Beacon FM (PatrZDZ's vision)

**Beacon FM** is an Independent Local Radio station based in Wolverhampton, owned and operated by GWR Radio. It broadcasts to Shropshire, Wolverhampton and the Black Country.

## History

Beacon Radio began broadcasting to Wolverhampton and the Black Country from studios at 267 Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton on mediumwave 303 metres, and 97.2 MHz (from Turner's Hill) at 6 a.m. on 12 April 1976.

The first presenter was Mike Baker and the first song to be played was Eric Carmen's "Sunrise". The station originally set out to broadcast Beautiful Music including soul and country rock with a heavy bias towards American chart music with artists like Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles.

The station's original managing director was Jay Oliver, an American who, with his Programme Controller Allen McKenzie (a Scot/Canadian), was responsible for the Mid-Atlantic sound that flooded the West Midlands for three years (including a US-style jingle package).

As with other UK commercial stations at the time, the station's commitment to news and speech broadcasting under news editor Mike Stewart in its opening year, particularly in the evenings, was extensive; and its late-evening music programmes appeared to offer the presenters a freedom to enlighten, with a wide choice of recordings, as well as to entertain.

The station became successful, although facing competition from the already established commercial station, BRMB in nearby Birmingham. However, the station came in for criticism from the UK licensing authority (then, the Independent Broadcasting Authority) for being too American sounding and not wide-ranging enough in its programming. Due to this, the senior management and output changed in mid-1979.

Its licence was later expanded in July 1987 to cover Shropshire, ostensibly broadcasting from its offices in Shrewsbury on 103.1 MHz. Actually, only local news was produced in Shrewsbury, with programmes emanating from the Wolverhampton studios — although entirely separate programming for the two areas was provided during daytime hours (this was from time to time slimmed down or expanded as finances allowed).

Since January 1989, the station has been FM-only, with Beacon's former AM frequencies of 990 and 1017 kHz becoming branded as a separate service "Nice 'n' Easy Radio WABC". WABC stood for Wolverhampton And Black Country, and presumably was not meant to be confused with, or identified with, New York City's WABC (AM), former radio flagship of the American Broadcasting Company, or its one-time sister station, current Disney/ABC Television Network flagship station and New York City production center, WABC-TV Channel 7. Nevertheless, the station used the same musical logo as the New York station in its jingles. The British station was shortened to "Radio WABC" in 1992.

The company had been reorganised in the late 1990s into "Beacon Broadcasting and Communications Ltd" (BBCL) — a holding company for the company's various activities. In 1995 GWR Group plc bought Beacon Broadcasting Ltd from BBCL (leaving BBCL as a dormant company).

## Programming

The majority of Beacon FM's programming is produced and presented from its studios in Wolverhampton. In Shropshire, Beacon FM broadcasts 16 hours of 'split' programming during the week and an additional three hours on Saturdays. The Sky VIP Official Big Top 40 is syndicated from Capital Radio at Leicester Square, London.

### News

The station broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6 am to 7 pm on weekdays, from 7 am to 1 pm on Saturdays and from 8 am to 1pm on Sundays. Headlines are broadcast on the half-hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows. Beacon FM also produces two extended seven-minute news programmes on weekdays, NewsDay at 7am and NewsNight at 5pm. Separate news and traffic bulletins are broadcast for the Black Country and Shropshire areas.

The station also simulcasts hourly Independent Radio News bulletins from 1 pm to 6 pm on Saturdays and at 2 pm, 3 pm and 4 pm on Sundays.