[mattii70]

I tuned into MFR randomly and was pleasantly surprised to hear they were using the Reelworld Star 94.1 San Diego package. It seems that Bauer have quite a hotpotch of imaging across the Big City Network as last time I listened to CFM and Clyde 1 they were sadly jingle free. Anyone able to help put together a list of which stations are using what package in the Big City Network?

Key 103: Reelworld, Key 103 2009
Radio City: Music4, Radio City 2008
Rock FM: ?
Radio Aire: None?
Hallam FM: Wise Buddah, Hallam FM 2009
Viking FM: None?
TFM Radio: TM Studios, TFM Radio?
Metro Radio: Wise Buddah, Metro Radio 2010
Radio Borders: ?
CFM: None?
Clyde 1: None?
Clyde 2: ?
Forth One: None?
Forth 2: ?
Tay FM: ?
Tay AM: ?
West FM: ?
Westsound: ?
South West Sound: ?
Northsound 1: ?
Northsound 2: ?
MFR: Reelworld, Star 94.1
Cool FM: None?
Downtown Radio: ?

[IainJohnstonMember]

Forth One is ALL sweepers (Darren Adam in-house mainly), designed to “match” all the others in Scotland (especially network) except for 2 (?) Reelworld cuts/mixes(?) used at Breakfast that were near-resings of the previous 2(?) Breakfast ones. But they're so un-noticable and weakly used they might as well not be there.

Northsound One seems to be similarly the sweepers; Tay FM ditto, but I have recently heard something Reelworld cuts.

Certainly in Scotland its a reel (pun) hotchpotch – the “house style sweepers” (“more of the songs you love”) are used heavily and generically, yet the sung material is used very sporadically – its like each station *has* to use the sweepers yet each local station chooses whether or not to buy/have/use sung jingles (all Reelworld?) yet if they have bought any they seem to be used without any real purpose or structuring (unlike, e.g. Kingdom FM, who use their TM Studios custom packages very intensively – and effectively).

Yet Bauer stations in England buy large packages and actually USE them!

At least each Bauer station here still has some local identity/flavour, but Scotland-only networking is visibly increasing across the Scottish stations, which at least are still using Scottish “voices” (unlike certain other foreign-owned stations which insist on clearly-South-of-England V/Os).

It should be remembered that all Bauer stations are owned by the said German magazine publishing company – they're just in in for the cash-cows, they are at arms-length from the actual listeners here, and the disjointed UK management is apparent.

Historically, the former SRH stations when run by Jimmy Gordon were virtually autonomous in programming and in jingles, and some of the independently-ordered packages for some of the stations were excellent (…and quite a few….the least said the better!)

[MartinS]

Hi Mattii,

Good topic. With regards to the Yorshire Big City stations:

Radio Aire are currently using only a sung top of hour / news intro. I'm not sure of the production company though, however I've always thought that a full station package in the same style would work very well.

TFM radio are indeed using the TMStudios package from 2007 which has been topped up with a couple of extra cuts earlier this year.

You're right with Hallam FM. Can't comment on on Viking FM as I've not listened a while.

Mart

[radiomentalist]

Downtown are using stings made by newsbeds.com, going by their website they might be an outfit from Ireland.

[AndiMember]

All scottish stations on FM have Gary stein as the main voiceover for sweepers.

Northsound 1 use reelworld
Northsound 2 use reelworld when they are non network at breakfast.

Tay FM use reelword too.

[pakokelso]

Yeah All Scottish FM Bauer stations Using Gary Stein v/o Sweepers. MFR cleverly are using the v/o's over the top of the reelworld bed's/jingles. Radio Borders used the same jingles before the September 2008 Networking. Odd time you can hear a reelworld Jingle on Borders.

[DunsBus]

And with today being Radio Borders 21st birthday, some of their original jingles (re-sings by David Balfe of Forth's 1983 News & Information Station package) made a comeback for the day. The news intros today also mentioned that Radio Borders had been on air for 21 years.

The Borders version of the News & Information Station package lasted a whole lot longer than the original one did on Forth!

[IainJohnstonMember]

“The Borders version of the News & Information Station package lasted a whole lot longer than the original one did on Forth!”

Thats 'cos they were so cheap!

[Author]

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