[Spoons]

With the sad news that the Radio Trent and Leicester Sound names will soon be no more, I thought it would be worth re-posting this seeing as the file's still live:

Trent8Montage.mp3 – 10.36MB

Ah… the memories!

[IainJohnstonMember]

Chris – Getting a good old …
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[ratnobMember]

We are witnessing the most astonishing vandalism of local radio at the moment. I can't understand why more people aren't screaming in outrage at the loss of genuinely local stations.

[Spoons]

Bah – try that. Re-posted the audio elsewhere and then updated the link! I bet Global attacked my account. Lol!

[dianablanton1984Member]

Spoons, I checked the link to the Trent montage file, and, unfortunately, it came from the zShare file sharing website. I read the reviews that this is NOT a safe site to go to–too many pop-ups, spam, etc. This is why I didn't bother to download the file to begin with. Sorry that I had to get this out of the way…

Have you considered using other file sharing services, particularly 4Shared? I did notice that another JM'er used Divshare to share his jingle files, and it seems to be much safer than zShare in my opinion.

[Bigdave]

I did this for the 35th Anniversary of Trent.

I didn't think at the time it would be their last.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nmyimnwtiig

[LenGroat]

Spoons and BigDave, thanks for the compilations particularly the first of Trent 8; a reminder of the days when Local Radio had individuality, imagination, personality, and made you want to listen.

Yes, the Alfasound package the cuts are from was 'influenced' by JAM (and some TM). But it was FUN, lively, very useable, memorable and beautifully sung. It was a synergy of the talents of the Alfasound singers embellished with Mike Collier and Jackie Dickson (live in Manchester not down a damn landline), plus Alan Fawkes melodies and Steve England's mixing skills, fx and sonovox.

I was privileged to be the person to write the lyrics and sit through every minute of the track recording, vocals and mixing. It is 23 years old but today's 'modern' jingle companies could still learn some lessons from it, and stop churning out 'McDonald's jingles'.

The big radio groups should be completely embarrassed that whereas in the 70s and 80s the industry could afford to run truly local, 24 hours a day stations in areas with less than 400,000 people (Swansea Sound), they are now going to send conveyor belt, digitally recorded links from London all over the areas ~ the heritage will be totally lost.

'This is Leicester Sound from Leicester Square'

Yes it is sad, but also a reflection of the 'short attention span/mobile phone/ iPod society' we now live in; people get what they deserve. And in truth there simply is not the quality 'radio music' around that we had 15-30 years ago… it literally has gone 'ga ga'.

As Radio Today reports:

Trent FM is a heritage station in Nottingham, having launched in 1975. It started life as Radio Trent 301. Leicester Sound launched in 1984 after its predecessor Centre Radio closed in 1983, and Ram FM was born in 1994 using Trent's Derby transmitter. All three stations will merge as Capital East Midlands.

However, there is some good news:

It means former Capital FM sister stations such as BRMB will now compete directly with the new network

.. as one of the people programming BRMB is of course David Lloyd who 'honed his radio skills' at Trent and Leicester.

Long may his more individual, personal brand of radio live-on.

Len

[freq-ky]

Global went to all that trouble to rebrand Power FM as Galaxy.Now this happens.

[IainJohnstonMember]

I think the pattern & strategy are now becoming VERY clear…

As ClearChannel etc etc are broke due to overborrowing & the law of diminishing returns (and CC laughed their heads off a few years back when GWR tried to flog themselves to the States – “your market is far too small!”), all thats left for Global in the “pass-the-parcel pyramid game” is to flog themselves off to a big French or German radio conglomerate (just like all the rest of the UK's “traditional industries”…regardless of what party governs the country).

So,
1) Ex-Galaxy/Capital is age-group 25 and under
2) Heart is 33-year-old Debbie etc
3) Gold is…er…for those who … can't remember…what age they are now?
4) Choice FM – something for people who come from another country's “community/traditions”
5) Anything else? (…OK, Classic FM, but thats only because it was a “national” station in the first place, that replaced the REAL licence winner, who couldn't drum-up the fees in time, and defaulted).

OR, lets read that again…

1) NRJ – is age-group 25 and under
2) Cherie FM – is 33-year-old Marie-Claire etc
3) Nostalgie – is for those who … can't remember…what age they are now
4) Rire & Chansons – is rock & comedy clips, but could be anything they want it to be.

I predict that having junked UK “independent” radio in order to earn its (non-UK) owners mega-bucks (as well as getting to “play at radio stations” as someone else said), Global will sell the whole ruddy lot to NRJ Group (or RTL Group) by Christmas 2012 and walk away with their wallets stuffed.

Simply “pure speculation” (as politicians always say when someone rumbles their latest wheeze) on my part of course.

Or shall we re-visit this Post in 27 months time…?

[Bigdave]

A good friend of the site,Neal Bowden,has posted this on his airchecks downloads site…and I thought you might like to hear it again,Len – the 5th anniversary documentary from GEM.

A great station for the Great East Midlands.Great JAM jingles,great jocks (John Peters,Tony Lyman,some bloke called Len Groat..I think et al) and great oldies.

And now,sadly,thanks to those who think they “know” radio,no longer with us…

[LenGroat]

Ratnob:

“We are witnessing the most astonishing vandalism of local radio at the moment. I can't understand why more people aren't screaming in outrage at the loss of genuinely local stations.”

I agree totally, but as we know, hundreds of people READ this website, but few actually WRITE: the same is true of the typical British apathy to change, we put up with it. I was internally ‘screaming in outrage’ about this as Trent was a very special station, and I then saw how the Nottingham Evening Post covered the story. The headline was:

“Future of Trent FM arena name uncertain following Trent FM takeover”

So the (presumably young) journalist saw the ‘story’ as being the re-naming of the Trent FM Arena, not the loss of a 35 year old “heritage” station! You can read the full story here:

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Future-Trent-FM-arena-uncertain-following-Trent-FM-takeover/article-2643397-detail/article.html

However in truth only 28% of Nottingham people ever listen to Trent FM now (it used to be well over 30% plus 23% to GEM which now as “Gold” has 4%!) so knowing the name of the arena would have to change would have drawn the attention of the other 72% of readers as well.

I decided that although it is 16 years since I left I owed it to ’my’ old station to at least respond in Nottingham so posted my comment and thoughts on the Evening Post “on-line” story. This may seem a long way from what JingleMad is meant to be about, but remember that as well as no more jingles being made for RAM, Leicester and Trent, the changes by Global Radiio mean no jingles for Red Dragon and all the Galaxy services. This is all bound to affect the income of the jingle companies as they will only have to sing “Capital FM” once and then tag on the many frequencies.

This is what I wrote on the Evening Post site:

“I was Len Groat at Radio Trent; a presenter and part of management. My opinions are based on living in Nottingham from 1977-2004 and being heavily involved in programming Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. Thanks to the creative freedom our MD Ron Coles gave me I was primarily responsible for finding presenters and was Head of Music and Presentation 1980-1994. In 1988 I created the format and coined the name for GEM-AM.

When I left Trent had 32% reach, it now has 28%. GEM had 23% reach in Nottingham but by 2010 the (syndicated) Gold service which replaced it had 4%.

The STORY here is not the name of the arena, but the LOSS of a 'heritage' local radio station.

Trent listeners should indeed 'fear local radio coverage of Nottingham will suffer’. It is just another 'nail in the coffin' of what was Independent Local Radio. Replacing local news with regional news is NOT acceptable OR in the best interests of the 3 separate, culturally different areas.

Where does the fault lie? Firstly, the Labour Government in passing changes so the regulator Ofcom now allows radio groups to merge small local stations to form large regional or national services.

Secondly, the fault is with the financially-led managements and boards of the few radio groups who now dominate British Radio.

Note the comments of Mel Booth 'managing director at Capital FM East Midlands'. He 'felt the merger would not affect Nottingham audiences and would help staff reach even MORE people' (my capitalisation). So the new CRITERIA is clear – the priority is to ‘reach even more people’ a BIGGER audience, rather than a fully LOCAL service.

How well qualified is Capital to do this here? Presumably it has more than Trents ‘reach’ of 28%? Well actually NO; its ‘reach’ in London is just 17%.

But surely it has ‘more’ listeners than its London competitors? NO. In the latest Rajar figures for ‘market share’ it came THIRD after Heart and Magic. Capital was 4.9%, Heart 5.1%, Magic 6.4%. It had 3 million listeners in the 1990s but now only 1.9 million. Capital’s ‘audience share’ puts it in FIFTH place even behind the news station LBC. So the company who are to change Trent forever, are not even the market leader with their flagship station. And some of the same programmes that have made them FIFTH in the London market are to be heard every day in Nottingham!

Mel Booth said, 'We are doing this to future-proof our radio station'. ‘Future proof’? Regardless of this 'hip jargon' Trent has got through 35 LOCAL years without needing this kind of change, or ‘proofing’.

The merger of the 3 stations by Global Radio is 'part of a plan to create a network of radio stations covering almost every major city in the UK' which will 'link 8 other stations' including 'Birmingham, Manchester and Yorkshire'. This is being done by reducing radio to an ‘automated juke box’, with canned 'dj links' for parts of the day. (Interestingly where merging has happened or is going to, listeners are uniting to complain, as in the case of Global’s Heart stations).

We know that with the exception of 7 hours on weekdays and 4 on weekends Capital’s East Midlands service will carry London programmes. Will these be done by well-known, local presenters, familiar to the audience? NO. For daytime programmes they are using Roberto and ‘The Baseman’, presenters who ALREADY do daytime shows on Capital London. And just their names speak reams about the new style?

Why can’t Global Radio afford to offer the East Midlands fully local programmes? I ask this as they spent £6.4 million* on ‘media’ (promotional advertising) in the year to September 2009 (*according to The Nielsen Company).

Global Radio are not the only company de-localising radio; Ofcom have also allowed Smooth Radio to do it; from October it will mainly come from London and the North-West, without even a local East Midlands breakfast show!

A city the size of Nottingham deserves a locally run station that spends income on MAKING local programmes not PROMOTING nationally originated ones.

A personal point: Trent and GEM were greatly changed after a takeover in 1994; I was not responsible for the music or style after that so please do not regard all of the last 35 years in the same negative light. I am still very proud of the sound we achieved and the great presentation team, many of whom I personally employed and you 'grew up with': Gary Burton, Krissi Carpenter, Jenny Costello, Erica Hughes, David Lloyd, Tony Lyman, Andy Marriott, Ann-Marie Minhall, Andy Miller, Guy Morris, Steve Merike, John Peters, Paul Robey, Peter Tate, Rob Wagstaff, Dale Winton and many more.

Of course most people cannot be bothered to complain to their MP or Ofcom, or write to the Post. But there is a solution: ‘let your fingers do the talking’ and tell them how you feel by switching away from a ‘local’ service that comes from London 17 hours a day.

Some 'capitalisation' from me:

RIP RADIO TRENT”

[Bigdave]

Len….

What a truly wonderful piece – written from the heart about something that has been part of you for 27 years of your life.From some of the other comments on the page,there's a pretty common feeling that Nottingham people don't want their radio from London.

And these are the people Messrs Park & Tabor are targetting? Are they taking the you know what? It's like asking a Forest fan to go and watch Derby County – it'll never happen.

I was in the city last Friday.And as I walked back to the station after a few pints in the Old Trip and the Salutation,I looked at that famous building -still up for let and it got me thinking….”Now,if my numbers come up on the Euro Millions,would anybody fancy starting a radio station that plays sounds like what you want to hear?”…

[TheBigCheese]

I can sympathise, having worked at Beacon when it was taken over by GWR. I managed to find another job, midway through the 18-month “handover”. True – GWR didn't kill off Beacon, but they cut off its balls, and it never sounded the same.

Anyway – here are a few off-air recordings I made of Trent from 1979/80 – zipped, and uploaded to a file-sharing site. You will hear a young 'Tony' Lloyd, Tony Lyman, the man they call Len Groat, saying “thank you for being there”, and other voiceovers (“Make the Summer of 77 one to remember”). Also Colin Bower, the late Graham Knight, the legendary Chris Ashley – Pete Wagstaffe and others on the station's 5th birthday programme, and some home-brewed jingles, sung by Steve Merike. And this: “Hello,I'm Sidney Insignificant, in my Radio Trent sweatshirt” – “only £4.50 from Radio Trent reception.” Enjoy, and please let me know if you can identify the one called 'unidentified music'.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=63NBPGAB

[LenGroat]

BigDave: thanks for the comments and observations

BigCheese: strange now to hear that radio from 30+ years ago, and that Nottingham was to be the source of long-term quality radio people whose heads were 'in the studio', not 'in the bank balance'. Now Tony Lyman and 'David Lloyd': David was of course Tony Lloyd but already having taken on Tony Lyman I had to re-name him. Even stranger that I brought about 'Tony Lyman' ~ he was actually 'Vince Mould', and you CANNOT sing that !

I'm afraid I can't identify the 'unidentified music'; it certainly was not a station jingle though.

You may be interested by the attached, an amazing pre-echo of what ILR was to become, but done with skill rather than digital technology.

The 'Music JAM' was (semi) continuous music sent in split, live, to Trent and Leicester Sound. David was the 'king' of this, along with Danny Cox who went to the same bother with split pre-recorded (carted) links to different frequencies. You can also hear the parallel version lyrics of the 1985 Alfasound 'We've Grown Together Through the Years' package for Trent and Leicester.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/urGMgY1B/Split_David_Lloyd.html

In those days the IBA was concerned about us 'losing localness' in Nottingham and Leicester; what a great pity it is that Ofcom are allowing these large groups to get away with far worse.

[ianchilvers]

Wow, You know I was inspired to get into radio from the start of Trent 945! I was at School but it didnt stop me creating a school 'Radio Day' broadcasting over speakers throughout the school for a day on 'Woodlands Radio' later we did a business project and I called our business 'business 945' we ended up making coffee coasters for Trent 945 to be given away on air as prizes (yes I really had the bug) later I joined hospital radio and then much much later when I was a Milkman for West Bridgford in Nottingham I got my first break into Radio and went on to work with so many great people who I used to listen to, Ron Coles, Rob Wagstaff, David Lloyd, Andy Marriott, Paul Robey, Andy Miller, Guy Morris, Jeff Cooper and the jingle legend himself Len Groat! listening to these jingles brought back great memories of those early days and the two that take me way back are… Derbyshire's got a new favourite and of course the classic.. sitting in the shade drinking lemonade! pure madness!! but Brilliant!!

Chilly

[RichMember]

TheBigCheese wrote:
[cut]… and please let me know if you can identify the one called 'unidentified music'.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=63NBPGAB

Mr. Big Cheese,
the unidentified music – if memory serves – was the theme to a programme called simply “pop quiz” aired in 1980… hence the “pop-doodle” words! But I could be wrong, as it was over 30 years ago.
I wonder if that may jog a memory Len?
Regards,
Rick.

[LenGroat]

'Len' would love to help, but it was THIRTY (ouch !) years ago… We only really had 'strip shows', so it was probably a dj-run programe feature. Dale did not do these… so that narrows it down to either Steve Merike or Guy Morris?

It may be.. 'lost in the sands of radio time' !

[LenGroat]

Here is a link to a 10 minute piece about the demise of Radio Trent done (very well) by BBC East Midlands TV. Includes John Peters, David Lloyd, Kid Jensen…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/nottingham/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9287000/9287281.stm

Much of the footage is from old documentaries on YouTube but check out near the end, a 'news out' from 1988 is actually John Peters on GEM breakfast playing PAMS/Alfa jingles…

Len

[RichMember]

If anyone is really interested in the “unidentified music” previously mentioned by TheBigCheese (but not there to hear now in the link above)… It is “Take A Train by Adrian Baker & Roy Morgan” – I stumbled accross it on Spotify today by accident.
https://open.spotify.com/track/5inTmElGHHe9VCTvzYB5JF?si=4ba196770eb9435e
Consider it err… identified

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