Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire
| Broadcast area | Herefordshire and Worcestershire |
|---|---|
| Slogan | "Today's Best Music Mix" |
| Frequency |
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| First air date | 4 October 1982 |
| Format | CHR |
| Audience share | 8.5% (September 2012, ) |
| Owner | Orion Media |
| Website |
freeradio.co.uk/herefordshire freeradio.co.uk/worcestershire |
Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire (formerly Radio Wyvern) is an Independent Local Radio station serving Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The station, owned and operated by Orion Media, broadcasts from studios in Worcester on 96.7, 97.6, and 102.8 FM, and is part of the Free Radio network.
History
Radio Wyvern originally went on-air on 4 October 1982. The original Wyvern name derived from the River Wye and River Severn, the rivers running through Hereford and Worcester respectively (the name was proposed in the 1970s for what would become the county of Hereford and Worcester). The initial Presentation team consisted of Sammy Southall at Breakfast, Roy Leonard in the morning, Graham Hughes in the afternoon and rock shows, and Mike George at drivetime. Weekend presenters included Jeff Roberts, Rob Yarnold and Bob Lee. Managing Director from 1984 until 1996 was Norman Bilton who joined Wyvern from Two Counties Radio in Bournemouth and Metro Radio in Newcastle.
For the first year or so, the station opened at 6am (7am on Sundays) and closed at 8pm, Later the station provided a 24-hour service by joining up with Beacon Radio from 10 p.m. and then a wider network of Midlands stations from 1am. Radio Wyvern took the SuperStation overnight service in the late 1980s, and when that closed abruptly, a local Late Show was introduced, with the overnight output from 1am shared with BRMB and Mercia FM.
After its licence was renewed in 1994, the station split into Wyvern FM, playing newer music, and Wyvern AM (Quality and Variety) which was essentially a gold service. The AM station was rebranded as Classic Gold soon afterwards, and was sold to Murfin Music International because of ownership regulations and the large overlap with neighbouring Classic Gold 774 in Gloucestershire. Some time later, it was rebranded as Classic Hits, and by this time a fully-fledged local service, with no links to Wyvern FM or the Classic Gold network. In 2007, Laser Broadcasting abruptly relaunched the AM station as SunshineRadio.
The station has played host to many well-known broadcasters over the years. Neil Fox began his professional broadcasting career here in 1984, and the line Wyvern News, this is Howard Hughes became very familiar to listeners. Rich Edwards, who joined in the very early days, presented on Classic Hits until its abrupt closure in 2007. David Holdsworth, now with the BBC was the station's News Editor, and Eleanor Oldroyd, now with Five Live, was a member of the Sport team. Several of the original presenters including Mike George, Graham Hughes, and Roy Leonard went on to long careers with BBC radio and TV.
On 8 August 2008, it was confirmed that due to competition 'conflict of interests' in the West Midlands (and in other areas), Wyvern FM would be sold by Global Radio, along with other West Midlands owned GCap/Global stations BRMB, Mercia FM, Heart 106, and Beacon Radio. In July 2009, the station was sold officially to a company backed by Lloyds TSB Development Capital and Phil Riley[1] called Orion Media. Following the take over In January 2010, Wyvern FM rebranded as Wyvern and launched a new station slogan, "Made for Herefordshire & Worcestershire".
On 9 January 2012, Orion Media announced that Wyvern would be rebranded as Free Radio Herefordshire and Worcestershire from April 2012, along with its sister West Midlands stations BRMB, Beacon, and Mercia. Local programming is retained at breakfast and weekday drivetime.[2][3]
The Wyvern brand was phased out, together with neighboring stations BRMB, Beacon and Mercia, on Wednesday 21 March 2012 in preparation for the rebrand, which took place at 7pm on Monday 26 March 2012. After 2 years of broadcasting as Free Radio, the new station lost 1,360,000 of listening hours, which equates to around 22% of hours wiped off it's area listening audience figures, compared to broadcasting as the previous brands. The Radio Today discussion page classed the re-brand as a mistake for its core business, especially when compared the UK radio rebrand successes of Jack FM and Heart FM.[4]
Programming
Weekdays
| Time | Main presenter(s)/programme | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0000 – 0600 | Phil Ray | Birmingham |
| 0600 – 1000 | Hursty and Helen: Richard Hurst & Helen Wheels | Worcester |
| 1000 – 1300 | Russ Morris | Birmingham |
| 1300 – 1600 | Dan Morrissey | |
| 1600 – 2000 | David Francis | Worcester |
| 2000 - 0000 | Adam Wilbourn | Birmingham |
Saturday
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Sunday
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Past presenters
- Elliott Webb (now at Heart Gloucestershire)
- Davinia Palmer
- Neil Fox (now at Magic 105.4)
- James Everton (now at Key 103)
- Mike George (now at BBC Hereford & Worcester) [5]
- David Holdsworth (now Controller English Regions, BBC & Board Member RAJAR)[6]
References
- ↑ Radio Today
- ↑ BRMB, Mercia, Beacon, Wyvern to be Free, Radio Today, 9 January 2012
- ↑ Feature: Orion's Phil Riley on Free Radio, RadioToday, 11 January 2012
- ↑ Feature: Rajar local radio round-up, RadioToday, 7 February 2014
- ↑ "The Media briefing". Briefing Media Ltd. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
- ↑ "BBC Biographies". BBC Press Office. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
External links
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Coordinates: 52°13′01″N 2°12′57″W / 52.2169°N 2.2158°W