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New BBC Local Radio jingles

Launched on Radio Leicester

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LL
London Lite Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:


For whatever reason the BBC didn't take the opportunity to go after the audience that left Mercury and County Sound back then. These days Eagle is a smaller player, and there's a lot more competition. I don't think it's as much of an opportunity for them.

Radio Surrey will always have been a struggle, the London stations reach a large part of its patch and as you say commercial radio got established there years earlier.


It also didn't help that Surrey only launched in the west of the county, while in the east to satisfy Crawley, East Surrey had Radio Sussex from Reigate instead. I think it wasn't until the split breakfasts were introduced that 104 and the AM frequency were switched from Sussex to Surrey.
RW
Robert Williams Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:
And after the speculation on page 1 about slogans, Solent is 'the sound of the south'

Which is exactly what their slogan was about 30 years ago! Meanwhile, they're using 'The Sound of Dorset' on the Dorset output.
Last edited by Robert Williams on 21 January 2020 6:10pm
MA
Markymark
London Lite posted:
Inspector Sands posted:


For whatever reason the BBC didn't take the opportunity to go after the audience that left Mercury and County Sound back then. These days Eagle is a smaller player, and there's a lot more competition. I don't think it's as much of an opportunity for them.

Radio Surrey will always have been a struggle, the London stations reach a large part of its patch and as you say commercial radio got established there years earlier.


It also didn't help that Surrey only launched in the west of the county, while in the east to satisfy Crawley, East Surrey had Radio Sussex from Reigate instead. I think it wasn't until the split breakfasts were introduced that 104 and the AM frequency were switched from Sussex to Surrey.


Don't forget that during its early years Mercury shared evening programmes with Brighton's Southern Sound. The A23 axis is probably quite strong?
RW
Robert Williams Founding member
London Lite posted:
With the inevitable rebrand of Eagle Radio in Guildford once Bauer take control of UKRD's portfolio, I'd like to hope that BBC Surrey would then have the reason to seperate from the awful Sussex output and go fully local.

County Sound and Eagle have been the de facto local station in West Surrey and NE Hants for years as the BBC didn't launch local radio in the county until 1991, so if Bauer decide to network the hell out of the station, BBC Surrey really need to raise their game instead of lazy networking from Brighton for most of the day and a token 60 minutes during drive on weekdays.

I wish they would, but somehow I don't think they really care. If you tune into BBC Surrey this evening you'll hear a football match involving Brighton and Hove Albion, which is of interest to precisely nobody in Surrey.
HC
Hatton Cross
Inspector Sands posted:

I always liked the name of the rival to WM in Wolverhampton: WABC which stood for Wolverhampton And Black Country. Very American sounding but very clever



The 'use it or loose it' station of Beacon Radio.
On air known as 'Nice and Easy WABC' less complentary amogust some staff as 'Cheap and Nasty WABC'

Of course, the letters of the station were no accident as programme Manager Pete Wagstaff was a huge fan of American radio, regularly had C90 tapes sent over of off air airchecks/output and 97.2/103.1 Beacon in the early 90's was formatted on WHTZ - Z100 New York, right down to having a morning zoo team on breakfast and resings of the TurboZ package from Jam Jingles.

So, renaming 990am at the frequency spilt meant he could programme WABC, whilst not saying it was the 990am one, rather than the 770am one.
Last edited by Hatton Cross on 21 January 2020 7:43pm
HC
Hatton Cross
Markymark posted:

Presumably BRMB was a similar attempt?


Of sorts. It was a compromise.
Les Ross once told the story of the name on air, and I could mis-qoute him slightly but..

The group that set up BRMB wanted the station to have an American sounding name, so had to have four letters, but also stayed very close to the name of the city.

The first four letters BIRM was rejected, I think because it didn't look good as a logo. BRUM was binned as there's no U in Birmingham.

So, eventually after various drafts they settled on the first three letters of BRM (dropping the awkward vowel in the process), and reused B as the forth letter, which stood for 'Broadcasting' and having a B at the start and end made the name more memorable.
Rijowhi, London Lite and Markymark gave kudos
IS
Inspector Sands
Hatton Cross posted:

The 'use it or loose it' station of Beacon Radio.
On air known as 'Nice and Easy WABC' less complentary amogust some staff as 'Cheap and Nasty WABC'

Of course, the letters of the station were no accident as programme Manager Pete Wagstaff was a huge fan of American radio, regularly had C90 tapes sent over of off air airchecks/output and 97.2/103.1 Beacon in the early 90's was formatted on WTHZ - Z100 New York, right down to having a morning zoo team on breakfast and resings of the TurboZ package from Jam Jingles.

Beacon originally had a very American sound to it, the original programme director was American. The IBA didnt like it and they had to reign it in a bit.


Incidently there was another British station that chose an American call sign for its name and thatwas the early London DAB station WLON. IIRC it was an entertainment news based format and it had a sister station elsewhere, maybe WMAN (MAN being Manchester)?
HC
Hatton Cross
More recently(ish) there was also WGMS on 1332am in Peterbrough. That stood for (The) World's Greatest Music Station.

Happens to also be a classical music station in Washington DC.
SP
Spencer
I remember for a while in the early 90s, Radio Wyvern was styling itself as WYVN in some of its jingles. Pseudo American-style call-signs seemed popular in the midlands for a while.
LL
London Lite Founding member
Hatton Cross posted:
Inspector Sands posted:

I always liked the name of the rival to WM in Wolverhampton: WABC which stood for Wolverhampton And Black Country. Very American sounding but very clever



The 'use it or loose it' station of Beacon Radio.
On air known as 'Nice and Easy WABC' less complentary amogust some staff as 'Cheap and Nasty WABC'

Of course, the letters of the station were no accident as programme Manager Pete Wagstaff was a huge fan of American radio, regularly had C90 tapes sent over of off air airchecks/output and 97.2/103.1 Beacon in the early 90's was formatted on WHTZ - Z100 New York, right down to having a morning zoo team on breakfast and resings of the TurboZ package from Jam Jingles.

So, renaming 990am at the frequency spilt meant he could programme WABC, whilst not saying it was the 990am one, rather than the 770am one.


You're not kidding either, the presenter even mentions "WABC degrees"

http://www.aircheckdownloads.com/wabc_Launch_1290.mp3
DR
DorsetRazed
Absolutely loving the new BBC Solent jingles but hope BBC Devon don't adopt this new package. Imagine the uproar it would cause...cue listeners switching off and letters of protest to MP's. Devon folk are a nice bunch, don't get me wrong, but so backward in so many ways...
LS
Lou Scannon
DorsetRazed posted:
Absolutely loving the new BBC Solent jingles but hope BBC Devon don't adopt this new package.


I'm sure somebody said earlier in this thread that the new packages will be rolled out to all BBC Local Radio stations by some time in April.

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