[aircheckdownloads.comMember]

…but only for today.

Rock FM (launched as Red Rose Radio) celebrated it’s 40th birthday today. As part of the celebrations they aired once again some of their JAM Breakthrough and Hyperlink jingles from the 90s and a number of ReelWorld cuts from the 2000s.

https://www.aircheckdownloads.com/uk-airchecks/rock-fm-preston/2020s/joel-ross-oct-5th-2022-658

[IainJohnston]

And one from my Archives from me

[gameswizardMember]

Silly Joel Ross. “Rock FM” isn’t 40 years old. It was only renamed/rebranded “Rock FM” in June 1990 which would make it 32.

It’s a shame the station went downhill. Heck, they don’t even broadcast from the church in St. Paul’s Square, Preston (and haven’t done for some time). I believe it’s all done from Salford/Manchester now with shared programming with other stations.

It’s nowhere near a true local station like it used to be

[IainJohnston]

That’s indeed the old church in the tag pic with my old montage – was staying in the old Centre Hotel just across the road one time;
wandered across and got to see inside the station and bought a few bits & bobs of station merchandise (as one does!)

Don’t know if the building still exists? Apparently was crumbling and harder to maintain before they left it.

Still have lots of dubs of Red Rose UK (Sue Manning???) and JAM packages should anyone be after a dub?

[gameswizardMember]

Iain, the church could quite possibly still be there. It’s showing on Google maps in 2021 anyway:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.7621408,-2.6944436,3a,75y,43.77h,90.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6YVClRGJPaiSr2cTJ8kJRQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
From the image, it looks very much in decent nick.
And yes, the 1982 & 1985 jingles were Sue Manning. Fantastic they are, too.

[rakMember]

Nice to hear the old JAM and Reelworld jingles for the 40th birthday. It would have been nice to have heard some Sue Manning Red Rose, but TBH those are probably a bit too far “off brand” for a 40th birthday, and I bet Joel had to jump through hoops to even play some Rock FM cuts.

What an amazing looking building for radio studios.

[IainJohnston]

The studios were big efforts built on the open transcept (?) of the church floor.
Place was all very “ambient” mood lighting. Really nice.
Obviously all that heavy duty stonework would have “pleased” the IBA (or successors) when
it came to noise suppresion characteristics!

[Author]

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