 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Radio enjoys a huge following in the United Kingdom. There are around 600 licensed radio stations in the country. For a more comprehensive list see List of radio stations in the United Kingdom.
The most prominent stations are the national networks operated by the BBC. Five of them are available on analogue radio (FM and AM) whilst the rest are available on DAB, along with the other five (at 12B, the BBC National multiplex).
The BBC also provides 40 local radio services for England and the Channel Islands, as well as stations from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All are available on FM and DAB and some are also available on AM.
Also available nationally on analogue radio are two national commercial channels, namely Classic FM (FM 99.9 MHz—101.9 MHz); and talkSPORT (AM 1053 kHz or 1089 kHz in most areas). These stations are also available at 11D or 12A on DAB (on the Digital One multiplex). As with the BBC, digital radio has brought about many changes, including the roll-out of local stations such as Radio X, Kiss and Kerrang Radio to other areas of the United Kingdom.
Commercial radio licences are awarded by Ofcom, a government body which advertises a licence for an area and holds a so-called beauty contest to determine which station will be granted permission to broadcast in that area. Stations submit detailed application documents containing their proposed format and the outcome of research to determine the demand for their particular style of broadcast. Original 106 (Scotland) was the last radio station to be granted a licence by Ofcom.
Most local commercial stations in the United Kingdom broadcast to a city or group of towns within a radius of 20–50 miles, with a second tier of regional stations covering larger areas such as North West England. The predominant format is pop music, but many other tastes are also catered for, particularly in London and the larger cities, and on digital radio.
Rather than operating as independent entities, many local radio stations are owned by large radio groups which generally broadcast the same station on frequencies which used to carry local individual stations with their own station name. They broadcast as a single network with local inserts for news, weather, travel and commercials. The largest operator of radio is Global Radio which bought the former media group, GCap Media. It owns Classic FM and the Capital radio network. Other owners are Bauer Radio and News Broadcasting, which mainly own stations that broadcast in highly populated city areas.
Many of these stations, including all the BBC stations, are also available via digital television services.
Community radio stations broadcast to a small area, normally within a 3-mile (5 km) radius, and are required by the Act to be not-for-profit organisations, owned by local people, on which the broadcasters are mostly volunteers. They are recognised under the Communications Act 2003 as a distinct third tier of radio in the United Kingdom. The community radio movement in the United Kingdom was founded in the mid-1970s, broadcasting through Restricted Service Licences, the internet and cable television.
An Access Radio pilot scheme, launched in 2002, gave fifteen stations, including Resonance FM and ALL FM, trial licences, and this has blossomed into a lively sector, overseen unofficially by the Community Media Association. [1]
The broadcasters predominantly serve an easily defined racial community such as Asian Star Radio in Slough, or a geographically defined community such as Coast FM, Speysound Radio & The Bay Radio.[ citation needed ] They can also serve religious groups, such as Christian radio station Branch FM in Yorkshire. As well as this, they can also be linked with universities and student unions who run the stations under a community licence, for example Smoke Radio in London, Demon FM in Leicester, and Spark FM in Sunderland
According to RAJAR figures, the top ten stations or networks by listeners nationwide are: [3]
Digital Radio Mondiale is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for analogue radio broadcasting including AM broadcasting—particularly shortwave—and FM broadcasting. DRM is more spectrally efficient than AM and FM, allowing more stations, at higher quality, into a given amount of bandwidth, using xHE-AAC audio coding format. Various other MPEG-4 codecs and Opus are also compatible, but the standard now specifies xHE-AAC.
Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services.
BBC Radio Oxford is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Oxfordshire.
BBC Radio Northampton is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Northamptonshire.
BBC Radio Solent is the BBC's local radio station serving Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight, broadcasting on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Havelock Road in Southampton.
BBC Radio Devon is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Devon.
BBC Radio Derby is the BBC's local radio station serving Derbyshire and East Staffordshire.
BBC Radio Nottingham is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Nottinghamshire.
BBC Radio Leeds is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of West Yorkshire.
BBC Radio Sheffield is the BBC's local radio station serving South Yorkshire, north Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire.
BBC Radio Cumbria is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Cumbria.
BBC Radio Gloucestershire is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Gloucestershire.
BBC Hereford & Worcester is the BBC's local radio station serving the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, which were one county from 1974 to 1998.
BBC Radio Ulster is a Northern Irish national radio station owned and operated by BBC Northern Ireland, a division of the BBC. It was established on New Year's Day 1975, replacing what had been an opt-out of BBC Radio 4.
MFR is an Independent Local Radio station based in Inverness, owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK as part of the Hits Radio Network. It broadcasts to Moray, Scottish Highlands and North West Aberdeenshire.
Manx Radio is the national commercial radio station for the Isle of Man. It began broadcasting on 29 June 1964, almost ten years before legal commercial radio was licensed in the United Kingdom. The Isle of Man, having its own government and laws, was not subject to the rules prohibiting commercial broadcasting in the UK. However, the Manx Government still had to apply to the UK's General Post Office for a frequency and for permission to broadcast. First requested in 1960, a licence was eventually granted in May 1964. It was allocated an FM frequency of 89.0 MHz and a comparatively low power of 50 watts. In October 1964, an additional frequency of 1594 kHz AM was allocated to the station to provide greater coverage, although again at a limited power of 50 watts. It broadcasts primarily in English with several hours per week of Manx language programming.
Independent National Radio (INR) is the official term for the three national commercial radio stations currently or previously broadcasting on analogue radio in the United Kingdom, beginning in 1992. One station was allocated an FM licence, and the other two were allocated AM medium wave frequencies previously used by BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 1.
FM sound broadcasting began in the United Kingdom on 2 May 1955 when the BBC started an FM broadcasting service the Light Programme, the Third Programme and the Home Service to the south east of England. There are now over 40 BBC and over 250 commercial FM sound broadcasting stations in the United Kingdom.
BBC Radio Sussex is the BBC's local radio station serving the counties of East and West Sussex.
| History |
|
|---|---|
| Pioneers |
|
| Transmission media | |
| Network topology and switching | |
| Multiplexing | |
| Concepts | |
| Types of network | |
| Notable networks | |
| Locations | |
