Magic 999

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Magic 999 [pronounced nine-ninety-nine] is an EMAP owned radio station based in Preston that broadcasts across Lancashire on 999 KHz MW, DAB digital radio, Virgin Media TV channel 932 and online. It broadcasts from St. Pauls Square, in Preston (a converted church) and its sister station is 97.4 Rock FM.

1 History
2 Present day
3 Websites
4 References

[edit] History

Magic 999 launched as Red Rose Radio on 05 October 1982 at 6:00 and the first song played was Evergreen by Barbra Streisand. Dave Lincoln was the first presenter on the station, which broadcasted on 301 metres meduim wave (999 KHz) and 97.3 VHF stereo. It was Owen Oyston who launched Red Rose Radio.

Presenters from Red Rose Radio included Dave Lincoln, Allan Beswick, Sally Moon and Derek Webster.

On the 01 June 1990, Red Rose Radio split into two stations- something that many other radio stations had already done; the FM service became Red Rose Rock FM (now known as 97.4 Rock FM, while the AM service became Red Rose Gold playing songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, as well as having other secialist shows. Presenters included John Gilmour and Scottie McClue.

In 1994 Red Rose Gold and Red Rose Rock FM were bought by the Emap group. Towards the mid to late 1990s Red Rose Gold became Red Rose 999, before morphing into Magic 999 around 1999/ 2000 to fall in line with all the other Emap owned AM stations which had all been renamed Magic.

When the station became Magic 999, it still had a local feel about it and many presenters from the pre-Magic days remained on the station (such as Mark Keen, Dave Asher and Ricky Kirby). The stations strapline at this time was: 'Magic 999, great songs for the Red Rose county'.

Late 2001 saw some quite dramatic changes at the station, as the mid morning show, and overnights from 19:00 to 06:00 became networked from Magic 999's sister station Magic 105.4 in London. As well as some local presenters leaving the station, the music policy changed to become less oldies focused and included more newer songs, as all the northern Emap Magic stations adopted Magic 105.4's music policy. New sweepers came in also. Presenters from this time included Dave Asher, Mark Keen, Richard Skinner, Nicky Horne and Martin Buchannan

Towards the end of 2002, listeners were told to contact a kind of 'listener line' to voice their views about what they think of the station. Around the same time forthcoming changes to the station were announced such as new shows, a larger music policy, having newreaders in to present the news (rather than the local presenters having to be newsreaders, as was the case for a few months). These changes came into effect on Monday 06 January 2003. The tagline was now 'Greatest hit non-stop' and despite a few networked shows (from Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool), the station did have more local shows (such as the Mark Keen phone-in, and Saturday Night Magic). The music had a much greater variety than before, with songs form the 1960s- present. Presenters included Mark Thorburn, Samantha Rowlands, Vicki Archer, Ashliegh Whitfield, Rob Charles and Roy Basnett.

All this changed when in July 2006 the station had another revamp, one that was perhaps more dramatic than the previous one. All the shows became networked apart from the breakfast shows. The music policy changed to a more 'gold' format and its tagline became 'The best of the 60s, 70s and more'.

[edit] Present day

Today Magic 999s local elements are weekday breakfast with Rob Charles and weekend breakfast with Ian Roberts. All the other programmes come from either Newcastle-Upon-Tyne or Manchester. Local news (including the 10 minute news programme 'Red Rose Tonight' at 18:00), local travel and local adverts are aired throughout daytime hours. The station, though not nearly as popular as it once was, is still performing well in a crowded market place and still has a local feel to it a lot of the time. According to the RAJAR results for the period ending December 2006, Magic 999 had 52,000 listeners and a 2.4% market share in its area.

Other current presenters include: Nick Wright, Andy Siddell, Richard Allen, Norman Ashley and Vicki Archer and Mark Thorburn (who both do the voice-overs for the station).