Q96 was an Independent Local Radio station that broadcast for 14 years in the Scottish county of Renfrewshire. Q96 broadcast as an FM station on the 96.3 MHz frequency after a local licence for the Paisley area was offered. The station was latterly based outside its dedicated broadcast region in the Baillieston area of neighbouring Glasgow at the headquarters it shared with sister station Real Radio after Ofcom approval.
The station was replaced by 96.3 Rock Radio for test transmissions on 22 December 2006 and officially from Monday 8 January 2007.
History
Q96 first went live on 1 September 1992, broadcasting from Paisley as a local radio station for Paisley, and Renfrewshire. Despite being centralised on Paisley, Scotland's largest town, the many commuters from Renfrewshire into Glasgow, as well as the proximity of Glasgow and Dunbartonshire, allowed the signal to be easily received and thus generated listeners in those areas.[citation needed]
During the station's early years, it used the Supergold sustaining service after midnight until the resumption of normal programming in the morning.[citation needed] The station was bought by IRG in December 1995 and rebranded as 96.3 QFM the following year.
Q96 broadcast on both DAB and FM to West Central Scotland from its mast on Paisley's Gleniffer Braes and online. It initially proved successful in breaking into the market with its music, which included songs from the 1960s through present day hits. Audiences peaked at around 12% on the Rajar scale, a highly respectable figure for a local radio station.
After good initial audience figures, the number of listeners started dropping. Mainly this could be attributed to the increasing competition from the then-dominant Radio Clyde stations as well as other local stations. After outgrowing its base in Lady Lane in the West End of Paisley, it relocated to an industrial unit in Kinning Park in neighbouring Glasgow, a move outside the broadcasting area, which was seen by locals of Paisley as a snub, a claim management denied and stated that it was due to a lack of affordable suitable property in Renfrewshire.[citation needed] The move to Glasgow was announced on-air as welcoming people to a 'new station' and 'Glasgow's QFM'. With sensitivities about the move from Paisley still high, this, as well as a lack of Renfrewshire material, saw complaints to Ofcom which duly warned the station about ignoring its licence requirements for that stated it broadcast to Renfrewshire and must include Renfrewshire material. The move to Glasgow was accompanied in an attempt to capture the falling number of listeners by taking on rival stations with a move to a format of mainly pop and chart music from the present day. This saw limited success due to a saturation of the area from similar stations.
A takeover by The Wireless Group saw it revert to its original name of Q96 and join a network that included the national TalkSPORT station. Audience levels continued to be low and erratic and changes in management soon followed. This saw it take up the more acceptable 'tag line' of 'Renfrewshire's Q96', and the station reverted away from pop music back to its still of classic and new hits as it was at inception. The Wireless Group itself was taken over by UTV Radio, which looked to reverse the fall and managed to introduce a strong programming line-up with good presenters. At the time, its market share was around 7%.
GMG Radio acquired the station from UTV Radio, with the acquisition completed on 1 October 2006. GMG Radio moved it from the station's second home in Kinning Park to Baillieston after Ofcom approval, but agreed to honour the station's local format. In any case, Q96 effectively ended with the move to Baillieston – many presenters left and the schedule became increasingly automated.
The station stuttered on when the announcement of rebranding was made to 96.3 Rock Radio, a classic rock station for the area. Only five presenters remained; most would transfer to Real Radio, and others would continue onto the new Rock Radio. On Friday 22 December the last words were spoken on Q96 by programme controller Ciaran O'Toole before test broadcasts for Rock Radio commenced. These were, "What a year 2006 has been and looking forward to 2007, so from me to you, that was Q96," followed by the Q96 jingle. Shortly afterward Rock Radio jingles were played and RDS changed to Rock whilst DAB radios amended to show 96.3 Rock Radio.
Successors
From 8 January 2007, the station was replaced by 96.3 Rock Radio, a classic rock music station. The station was rebranded to '96.3 Real Radio XS' in October 2011, and later 'XFM Scotland' in April 2014. The station was closed and its licence was handed back to Ofcom on 4 September 2015.
Following a few years of silence, the frequency was re-advertised and is now occupied by Nation Radio Scotland.
102.2 Jazz FM was an Independent Local Radio for London run by GMG Radio. The station was based in and broadcast from Castlereagh Street in London. The station experimented with its core playlist over its fifteen-year history, incorporating smooth jazz, mainstream jazz, soul, jazz fusion, acid jazz, blues and rhythm and blues. In 1994, the station changed its name to JFM to encourage more listeners who were put off by the 'Jazz' in the station's name. Richard Wheatly was appointed in 1995 to turn the station around when there was only three months' money left to run the station. He made a number of sweeping changes to the playlist, selling a sister station and changing the name back to Jazz FM, as well as starting up a record label and spin-off business deals and opportunities which helped Jazz FM swing into the black and make a profit in 2001.
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 and the Inverness area. Previously, it broadcast to the Scottish Highlands and South West Aberdeenshire, but this ceased on 11th December 2023 when the 1107 kHZ AM transmitter at Tarbet Ness was switched off.
From 2010 to 2014, Smooth Radio was an independent, commercial, national radio station in the United Kingdom. Owned by Real and Smooth—a company formerly known as GMG Radio—the station was aimed at the over-40 demographic, and competed for its audience with BBC Radio 2. It was broadcast on the DAB Digital Radio Digital 1 national multiplex, Sky, Freesat, Freeview, Virgin Media, online and on regional FM and DAB frequencies in the North West, London, North East, West Midlands, Scotland and East Midlands. Nationally the station attracted a weekly average audience of 3 million.
Radio X is a British national commercial radio station focused on alternative music, primarily indie rock, and owned by Global. The station launched in 1989 as a pirate radio station named Q102, before being renamed Xfm in 1992. The station became a legally licensed London-wide station in 1997, and in 2015 began national broadcasting under the name Radio X.
Radio Clyde is a group of two Independent Local Radio stations serving Glasgow and West Central Scotland. Radio Clyde is owned and operated by Bauer, based at studios in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire and forms part of Bauer's Hits Radio and Greatest Hits Radio Network of local stations.
Saga 105.2 FM was an Independent Local Radio station in Glasgow, Scotland, part of the Saga Radio Group. and went on air in September 2004.
Jazz FM is a radio station broadcasting on digital radio in the United Kingdom and Malta which predominantly plays jazz music, jazz standards as well as blues and soul music. The station, in this incarnation set up by Richard Wheatley, traces its roots back to 102.2 Jazz FM, which first launched in 1990. The current station commenced broadcasting on 6 October 2008.
Nation Radio Scotland is a Scottish Independent Local Radio station for Renfrewshire, Glasgow and West Central Scotland, owned by Nation Broadcasting.
Smooth London is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Smooth Radio network. It broadcasts to the Greater London area from Croydon transmitting station on 102.2 MHz. It broadcasts a soft adult contemporary radio format from Global's studios in Leicester Square, London, and replaced 102.2 Smooth FM on 26 March 2007.
Smooth Scotland is a Scottish Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Smooth network. The station replaced Saga 105.2 FM in 2007.
Rock Radio was a brand of radio stations in the United Kingdom owned by GMG Radio.
Real Radio XS was a classic rock independent local radio service broadcast on DAB in various parts of the United Kingdom. It was formerly part of the Rock Radio group of stations owned by GMG Radio, and whilst initially a separate station, latterly carried programming sourced from 106.1 Real Radio XS in Manchester.
Celtic Music Radio is a Community Radio station in Scotland, broadcasting to the Greater Glasgow on 95.0 FM, Edinburgh on DAB+ and also worldwide via the internet. Celtic Music Radio is a Scottish Charity, registration number SC041172.
Switch Scotland is a DAB digital radio multiplex broadcasting across Scotland's Central Belt, with its coverage area encompassing major population centres such as Edinburgh and Glasgow and the surrounding area. The service overlaps with local-level DAB multiplexes centred on particular cities and towns, meaning that listeners in central Scotland are able to tune into three levels of coverage - national, regional and local services.
Real Radio XS was a radio station brand operated by Real and Smooth Ltd based in Salford, Greater Manchester, broadcasting a variety of peak-time news, rock music and talk output. The Manchester-based version of the service was broadcast to Greater Manchester on FM, and to a number of areas on DAB: the closure of the MXR regional multiplexes ended most digital carriage of the service, with the last remaining digital transmission, to Yorkshire, ending in 2014. The other Real Radio XS service, covering Paisley and Renfrewshire on FM and central belt Scotland digitally, became Xfm Scotland in 2014 following Global's purchase of the franchise, before closing entirely in 2015. The Manchester frequency now transmits as XS Manchester under the control of Communicorp UK, whilst the Scottish license was re-advertised by Ofcom and now carries Nation Broadcasting-owned Nation Radio Scotland.
XS Manchester is an Independent Local Radio station serving Greater Manchester, broadcasting a mix of indie and alternative rock music, speech and news output. The station is owned and operated by Communicorp UK and broadcasts from studios at Spinningfields in Manchester. It is Communicorp UK's only station that does not broadcast a programme service supplied by Global.
Heart Scotland is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Heart network. The station relaunched as Heart on 6 May 2014, serving central and southern Scotland from studios in Glasgow city centre.
Eklipse Sports Radio was a Scottish-owned independent local radio station. It was based in Kinning Park on the Southside of Glasgow and broadcast to Fife, and Central Scotland. All programming was produced in Glasgow.
This is a timeline of the development of independent radio in the UK.
This is a timeline of the development of radio in Scotland.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
