UK Commercial Radio Timeline 1985-1989

A visual history of the UK's commercial radio network told primarily through the logos and jingles of its stations. This video looks at 1985 through to 1989 and the expansion of legal, regulated and publicly available commercial radio in the United Kingdom.

[@zetametallic]

I noticed at 02:30 when the original radio station withdraws but the radio station frequency doesn't close that just the logo falls down and not the transmitter. I love this detail! My dad does too btw...like Father like Daughter😁

[@tvradiotimelines]

Thanks for noticing. And - for once - it was deliberate rather than just a mistake!

[@ryanpascual9598]

5:54 🎵All your favourite songs, Piccadilly Gold🎵

[@jamesharvey8654]

Just love the Orchard FM Theme

[@dvidclapperton]

I'm going to hate the 2000's to today's with all the old locsl station logos falling down and replaced by Cspital, Smooth and Heart logos.

[@tvradiotimelines]

I agree - and don't forget Gold and Greatest Hits and.........

[@dvidclapperton]

@@tvradiotimelines Yes indeed. So extremely disappointing for listeners of their old once popular ilr stations. Those places where they can pick up 5 or 6 variations of Heart Capital, Greatest Hits etc on tbe same FM waveband most of them meant for neighbouring areas, the listeners were obviously well aware of what on earth was going on. How it came to this is a total disgrace. In other countries around the world they have not all lost their local commercial radio stations for all but 3 or 6 hours per day plus the local news teavel and ads to big conglomorates the way its happened in the UK.

[@newforestpixie5297]

If it weren’t for internet it would be tragic. you’re correct because where I am in central southern england with a little help from a bifold ( forget it’s correct description) fm antenna upon the chimney I can receive the sheer generic overload of big fish which swallowed every towns’ local output from the places within an area west around Yeovil / Weymouth north to Andover/ Basingstoke & east Chichester calling itself 1/the breeze , 2 heart , 3 capital. Then there’s two powerful regional piles of generic dross 1 is Sam ( spam ) which covers BournemouthPoole area & has another powerful mast to cover Southampton/ Portsmouth PLUS a carbon copy calling itself Wave which uses the same twin masts as Sam & plays the same music as Wave & has generic presenters ..thankfully there’s a few Community stations which aren’t trapped in the same top 10 songs from 1986 but these aren’t listenable unless you know how & where to hear them. Radio Victory had distinctive presenters & as for BBC Local Radio being part of the community nowadays,the only local accents come from the ex soccer players during the Saturday football . coverage. A presenter on BBC Bristol called Emma Britten used to sound like she was from the west but 5 years later they’d done something to her & I couldn’t believe it was the same woman speaking. Thank the gods for YT & Spotify & Angel Radio what plays Gramophone records & the presenters sound like authentic old buggers whom like what they’re playing 😁👍

[@koiyune]

well, atleast i have lincs... right? oh wait.

[@laotian12innumberverse6]

Wow! What's it like being the first to comment on this video? I've got some things to say: 1:43 Clever how you used an advert for the station instead of just the station's logo and jingle at the time. 2:15 Replaces Radio Victory. 2:25 That transition caught me off guard! It looks like Northants 96 pushed Hereward Radio off a cliff! XD 2:48 Oh look! It's my local station! I'm in Derbyshire so I would be able to listen to what became of that station! 3:05 A sort of re-orchestration of the Wiltshire Radio jingle from the previous video. 4:18 Typo: "Rebrand" is misspelt as "Renrand". 4:33 The AM and FM service separations are what made this video lengthy. P.S. I like the pattern of how each part is 4 minutes longer than the other! I also like how most of the AM stations had "Gold" in their name! 7:56 I like the little animation for Capital Gold! 10:30 Strange how he pronounced Xtra as "X-T-R-A" instead of "Extra" as how BBC Radio 1Xtra does. I liked this part overall, and I'm looking forward to seeing the next one!

[@laotian12innumberverse6]

And since this is about commercial radio, we might get to see Heart Radio in the next part!

[@NelvanaFan1971]

GB's transmitters didn't go off and those broadcast CBC from Cardiff

[@tvradiotimelines]

@@laotian12innumberverse6 Heart launched in September 1994 so it MIGHT be in the next episode (although so much happened in the 90s that I might have to divide the decade up a bit more if the NEXT video isn't going to last for hours!)

[@tvradiotimelines]

@@NelvanaFan1971 Thanks for the info - although, as you can hear from the IBA Engineering Announcement in the video, the intention was evidently just to switch the transmitters off.

[@tvradiotimelines]

Thanks for the feedback - and for spotting the deliberate typo to see if anyone noticed (Nose grows - probably won't change it now as I would have to upload the whole thing again and lose your valuable comments!), Congrats on being the first!

[@liamkelly8888]

Great to hear olg giggles again thanks

[@Truthseeker1515]

@ 10:00 Caesar the Boogieman on Invicta Radio covering Kent, I remember his show back in late 1987 as a teen....

[@ayrshireman94]

No Scottish timeline?

[@donpenny2823]

Will you do 1990-1995?

[@tvradiotimelines]

I am working on 190-1994 at the moment - watch this space!

[@andrewwint3052]

I am confused about the Piccadilly rebranding. Is Piccadilly Gold or 1152 first?

[@tvradiotimelines]

As I understand it, "Piccadilly Radio" originally broadcast on both AM and FM frequencies. When the UK government insisted on stations offering different services on their AM and FM frequencies, "Piccadilly Radio" became "Piccadilly Gold" on AM and "Key 103" on FM. That happened in 1988. Then, in 1996, the AM service began to refer to itself as "Piccadilly 1152".

[@aink9106]

Ocean Sound Station 12/10/1986 Ocean Sound West FM&AM 2:07 The Gold AM 1170 Power FM 103.2 8:43 Southampton Ocean Sound North FM&AM The Gold AM The Light 96.7 Winchester 6/12/1987 3:55 Ocean Sound East FM&AM The Gold AM 1557 Ocean Sound FM 97.5 Portsmouth

[@tq105-jinglesandids]

4:37 - 4:56 : I believe that County Sound Gold rebranded to 1st Gold Radio a week later because they lost the legal battle to Ocean Sound over the use of 'The Gold AM' brand.

[@tvradiotimelines]

Thanks for all the feedback and comment - really appreciated!

[@laotian12innumberverse6]

7:33 Sounds like Brunel Classic Gold had plagiarised Northants 96! XD

[@tvradiotimelines]

Indeed - and there are quite a few "reworked" pirate and evenearly Radio 1 jingles in there too!

[@dvidclapperton]

Old Rsdio Forth jingles reworked for Radio Borders and Central FM in the early 1990's.

[@whatzyouruser10]

IS SO MANY FM AND AM SEPARATION RADIO!

[@tvradiotimelines]

Yes - at the time, stations simulcast on both AM and FM. The regulator decided that duplication was a waste of resources and told stations to either offer two separate services or lose one of the frequencies.

[@dvidclapperton]

I would hsve preferred that they all kept the old formats on FM and closed down the AM transmittter. All those later new ilr stations they could only air on one frequency on FM, not two frequencies on both FM and AM anyway.

[@THEACTUALLDL123]

So what happened for ocean sound?

[@tvradiotimelines]

There is an excellent summary of the station and what happened here: www.localradioarchive.co.uk/ocean_sound/

[@THEACTUALLDL123]

Thanks for the longest information in my life. I'm going to search that on logopedia.

[@twentyonezerosix334]

4:18... when exactly? 🤔

[@tvradiotimelines]

Good question! I have no idea why it is not showing on screen but understand it was Friday, 1 January 1988. If/when I do an update to this video, I will add that in. Thanks for noticing!

[@lukedavis436]

the urge to make an inappropriate joke about WNK radio is too much

[@tvradiotimelines]

I took GREAT care with the captions!

[@lukedavis436]

@@tvradiotimelines i can see! 😂

[@danwoodhouse9290]

Same could have happened on the ITV network if Scottish Highlands + Islands Television had existed

[@laotian12innumberverse6]

There was a radio station in Florida with a callsign which sounded like that particular word I don't think KZbin would allow me to mention.

[@aerial558]

This is what happens when Global & Bauer buy out all the old ILR stations this is not healthy for local radio. Automation radio “robot radio” radio has no heart to a few exception🙁

[@tvradiotimelines]

Sadly true!

[@tonybatley6101]

I agree wholeheartedly, it breaks my heart with what's happened. I became interested in ILR about 1984 and loved listening to Pennine Radio and at the time new, Radio Aire. They were really good local stations, and look what's happened, all under the 'watchful eyes' of the governments of the day and regulatory body (currently ofcom of course), another regulatory that frankly isn't fit for purpose and never has been. ILR as it was, RIP.

[@aerial558]

@@tonybatley6101 spot on, yes ofcom has a lot to answer too. I hope community radio fills the gap but where I live it’s so amateurish 🙁

[@tonybatley6101]

@@aerial558 it has that 'wanting to be good and play at disc jockeys' type sound, I've heard it up here the same. Just shows the gulf that exists between the pro's of yesterday and wannabes of today I think.

[@AndrewSvonja]

i call it "homogenous FM" no individuality anymore and very little variety in music between copious amounts of adverts and phone in competitions.. all the stations are virtually indistinguishable.. long live the pirates!!