Whitechapel AM
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Whitechapel AM is the Royal London's hospital radio station.
History
In the mid seventies London’s airwaves were full of pirate radio stations. One of these was Radio Kaleidoscope. It began in 1973, but after 3 years of broadcasting on Sunday afternoons the team decided to move on. Some went into commercial radio, some to other pirates, and some found themselves at the doors of the London Hospital in Whitechapel.
Clive Thomas approached the management with the idea of setting up a radio station broadcasting to the patients. The hospital agreed and on 3rd October 1976 Metropolitan Channel 2 was launched. At the beginning there were no studios in the hospital. The team would collect patient’s requests and pre-record the programmes at home. The tapes would then be taken back to the hospital and played over the internal radio network.
In 1977 the station held a sponsored bike ride from Swansea to the London Hospital. Over £3000 was raised, and work began on kitting out a studio within the hospital.
On Saturday July 24th 1978, the renamed Metropolitan Hospitals Radio (MHR) went live! The new studio was opened by Brian Hayes and the first record was We've Only Just Begun by The Carpenters.
Throughout the early eighties MHR continued to develop as a radio station reflecting the hospital community. In 1985 the team bought an outside broadcast unit, which meant patients could talk live from the ward to the presenter in the studio.
The station celebrated its 10th birthday in 1986 with the launch of its 999 AM service. In 1989 MHR moved to its present studio complex in Fielden House. The basement was converted into acoustically treated studios and offices.
MHR was given a major overhaul in 1990. The station was rebranded Whitechapel AM, Made To Measure Music. A 24 hour service was launched with the best music from the past four decades, adding to the evening request programmes. The Whitechapel AM team’s efforts were rewarded in the 1991 Awards For Hospital Broadcasting, as the station was named Regional Winner in London and National Runner Up.
In 1992 the lend out radio service started. Each patient could have a personal radio tuned exclusively to Whitechapel AM.
1997 saw another transformation. The studio complex was redecorated, a digital production suite was built and computer playout technology was adopted. Interviews, packages and so on could all be made in the production suite and copied over the computer network to the main studio ready for broadcast.
A year later Whitechapel AM became National Station of the Year in the 1998 Hospital Radio Awards. Alex Grundon won his first Hospital Radio Award for Whitechapel AM for Best Presenter in London and the South East.
The Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital had recently moved to the Royal London, so in 1999 Whitechapel AM launched WAM4Kids. The team took the outside broadcast equipment to the children’s wards to play games, chat with the kids and to play their own choice of music. It was an instant success!
2001 saw Whitechapel AM involved in the hospital’s Multicultural Week for the first time. An outside broadcast from the hospital garden covered the launch of the event, and later in the week Whitechapel AM and the hospital’s arts project, Vital Arts, held a talent show, Search For A Star. The patients voted for their favourite performer.
2001 was also Whitechapel AM’s 25th anniversary year and the team celebrated with a 25 hour broadcast marathon. The event raised thousands of pounds for the station.
In 2005 we completed a major refurbishment project. Presenters and guests can now see each other without peering round CD players! We also launched on the new bedside entertainment system, Patientline. We were now broadcasting in stereo for the first time!
In 2006 we celebrated our 30th birthday with loads of special events. We ran a poster competition on the kids’ wards. We played a selection of number ones from the past 30 years, ending with Abba’s Dancing Queen, the record at the top of the charts when we first began.
On our birthday we collected requests from across the entire hospital during an extended edition of Whitechapel Live.
And the following weekend Scott Bradbury, Steve Cleall, Matt Andrews and David March lived at the station for a 30 hour Birthday Broadcast Marathon. The rest of the Whitechapel AM team called in to help with requests, Whitechapel Live and WAM4Kids. The marathon ended with Pass Our Parcel, where we took a huge parcel around the wards. Inside was CDs and £30 of gift vouchers.
The Future
30 years on and we’re still going strong. We’ve got loads of great ideas for programmes, competitions and events. Behind the scenes we are planning better equipment to help with our daytime programmes, and to help find requests easier and quicker. Over the next few years we plan to expand our service to St. Bart’s Hospital as well as building a new studio complex within the new Royal London. Hopefully the founders of Metropolitan Channel 2 will agree that the pioneering nature and excitement of 1976 continues to this day.
