RADIO Warrington, the town’s online community radio station has taken a giant step forward with its project to broadcast over the airwaves.
The station which has been broadcasting online for more than eight years has been granted planning permission to construct their AM antenna on land owned by United Utilities at Great Sankey.
Radio Warrington has recently moved its studios to Warrington Market and has been broadcasting on the internet 24 hours a day since march 2007.
After Ofcom announced that there was no more room on the FM band, the station was approved to broadcast on AM in 2014 and have been struggling with the technical complexities and legal regulations associated with medium wave broadcasting.
Steve Lewis, station manager said: “Broadcasting on the AM medium wave band is far more complicated and expensive than on FM, but we have been very fortunate to have enlisted the support of some very community-minded individuals, groups and businesses and all of our efforts are now coming together.
“We were struggling to find a suitable piece of land close to the centre of town for our transmitter site but United Utilities have given over an ideal spot and are helping with the considerable construction project. Now that we have overcome the technical and legal hurdles we expect to be able to announce
a launch date shortly.”
Steve says Community radio is very different to commercial radio giving broadcast opportunities to local people regardless of age, experience or abilities.
They intend to include much more speech in their output giving lots of community information, news and discussion so they are keen to hear from any Warrington people who might want to get involved, particularly those who have a good knowledge of the town.
They are on the lookout for sports fans to join their team, covering all local sports and local musicians are encouraged to send in their recordings to be played on air.
They are also keen to hear from groups or individuals who have any projects that they would like to promote on community radio. In most cases people can walk straight into the studios in Warrington Market and talk on or off the air.
Radio Warrington is run and staffed by unpaid volunteers and is a community interest company. If you would like to get involved, email [email protected], phone 01925 555110 or pop into the studios in Warrington Market for more information.
Meanwhile you can listen to Radio Warrington online at www.radiowarrington.co.uk
2 Comments
Why can’t they just replace Wire FM? I mean it has nothing to do with Warrington anymore and merely runs the same playlists as the so called Wigan station and many others around the country…..Nobody would miss Wire FM, they could just tune in to Wish FM anyway as it is the same company that runs them both anyway
Who would “they” be Baz. Ofcom is the regulatory body that issues licences. Maybe you need to have them look at your concerns?