BBC Radio York

**BBC Radio York** is British local public radio station owned by British Broadcasting Corporation. The station broadcasts local news, talk shows and music programmings.

## History

The station was launched at 6:30 am on 4 July 1983, a launch which was featured on the cover of the Radio Times, although a year before its launch, **BBC Radio York** provided a temporary service to cover Pope John Paul II's visit to York. The service, which ran for just over 24 hours, operated on what was to be the station's MW frequency.

The first station manager was John Jefferson with the late Tony Fish as Programme Organiser. The original team included David Farwig, Derm Tanner, Andy Joynson, Will Hanrahan, Graham Pass, Andy Hitchcock, Chris Loveder, Chris Choi, Charlotte Counsel, Shirley Lewis and Sandy Barton.

Initially, the station was only on air for a few hours a day - (6:30 am to 1 pm and 4 pm to 6 pm during the week with weekend programming restricted to 8 am until around 2 pm) and carried BBC Radio 2 the rest of the time. At first, local sports coverage was produced by BBC Radio Leeds. During the second half of the 1980s broadcast hours slowly expanded. Afternoon broadcasting was introduced and programming started earlier in the day - 6 am during the week and 7 am over the weekend. **BBC Radio York** also started producing its own sports programmes on Saturday afternoons but did not introduce its own Sunday afternoon programming until the end of the decade.

Evening programming started in August 1986 when **BBC Radio York** joined with the other BBC local stations in Yorkshire in broadcasting an early evening service of specialist music programmes. May 1989 saw the launch of **BBC Night Network** - a group of BBC Local Radio stations in the North of England which featured networked programming every evening. This provided **BBC Radio York** with evening programming, keeping the station on air until midnight seven days a week, extended until 12:30 am in the early 1990s, and to 1 am by the end of that decade. One of those shows, Late Night North with David Dunning, often aired from the York studios and in 2002 the BBC's Yorkshire stations, including **BBC Radio York**, parted from the network to bring back a phone-in with Alex Hall, who had hosted a similar show on Pulse, as presenter. Other programming included Martin Kelner's Late Thing. ***The Early Show*** from BBC Radio Humberside (within the **BBC Yorkshire** and Lincolnshire region) was also carried.

**BBC Radio York** was not the first radio station broadcasting in York. University Radio York, the oldest independent legal radio station, is the University of York's student radio station and before the BBC, URY was named **BBC Radio York**. The independent commercial rival, Minster FM, began broadcasting on 4 July 1992. Stray FM, the independent station covering the Harrogate and Ripon areas, made its first transmission exactly two years to the day after Minster's launch and eleven years to the day after **BBC Radio York**'s launch.

## Programmings

The majority of the station's programming is produced and broadcast from York. During off-peak hours, **BBC Radio York** carries regional programming for Yorkshire and the North Midlands from sister station BBC Radio Leeds, which also originates the networked evening shows for BBC Local Radio on weekday evenings (produced independently by Wire Free Productions). During the station's downtime, **BBC Radio York** simulcasts BBC Radio 5 Live.

**BBC Radio York** provides hourly local news and sport bulletins and weather forecasts every half-hour from 6 am until 6 pm on weekdays, followed by regional bulletins from Leeds until 10 pm. On weekends, local news and weather airs hourly from 7 am until 1 pm.

The station's local presenters include Georgey Spanswick (returning to weekday breakfast from 4 June 2018), Jonathan Cowap (weekday mornings), Adam Tomlinson and Anna Wallace (weekday afternoons) and Jules Bellerby (weekday drivetime).

## External links

* Official website

* National stations
* Regional stations
* Local stations

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