OFCOM have now officially scrapped the three regions in each of Wales and Scotland in favour of one for each nation which up here in Wrexham will truly kill off local broadcasting. It's inevitable now the limited non-London content will ultimately come from Cardiff.
I thought Scotland now will have two areas North (similar to the old Grampian TV) and South?
I wasn't living in Cornwall at the time but I remember Pirate FM launching as it was featured on Tomorrow's World. Its studios were very advanced for the time with one of the first automation systems playing out the music. This enabled it to run more economically than other stations and be on air overnight without staff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UOAAs6JjzI
I don't know if I've seen that clip since it first aired, but I do remember being impressed with the technology - and distinctly remember it ending with someone leaving the milk bottles out.
Thoughts from seeing it again: RiscOS! And why is he using the mouse upside down?
It's always played up in its localness, especially since Atlantic FM was replaced with Heart, and it has a fairly unique music offering. It would be a real shame if it ended up as just a networked outlet of Hits or Greatest Hits (the latter musically is probably closer to Pirate). It would especially bad as BBC Radio Cornwall is just so dull and speech based, it's a bit of a contrast to other BBC Local stations
Yet, Radio Cornwall manages to be the most popular BBC local radio mainland station in terms of share, and 2nd most popular mainland station in terms of reach
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And of course Pirate FM had this great piece of production
I think BBC Cornwall pretty well jumped to that position from the outset ?
Wasn't Duncan Warren from BBC Cornwall poached as part of Pirate's launch team ?
I seem to recall he bounced between the two stations a few times ?
Anyway, Pirate had the advantage of being easily receivable in Plymouth, which helped
with ad revenue. Didn't they have a sales office there at one point ? I'm not sure how amicable their relationship with Plymouth Sound was, but their programming styles (and therefore presumable target audience), didn't overlap too much ? I don't recall Plymouth Sound ever publicly protesting their TSA was totally eclipsed by Pirate ?
The one thing I feel confident about is that we'll see the closure of Pirate 70s and Pirate 80s, and maybe incorporating some of Pirate 80s local content into the Cornwall multiplex feed of Greatest Hits Radio.
Well yes that's what happened, kind of, in the Midlands - with an 80's station replaced by GHR (albeit with a switch from AM to FM). They have Absolute 70's and Absolute 80's already so won't want two near identical offerings
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Greatest Hits Radio is already available down here on DAB, and is already in a super competitive battle for the Oldies audience in Cornwall. You have Gold, who have been on DAB here since the multiplex opened; Pirate 80s, which replaced Pirate 70s, which replaced Pirate Oldies; Greatest Hits Radio, which launched in Cornwall and Nationally on January 7th, and Goldmine, a locally owned and operated Oldies station featuring shows from the original Pirate FM presentation team of Roger Day, Duncan Warren and Tony James, which launched on January 1st.
Super competitive, but presumably tiny numbers. I don't think even London could support so many oldies stations on DAB
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As for Pirate FM itself, I don't think flipping that to Greatest Hits Radio would be a good decision, as it would gift Heart and community radio the 25-44 demographic, and if I'm reading Bauer's strategy correctly, with their recent introduction of Scala Radio now competing with Classic FM and Radio 3 for the classical listeners' attention, they want to compete directly with Global, and flipping Pirate FM to GHR would be a bad move, as it would alienate the 25-44 part of Pirate FM's audience.
Yes the thing is that it currently falls between the two formats. It's not chart music... but it's not all classic hits either, it's a very broad format. Will be interesting to see what they do, if anything.
I don't think community radio is the place for a 25-44 demographic, not with very varied and eclectic programming like your station has. Some progarmmes will appeal of course, but not for those who like to have a station on all day.
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Yet, Radio Cornwall manages to be the most popular BBC local radio mainland station in terms of share, and 2nd most popular mainland station in terms of reach behind BBC Radio Shropshire. Only BBC Radio Guernsey and BBC Radio Jersey do better than both Cornwall and Shropshire on both Reach and Share.
I can understand why, but I find it so different to it's peers. Compare Shropshire to Cornwall for example, totally different tone and programming (Shropshire is as popular but has less competition than even Radio Cornwall!). Again changes are afoot at BBC Local, it will be interesting to see how it changes
I don't know if I've seen that clip since it first aired, but I do remember being impressed with the technology - and distinctly remember it ending with someone leaving the milk bottles out.
Thoughts from seeing it again: RiscOS! And why is he using the mouse upside down?
Yes, I was surprised at that when I saw it again now.... not seen the word Econet for a long long time.
RISC was/is still used for some broadcast automation of course
Anyway, Pirate had the advantage of being easily receivable in Plymouth, which helped
with ad revenue. Didn't they have a sales office there at one point ??
Yes, I'm pretty sure it was in the Foot and Bowden building.... former home of TSW
Yet, Radio Cornwall manages to be the most popular BBC local radio mainland station in terms of share, and 2nd most popular mainland station in terms of reach
quote]
I think BBC Cornwall pretty well jumped to that position from the outset ?
Wasn't Duncan Warren from BBC Cornwall poached as part of Pirate's launch team ?
I seem to recall he bounced between the two stations a few times ?
Anyway, Pirate had the advantage of being easily receivable in Plymouth, which helped
with ad revenue. Didn't they have a sales office there at one point ? I'm not sure how amicable their relationship with Plymouth Sound was, but their programming styles (and therefore presumable target audience), didn't overlap too much ? I don't recall Plymouth Sound ever publicly protesting their TSA was totally eclipsed by Pirate ?
They didn't publicly protest, but there was a hell of a lot of animosity between Plymouth Sound and Pirate FM in the early days. Eventually a peace treaty of sorts was brokered between the two sides, and the net result of that is that Pirate FM isn't on the Plymouth side of local multiplex down here, and probably never will be.
Anyway, Pirate had the advantage of being easily receivable in Plymouth, which helped
with ad revenue. Didn't they have a sales office there at one point ??
Yes, I'm pretty sure it was in the Foot and Bowden building.... former home of TSW
No, it wasn't in the Foot and Bowden building itself, it was behind the Foot & Bowden building, which no longer stands, in a row of very fancy looking office buildings which is named The Crescent.
Greatest Hits Radio is already available down here on DAB, and is already in a super competitive battle for the Oldies audience in Cornwall. You have Gold, who have been on DAB here since the multiplex opened; Pirate 80s, which replaced Pirate 70s, which replaced Pirate Oldies; Greatest Hits Radio, which launched in Cornwall and Nationally on January 7th, and Goldmine, a locally owned and operated Oldies station featuring shows from the original Pirate FM presentation team of Roger Day, Duncan Warren and Tony James, which launched on January 1st.
Super competitive, but presumably tiny numbers. I don't think even London could support so many oldies stations on DAB
Tiny numbers I would imagine, but here's the thing. Cornwall only needs to support one of those stations (Goldmine), as the other two carry no local advertising, it's all national. The early indications are that Goldmine is already getting a decent audience for a DAB startup, and what's more, it's getting a 35+ audience, when the normal demographic for a golden oldies type station would be 45+. That means that it's already looking more appealing to local advertisers.
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As for Pirate FM itself, I don't think flipping that to Greatest Hits Radio would be a good decision, as it would gift Heart and community radio the 25-44 demographic, and if I'm reading Bauer's strategy correctly, with their recent introduction of Scala Radio now competing with Classic FM and Radio 3 for the classical listeners' attention, they want to compete directly with Global, and flipping Pirate FM to GHR would be a bad move, as it would alienate the 25-44 part of Pirate FM's audience.
Yes the thing is that it currently falls between the two formats. It's not chart music... but it's not all classic hits either, it's a very broad format. Will be interesting to see what they do, if anything.
I don't think community radio is the place for a 25-44 demographic, not with very varied and eclectic programming like your station has. Some progarmmes will appeal of course, but not for those who like to have a station on all day.
Depends on the station. Source FM would probably pick up a very small percentage of those listeners, but a station like Radio Newquay, which is very much targetted towards a younger demographic, would probably see the most benefit in terms of community radio stations. Of course Heart would pick up the bulk.
Does it? Shropshire has Free Radio (Bauer Hits), Signal 107 (recently bought by Bauer) plus regionals Heart, Smooth and GHR from Sutton Coldfield.
It's a big county and there's no county-wide commercial station. Unlike Cornwall which has two
Free and Signal cover the northern part, Sunshine covers Ludlow on MW. The official service area of the West Midlands stations don't reach as far as Shropshire, http://static.ofcom.org.uk/static/radiolicensing/mcamaps/al000169.pdf although they are recievable in the west of the county if there's no hills in the way
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 7 March 2019 12:12pm - 3 times in total
Identical coverage from The Wrekin as BBC Shropshire, it's just that the BBC have a relay or two down in the Ludlow area, (not that I've had too much trouble receiving Beacon round there)