| City of license | London |
|---|---|
| Format | Contemporary Christian music |
| Audience share | 0.7% (Sept 2007, RAJAR [1]) |
| Owner | Premier Christian Media Trust |
| Website | premier.org.uk |
Premier Christian Radio is a British Christian radio station wholly owned by the charity Premier Christian Media Trust.
Premier Christian Radio broadcasts Christian programming including news, debate, teachings and Christian music to London and the surrounding areas.
It operates on three frequencies on medium wave across five transmitters[2]:
It also broadcasts on DAB in Greater London, nationally on Sky Digital (channel 0123), Freeview (channel 725), on the Digital One national DAB multiplex[3], and via its website.
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Presenters [4] include:
Premier Christian Radio are known for their strong evangelical audience but their listeners also comprise a number of different Christian denominations, including Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and Pentecostal.
In 2004 The Times placed Premier Christian Radio at number one in a chart of the "most upmarket stations" based upon the percentage of its audience (81%) that is ABC1.[6] In the quarter ending June 2010 the station was receivable by 10,983,000 people; 143,000 listened, for an average of 12 hours each, 0.80% of all listening hours[7].
Premier Christian Radio was founded in 1994, broadcasting exclusively on MW to a Greater London audience when it also began its telephone counselling service, Lifeline. It took the air at a Launch Party in Battersea Park, London on 10 June 1995.
A series of magazine titles then joined. The charity currently produces Christianity Magazine, Youthwork Magazine, Christian Marketplace and Faithworks Magazine.
In 2001, Premier received an official warning from The Radio Authority (the regulatory body for radio at the time) for broadcasting "items that were offensive to people of other, non-Christian beliefs". A "yellow card" warning was issued, recognising that Premier had acknowledged its errors and put in place significant new compliance measures to ensure such breaches would not be repeated.[8]
Premier Christian Radio was at first only available on medium wave in London. It later added broadcasts on the internet, Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media (channel 968, terminated 6 May 2009) and London DAB.[9] In 2006, the media group launched Premier.tv, one of the first Christian IPTV channels in the UK.
Its 2007 application for a national DAB licence, as part of the National Grid Wireless consortium, was refused; Premier Radio said "almost 72,000 Premier listeners stepped up and made their voices heard in supporting the bid".[10] In August 2009, Premier achieved its target of meeting the £650,000 yearly fee to broadcast on the national Digital One DAB multiplex and launched on the multiplex on 21 September 2009.[3]
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