UK Commercial Radio Timeline 1998-1999 ... & Beyond 

The 50th Anniversary of UK Commercial Radio was yesterday, so I decided to compile all 8 of the timelines into 1 video and show it to my school, everyone loved it. And just if you're curious, I gave credit to you in the introduction.

What a great way to conclude this series and it’s sad that true local radio isn’t local anymore, but all good things have to come to an end! I better do my usual commentary. Seems like all my predictions were right, since I got them from the timeline of independent radio in the United Kingdom on Wikipedia! 1:37 How strange - GWR was somehow nice enough to let GEM-AM keep their simplified jukebox logo instead changing it to Classic Gold’s detailed jukebox logo. 4:36 You could’ve used one of the jingles what Bespoke Music made for Quaywest Radio, but oh well! 5:49 Another long image song! 8:06 After all that searching - you managed to find a jingle for Cambridge Red FM. 11:09 This kinda got me, since you couldn’t find any recording or jingle for Goldbeat 828. 12:56 The return of a legendary name in radio. 14:08 Time for radio to go digital! Great how you managed to find a way to represent DAB Digital Radio on this. 18:25 Isn’t it just scary how Greatest Hits Radio has consolidated more heritage stations than Heart has?

I live in what used to be the Marcher Sound/Wirral's Buzz area. North East Wales, almost in Cheshire. It's really saddening to see how many local heritage stations have been sucked up into Global's networks. I can also pick up what used to be Radio City from Liverpool and a bit of what used to be Key 103 from Manchester rather well from my house. Volunteering for a community radio station has made me see how important local radio is, it's a lifeline to the communities; how it keeps local people in the know with their community and surrounding area with news relating to their town, events that the stations put on in the local area and also weather warnings, you don't get any specialised programming for your area now, apart from a drivetime show if you're lucky. Shame there's none of that now that the stations have been swallowed up by Bauer and Global. PS: Those jammy Scots get more local programming on their radio, they get a breakfast show on their local versions of Heart and Capital.

Sad to watch this, but very grateful I live in Hitmix 107.5 land and we get the nearest thing to how local radio used to be.😊

And then we get the sad reality that there's hardly any local radio left anymore and what does exist of it is community stations like Hailsham FM carrying 'sky news' or county wide networks like More Radio on FM frequencies of what used to be local licences.

To be fair, by the time Peak 107 got to the music, I’d have turned off 😂

I wonder how many people still listen to any of the commercial radio stations on offer, and how many have abandoned radio altogether to stream their music off Spotify, RU-vid, and the like. I don't know about anyone else, but I find it horrible that four major corporations control the commercial radio space, alongside the single ITV plc which covers the commercial television space in the UK (nevermind that the Scottish STV holds the licence in Scotland, given that the entire schedule seems to be wholly ITV1 except for the local news and idents, meaning there's no fundamental difference in the programming). Homogenisation has really killed commercial media - or rather, commercial media was always going to be homogenised as the technology had been progressing, and the financial structure of the companies involved would thus open up to the point where one single person could probably operate the entire station, no need for fancy-shmancy sound engineers and producers and assistants and whatnot. These days, too, will pass. No one will need pre-scheduled, pre-planned timetables and music running orders anymore. Like with television, I expect more people are streaming the music they want to hear when they want to hear, and nuts to the radio stations, which don't really have any hope of progressing or developing much of top of what has already been achieved or developed by now. There won't be any radical changes any time soon - until, of course, when AI determines all a human's entertainment, without that human's input. It truly does raise the question of the value of traditional, conventional radio, if RU-vid and Spotify can provide the background noise and not your FM, AM, or digital radio station.

Hallam FM, Radio City, Rock FM, Signal 1, and the rest of the english stations owned by Bauer will rebrand to Hits Radio by next month. Sad Times.

When you least expect it... The Return of the King

2000 to 2001 ❤

I was waiting for this one. Heard both Isle of Wight Radio's switchover and Wave 105's launch as an overexcited 14 year old 😂😂 It's an absolute disgrace how Bauer and Global have swallowed them all up and destroyed their local identities. That was the best bit about local radio. It was meant to be just that.

Where did you get all these recordings from? I've not heard most of them before.

What are you planning to do next?

All the sucking up of all these llr stations is a grest example of how true locsl radio in the UK hss been almost totally destroyed. All very disgraceful. The very Weak communications regulatord Ofcom just bowed to the likes of Bauer sbd Globsl to allow them to do all of this.

Don't say no but we can have radio stations back

13:22 wplj big time radio moment

Wait, radio in the UK is no longer local? (from the US and local radio is still alive such as NPR)

I wonder where i can find "Across The (insert some city here), Playing, (insert station here)"...

ILR Local West 05/04/1998 Kettering & Corby KCBC 107.4 05/04/1998 3:01 KCBC Change 22/11/1999 15:26 Wellingborough ConnectFM 97.2 05/04/1998

This is heart Heart 106.2 Fm London Ids 2011 25:49

I remember Heart 100.7 first starting. Soft Rock Favorites, station . Played songs like, Fleetwood Mac, , Robert Palmer. 👍 Then, Global take over , & it's, More music variety apparently ? .plastic pop station, more like, and doing same to other stations up & down the Country . Same tunes everyday. Now Awful. 👎

2000-2001 next