Radio in London, England

[B Lewis]

Hi All:

I am planning a trip to London in the Spring of 2007. This will be my first time there and I would like to know a bit about the radio market there. What are the highlights? Is there anything really unique on the radio there? Also, is there an on-line source for ratings for London radio stations? I do spend time listening to BBC stations and, occassionally Virgin (not really my kind of music). I've noticed most of the other stations (Capital FM/Capital Gold in particular...also Magic FM) do not stream outside the UK. I'm looking forward to visiting The UK and learning more about the radio market.

Thanks, in advance!

BLewis
WZRU-FM
Roanoke Rapids/Rocky Mount, NC, USA

 

[DJKraze]

One thing is there are just as many (if not more) pirate stations in London as there are legitimate licensed broadcasters. In some cases pirates have actually become licensed, so maybe that has to do a little with why people are doing it, in the hopes of developing enough of an audience to support going legit.

 

[junglecitizen]

Radio in London? I lived there last year.

Here's your bandscan for the city centre... legal stations only...

FM
88.8-89.1 BBC Radio 2 - varied, targets 30-60 demographic
91.0-91.3 BBC Radio 3 - classical
93.2-93.5 BBC Radio 4 - varied news talk programming (NPR-ish)
94.9 BBC London - local, very eclectic
95.8 Capital FM - CHR
97.3 LBC 97.3 - talk, phone-in
98.5-98.8 BBC Radio 1 - pop/varied, targets 15-25 demographic
100.0 Kiss 100 - currently Urban/Pop/Dance, but will be relaunching back to Dance soon
100.6-100.9 Classic FM - light classical
102.2 Smooth FM - R'n'B, AC
103.3 LGR 103.3 - Greek
104.4 Resonance FM - arts, alternative
104.9 XFM - rock, alternative
105.4 Magic - AC, classic pop
105.8 Virgin Radio - rock
106.2 Heart - CHR
107.1-96.9 Choice - Urban, Caribbean

MW (AM)
558 Spectrum International - various ethnic minorities
648 BBC World Service - international news (weak signal)
720 BBC Radio 4
909 BBC Radio 5 Live - news, sport
963-972 Club Asia - asian (indian) pop
1035 KATR - asian (indian) talk
1089 TalkSport - sport, phone-in
1152 LBC News - rolling news
1215 Virgin Radio - rock
1332-1305-1413 Premier Christian Radio - Christian
1458 Sunrise Radio - asian (indian)
1503 Sound Radio - varied
1548 Capital Gold - oldies
1584 London Turkish Radio - turkish

You will also find the band to be crammed from end to end (literally every 0.2MHz) with pirates, playing mostly reggae, west african, dance or hip-hop (US or UK)... some are worth checking out, depending on if you like any of those sorts of music. They are definately unique - although opinions vary on whether that's in a bad way or a good way. I can guarantee you won't ever hear anything quite like some of them, whatever.

Resonance FM is fairly unique in the English-speaking world I think, although there are similar stations in a few other European countries. It only covers the city centre, on 104.4.

XFM's a really good station too, on 104.9, if you like alternative (here in the UK it's I think a much wider-ranging format than in the US). The BBC networks are probably quite interesting from a US point of view - more varied than your typical commercial station but still mostly mainstream.

If you by any chance come north to Manchester, The Revolution on 96.2 is in my opinion the best commercial station in the UK (and no, I don't work for them). Bit of a rimshot, but it's worth the crackles.