Beacon Radio

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Beacon Radio

Broadcast area	Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury and Telford
First air date	12 April 1976
Frequency	97.2 MHz, 103.1 MHz
Format	Contemporary
Owner	GCap Media
Website	www.beaconradiowestmids.co.uk www.beaconshropshire.co.uk

Beacon Radio is the name of a Radio station in the Midlands of England, previously known as Beacon FM, and before that Beacon Radio 303.

1 History
2 Past Presenters
3 Live Sport
4 Tag Lines
5 Current West Midlands Line Up
6 Current Shropshire Line Up
7 External links

[edit] History

The station began broadcasting to the West Midlands and the Black Country from studios at 267 Tettenhall Road, Wolverhampton on mediumwave 303 metres, and 97.2 MHz (from Turner's Hill) at 6 A.M. on April 12, 1976.

The station is owned by GCap Media (formerly the Capital Radio Group). The original company was to have been called "The Express & Star Radio Company" after part of the original consortium, but the company that ultimately evolved was known as "Beacon Broadcasting Ltd".

The first presenter was Mike Baker and the first song to be played was Eric Carmen's "Sunrise" as the first record.

The station was originally set out to broadcast Beautiful Music including soul and country rock with a heavy bias towards American chart music swinging to the sounds of Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles.

The station's original Managing Director was Jay Oliver, an American who, with his Programme Controller Allen McKenzie (a Scot/Canadian), was responsible for the Mid-Atlantic sound that flooded the West Midlands for three years (including a US-style jingle package).

As with other UK commercial stations at the time, the station's commitment to news and speech broadcasting in its opening year, particularly in the evenings, was extensive; and its late-evening music programmes appeared to offer the presenters a freedom to enlighten with a wide choice of recordings, as well as to entertain.

The station became very successful, but was chastised by the UK licensing authority (then, the Independent Broadcasting Authority) for being too American sounding and not wide ranging enough in its programming. Due to this, the management and output were changed in mid-1979.

Its licence was later expanded in 1987 to cover Shropshire, ostensively broadcasting from its offices in Shrewsbury on 103.1 MHz. In actual fact only the News service was generated in Shrewsbury, actual programmes was based at the Wolverhampton studios - although entirely separate programming for the two areas was provided during daytime hours (this was from time to time slimmed down or expanded as finances allowed).

Since January 1989 the station has been FM-only, with Beacon's former AM frequencies of 990 and 1017 kHz becoming branded as a separate service "Nice 'n' Easy Radio WABC" (WABC stood for Wolverhampton And Black Country). This was shortened to "Radio WABC" in 1992.

In 1997 the local service essentially closed, and the service was networked (bar afternoon drivetime and News bulletins) undet the banner of "WABC Classic Gold". This service is currently owned and operated by the UBC Media Group as Classic Gold 990 & 1017 (occasionally still referred to in jingles as "Classic Gold WABC").

The company had been reorganised in the late 1990s into "Beacon Broadcasting and Communications Ltd" (BBCL) - a holding company for the company's various activities. In 1995 GWR Group plc bought Beacon Broadcasting Ltd from BBCL (leaving BBCL as a dormant company). The FM licenses currently are owned and operated by GCap Media (formerly the GWR Group), which rebranded the FM service as Beacon FM in 1997, before reverting to Beacon Radio in May 2005. The thinking behind this reversion to the 'radio' title had been floating around for a number of years within the company - new digital radios do not promote a frequency on 'FM' therefore as a 'radio' station it should be branded as such.

Beacon Radio often broadcasts the same content as many other radio stations that are owned by GCap Media - particular between the hours of 10pm and 6am, when networked programes are generated from a central point (for example in the early GWR years, network programmes came from Swindon, Wiltshire.

[edit] Past Presenters

Mike Baker
Dave Owen
Mick Wright
Gavin McCoy
Helen Armitage
Peter Deeley
Graham Freer
Stephen Rhodes
Tony Silvia
Peter Wagstaff
Dick Fisher
Pat Foley
Chris Harper
Munro Jack
George Ferguson
KKJ
Phil Brice
Bob Snyder
Peter Quinn
Dale Winton
Andy Wint
Tony Paul
Peter Craig
Gordon Astley
Nick Piercey
Dave Myatt
Ian Perry
Chuck Street
Graham Hall
Barry Curtis
Jim Duncan
Bob Lawrence
Will Tudor
Charlie Wolf
Simon Nicks
Bob Davis
Nigel Worsey (Freshman)
Alan Nicklin
Pete Clements

The latter DJ Mr Clements ('Clem') now resides in sunny Houston, Texas and is immenently undertaking the writing of a book which will expand on the early activities at Beacon Radio.

[edit] Live Sport

The station now owns the commercial rights to broadcast live commentary on all of Wolverhampton Wanderers' live matches, home and away throughout the 2006/2007 season. The rights were previously owned by local Wolverhampton radio station "107.7 The Wolf" but due to the decline in the commentary quality fans started to complain and it was later shut down.

It hosts a fan's phone in live after every weekend match presented by Stu Haycock. The commentary team consisting of Bill Hatton and "Wolves legend" Robbie Dennison also add to the post-match discussion.

The station also has Geoff Owen on hand to providing regular reports on West Bromwich Albion matches George Andrews provides updates for Walsall matches.