BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

From Free net encyclopedia

(Redirected from BBC WM (Coventry and Warwickshire))

1 Overview
2 History
3 1990 weekday launch schedue
4 Problems and closure
5 BBC Coventry and Warwickshire relaunches
6 Current programmes
7 Transmission
8 Slogans
9 References
10 Links
11 External links

Overview

BBC Coventry and Warwickshire is the BBC Local Radio service serving the City of Coventry and the county of Warwickshire, It broadcasts on 94.8, 103.7 and 104 MHz FM, DAB Digital Radio and is streamed on the internet [1].

Based in the Priory Place Shopping Precint at the heart of re-developing Coventry City Centre, the new centre is a multi-million pound state-of-the-art broadcast centre. It's home to radio, local online, an interactive open centre and facilities for regional and local TV news.

BBC Coventry & Warwickshire broadcasts from 5am to 10pm every weekday and 6am - 6pm at weekends, and boasts presenters such as Annie Othen, Bob Brolly and Liz Kershaw.

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History

BBC Local Radio in the 1990s underwent an expansion programme where counties and other areas without a local radio station were identified and five stations were to launch; BBC Radio Surrey, BBC Radio Berkshire, BBC Radio Suffolk, BBC Wiltshire Sound and BBC Radio Warwickshire.

The Radio Warwickshire working title was changed to BBC CWR by the time the station launched in January 1990. The name CWR (Coventry and Warwickshire Radio) reflected the wider area that the new station would cover, taking in the city of Coventry with the whole of the county of Warwickshire, which was then also served by BBC Radio WM. The station broadcast from a Victorian-stlye mansion on Warwick Road, close to Coventry train station.

This was the description of the new station from its leaflet which was distrubuted throughout the region prior to launch:

A new kind of local radio is coming your way soon - a station more local, more in tune with you and yours, than any other station on your radio.

BBC CWR will be a new service for the people of Coventry and Warwickshire, providing news, views, information and entertainment 18 hours a day.

We'll offer the best radio service on local sport, with a wide range of music in the finest quality stereo. Our presenters will be friendly, helpful and fully geared to providing the kind of radio you'll enjoy and come to depend on.

We'll provide real local radio for a great city and for the towns and villages of a fine county. Our main studio centre is in Coventry. We'll also have studios in Atherstone, Nuneaton, Rugby, Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick. And our radio cars will be heard from all the places in between.

BBC CWR- a really useful radio service caring for Coventry and working for Warwickshire ... coming soon on your radio. Now you're talking!

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1990 weekday launch schedue

As detailed in its leaflet distrubuted in the broadcast area prior to launch:

Mondays to Fridays 6am Pete Sylvester (Early Breakfast)

7am Breakfast with Jim Lee

10am Maurice Dee and Stevie Price

12pm Lunchtime with Anna King

2pm Charles Hodkinson

4pm Duncan Stanworth

7pm Specialist evening programmes (see below)

9pm John Taynton

12am as BBC Radio 2

Specialist evening programmes

Monday: 7pm FEM FM with Ridanne Sheridan

8pm Poles Apart Olenka Booth

Tuesday: '7pm Maurice Dee with Irish Extra

Wednesday/Thursday: 7pm Mo Adams with East In West

Friday: 7pm Ian Harris with Grapevine

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Problems and closure

From day one BBC CWR faced strong competition from the established commercial radio stations in the area. Mercia Sound had been an outstanding success since its own launch ten years earlier in 1980. XTRA AM, the AM-only sister station from Mercia Sound, also enjoyed high listenership since it split from Merica and launched in 1989.

CWR seemed to find it difficult to compete for the very large audiences built up by Mercia and Xtra, it was, however, well respected and highly regarded with its regular audience.

The BBC, under Director General John Birt, deemed that CWR was not sufficently successful in audience terms to warrant its continuation, and within incresing financial contraints in February 1995 CWR was to close. Regular listeners were hugely disappointed and phoned presenter Jon Gaunt to protest about the decision.

In 1995 BBC CWR merged with neighbouring BBC Radio WM in Birmingham, and was to be re-named BBC Coventry And Warwickshire and would operate as an opt-out service from BBC WM with the remainder of the schedule as shared programming. This had the effect of alienating local listeners, whilst paradoxically presenters from WM, such as Ed Doolan, Malcolm Boyden and Tony Butler received high listening figures and distincitons with three Sony Radio Academy awards, incuding Radio Station of the Year in 1996.

2003 saw the station re-labelled as BBC WM across Coventry and Warwickshire with its studios re-locating from Warwick Road to small studios on Grefriars Road. At this stage all local programmes except afternoons with Bob Brolly, Poles Apart on Wednesdays, Early mornings with Annie Othen and weekend football coverage of Coventry City F.C. were replaced with programmes from Birmingham.

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BBC Coventry and Warwickshire relaunches

In 2003 Director-General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, announced on that Coventry and Warwickshire was again to have its own BBC Local Radio Station. Describing the situation on-air with presenter Annie Othen, Mr Greg Dyke said that the station would be added to the BBC's Local Radio portfolio:

"I'm very pleased to announce that we're planning to open a new radio station in Coventry - an area that's been served by BBC WM since 1995. We hope the new station will be housed in a modern, vibrant building close to Coventry Cathedral in the heart of the city. Alongside the radio studios, there'll also be an open centre to provide access to BBC Learning facilities similar to the already established centres in Blackburn, Sheffield and Stoke. Open Centres provide a valuable community role, so this is an exciting venture for the BBC."

He also added that the 1995 closure of CWR was a mistake- "The decision was made under different circumstances - and now we're in a position to change it."

BBC Coventry and Warwickshire relaunched as a stand-alone Local Radio station. It began broadcasting on 3 September 2005 with full local programming for 15 hours a day.

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Current programmes

BBC Coventry and Warwickshire has a varied mixed programming format, and plays much more music than other BBC Local Radio stations, such as BBC Three Counties Radio, which is pedominantly speech-based. The local diverse make up of the region also plays a part in the station's schedule- Poles Apart, the longest-running community programme is targeted at first-generation Polish immingrants. Other shows aimed at the Irish, Asian and Afro-Carribean are also heard, although Asian programmes have been since transferred to the BBC Asian Network, on medium-wave in the area.

Late evening programming is shared between other BBC Local Radio stations in the Midlands; BBC Radio Stoke, BBC erefrd and Worcester, BBC Radio Shropshire, BBC Radio Leicester, BBC Radio Derby, BBC Radio Nottingham as well as former sister station BBC Radio WM.

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Transmission

The BBC initially supplied two powerful transmitters for BBC C&W to cover the whole of the county. A 2.2 kilowatt transmitter at an existing tower at Meriden provides Coventry and North Warwickshire with good signals on 94.8 MHz FM- originally a frequency vacated by BRMB Radio in Birmingham before it moved to 96.4 FM in 1989.

South Warwickshire area receives a strong signal on 103.7 kW from a 1.4 kW transmitter located at an existing television relay site on a hill at Lark Stoke, just west of Shipston-on-Soar and south west of Stratford-Upon-Avon.

A small pocket of poor reception in Nuneaton was later resolved by adding a low power relay transmitter on 104.0 MHz.

BBC C&W went digital shortly after the launch of local DAB services in the Coventry area with transmissions from Samuel Vale House (Central Coventry), Meriden and Leamington Spa. BBC C&W is carried along with other local stations like Mercia FM and Touch FM (Coventry).

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