming?

They only get away with it because it's long established, it wouldn't be liked now. A lot of people aren't liking how West Yorks & other surrounding areas is now described as the 'Leeds City Region'

And in doing so those of us in Huddersfield, Wakefield, Halifax, Dewsbury etc feel further left out that Bradford gets all the attention.

BBC Radio Manchester rebranded as GMR about the same time I think, but then reverted back.

Other BBC LRs that have single city-centric names:-

Bristol ( covers Avon)
Oxford ( covers the shire, plus west Bucks)
Leicester (covers the shire)
Stoke ( covers Staffs and bits of Cheshire)
Newcastle ( covers Tyneside and all of Northumberland up to the Scots border)
Sheffield (covers S Yorkshire and North Derbyshire)
Derby (covers the shire)
Nottingham (covers the shire)
York (covers N Yorkshire)

I saw a thing the other day about the anniversary of the launch of WM and was surprised to find out it was as early as 1981. Radios Manchester and London became GMR and GLR in 1988

Blimey, ta ! I thought the GMR (and WM) rebrands were after London's, time gets more and more logarithmic as you age

Although WM didn't change its name, in 1988 the Beeb did say that GLR, GMR and Radio WM - the three stations serving the biggest metropolitan areas - were all under review and would have three years to prove themselves as viable stations or they'd be closed down. That led to the rebranding of GLR and GMR, but WM didn't change their name (GBR?).

Ah, yes, I remember that too. I've just looked things up, 1981 was when the BBC relocated the AM Tx site to share with BRMB's at Langley Mill, to improve reception in the centre of Birmingham, and also added another
AM Tx at Sedgley (Beacon's Radio's site) to serve Wolverhampton properly. Of course both transmitters now carry the BBC Asian Network, and BBC WM is FM only.

It was also 1981 that BBC WM changed its name from BBC Radio Birmingham, presumably to reflect the wider coverage area.

I expect changing the name again 7 years later to "Greater Birmingham Radio" would not have gone down well with listeners.

"Greater Birmingham" is still not a popular term; it's a name that was considered for the West Midlands Combined Authority last year.

Indeed. All the original BBC Local Radio stations in the first phase had city names rather than county names. Stations like BBC Radio Bristol. Radio Leicester, Radio Newcastle and the like are mostly remnants of that first wave.