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Newlove FM - Warrington's New community radio station


theinsider

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It would appear Gary Newlove's widow Helen has been fast tracked a new community radio station for Warrington - less than a year after Warrington's online radio station Radio Warrington was refused a licence. I know Radio Warrington are still broadcasting - is there room for two community radio station's in a town already served bya community one?

Is it fair that something with a big media PR machine behind it can walk all over hard working local people who have dedicated their lives to setting up a proper community radio station for the town.

Difficult and emotive issue - but surely onme which needs sorting out.

I suppose in an ideal world they should work together.

What do others think?

 

Here is the info on the new radio station.

 

 

Bauer Media behind Newlove FM

Jan 19, 2009 - Magic 105.4?s breakfast DJ, Neil Fox surprised Helen Newlove live on Saturday night on Noel?s HQ on Sky1 when he pledged support for her newly launched community radio campaign, which will be known as Newlove FM.

 

Fox isn?t alone in his support for her endeavour; he?ll be joined by Bauer breakfast show colleagues, Key 103?s Mike Toolan and Radio City?s Simon Ross who have also committed to guest present on the station when it?s finally up and running. Bauer Media?s radio station charities, Cash for Kids, will also support this project.

 

Helen, who lost her husband Garry 18 months ago when he was beaten to death by youths after confronting them about vandalism outside his Warrington home, recently launched a campaign to set up a community station run by the community for the community, which she hopes will ?inspire people to lead a purposeful life? and prevent anti-social behaviour.

 

Neil Fox told Helen on air: ?You are a real inspiration. As soon as we heard from Noel?s HQ about your plans to bring music and opportunity to the community, we all wanted to be involved and are looking forward to helping you set up and promote the station.?

 

Noel Edmonds added: ?It?s brilliant that Neil Fox, Magic 105.4, Key 103 and Radio City have been so generous in their support in what will be a hugely rewarding project. To kick off Noel?s HQ with such a heart-warming story is fantastic.?

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I didn't even know we had any community radio station let alone a new one!

 

What frequencywill Newlove FM be on?

 

Personally I think it is about time they switched off advert FM (oops I mean Wire FM) because they play exactly the same rubbish that they play on Wish FM (Only the adverts are different) and we can get that OK in Warrington

 

Just think how good life would be without having to listen to "me, meself, 5 foot 2, Pete Pennington"

 

Mind you, if the new station signed up Gaunty to host a few shows; I'd listen to it!! Mornings are just not the same without him!

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Now that's a tricky one :shock:

 

I can't recall the reason why Warrington Radio/Worm were refused their licence despite them already being 'on air' to listeners via the internet. If it was purely becasue Warrington already had a Community Radio Station (ie Wire FM) then it does seem a bit unfair.

 

Baz.. I don't think there's any point in you slagging off Wire FM though becasue it's not their fault. They have been around for years and although you might not like them :wink: some people do :D

 

At the end of the day it's all about people listening to the station that they want to listen to becasue they enjoy it... so if that means having 5 community radio stations (providing they are half decent of course) then why don't the licencing people just allow it ?

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I didn't even know we had any community radio station let alone a new one!

 

What frequencywill Newlove FM be on?

 

Personally I think it is about time they switched off advert FM (oops I mean Wire FM) because they play exactly the same rubbish that they play on Wish FM (Only the adverts are different) and we can get that OK in Warrington

 

Just think how good life would be without having to listen to "me, meself, 5 foot 2, Pete Pennington"

 

Mind you, if the new station signed up Gaunty to host a few shows; I'd listen to it!! Mornings are just not the same without him!

 

I really don't see the point in the "DJ's" (as they like to call themselves) let alone the radio station..

 

When I used to work nights I had the misfortune of enforced listening to wireFM. Not only do they play crap music at night on a loop, it's the same music on during the day as well but with "DJ's" supposedly playing the music!?

 

If anyone should have been refused a licence, it should have been WireFM for wasting precious airtime bandwidth! :shock:

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I didn't even know we had any community radio station let alone a new one!

 

Shame on you Baz - where were you when the rock god was preaching before taking early retirement?

 

In response to Dismayed - when I was a director of Radio warrington we were refused a community licence because 1. There was no spare space on the frequency 2. We we were allegedly too similar to Wire FM and some other rather vague reason which escapes me at the moment.

It does seem unfair that someone else can be fast tracked a licence and get around all the rules because they have high profile celebrity backers - but thats show biz!

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Baz.. I don't think there's any point in you slagging off Wire FM though becasue it's not their fault. They have been around for years and although you might not like them some people do

 

Dis, Wire FM was great when it first started because it was all about the local area with local presenters (I even listened to me meself pete) but now it is all about "smashy and Nicey" sounding DJ's and corporate image and sounds. Whoever the person is who likes them can listen to Wish FM and they wouldn't know!

 

At the end of the day it's all about people listening to the station that they want to listen to becasue they enjoy it... so if that means having 5 community radio stations (providing they are half decent of course) then why don't the licencing people just allow it ?

 

Because the government restrict the airwaves to stop rock gods transmitting on jumbo jet frequencys and thus forcing flight 69 to land on the Town Hall lawn!

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We at Radio Warrington are delighted that Helen Newlove has chosen to start a Community Radio station for Warrington. The reason that we started up almost two years ago was because we firmly believe that there is a significant need for a radio station for the people by the people. It is extremely difficult and expensive to get an FM license so we have been broadcasting on the internet. We get out into the community and last year we attended and broadcast from most of the events around the Town. Almost all of our presenters are local and include disabled people and schoolchildren. We discuss local topics, promote local events, play local bands and cover local sports as much as we can. We are unpaid volunteers and we run our 24 service with absolutely no funding.

As mentioned in the above posts, it would seem to make great sense for us all to work together as we all seem to have the same aim, to create a truly local community radio station involving local people.

Last year we wrote to Helen telling her about us and inviting her visit our studio in Sankey but as yet have received no reply.

 

Steve Lewis

Radio Warrington

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Sorry about the confusion Peter. When I say no funding I mean that we have received no large grants. We set it all up using our own money and pay most of the bills ourselves. We do not run adverts but do have sponsors whos logo we put on our website. Even these do not meet our running costs so we make up the difference ourselves. The van is paid for by me.

Since you ask, our costs consist mainly of music royalties, phone and internet. Our studio space is kindly donated to us by the Warrington Disability Partnership with whom we work closely. Anybody who is interested is welcome to visit our studio by appointment.

 

Steve Lewis

Radio Warrington

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We at Radio Warrington are delighted that Helen Newlove has chosen to start a Community Radio station for Warrington. The reason that we started up almost two years ago was because we firmly believe that there is a significant need for a radio station for the people by the people. It is extremely difficult and expensive to get an FM license so we have been broadcasting on the internet. We get out into the community and last year we attended and broadcast from most of the events around the Town. Almost all of our presenters are local and include disabled people and schoolchildren. We discuss local topics, promote local events, play local bands and cover local sports as much as we can. We are unpaid volunteers and we run our 24 service with absolutely no funding.

As mentioned in the above posts, it would seem to make great sense for us all to work together as we all seem to have the same aim, to create a truly local community radio station involving local people.

Last year we wrote to Helen telling her about us and inviting her visit our studio in Sankey but as yet have received no reply.

 

Steve Lewis

Radio Warrington

 

Very diplomatic - you should be a politician!

I hope they can see the sense of working with you - although sometimes people can get dazzled by the media spotlights and not see the wood for the trees! :roll:

From what I have seen Radio Warrington has been doing a great job with limited resources - in fact the only failing is you can't tune in when your in the car! :cry:

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Sorry about the confusion Peter. When I say no funding I mean that we have received no large grants. We set it all up using our own money and pay most of the bills ourselves. We do not run adverts but do have sponsors whos logo we put on our website. Even these do not meet our running costs so we make up the difference ourselves. The van is paid for by me.

Since you ask, our costs consist mainly of music royalties, phone and internet. Our studio space is kindly donated to us by the Warrington Disability Partnership with whom we work closely. Anybody who is interested is welcome to visit our studio by appointment.

 

Steve Lewis

Radio Warrington

 

Thanks Steve.

Keep up the good work.

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I certainly hope there is a place for Radio Warrington in the future.

 

I've listened since just after it started. It plays a wide variety of music

with some knowlegable presenters. I think it let's itself down on the publicity front, but without any additional funding it isn't possible.

 

For iphone users there are a couple of applications (one is free) that will allow you to listen to Radio Warrington through your iphone via wifi and in some cases 3G. In most parts of Warrington you can listen in your car. If anyone wants to PM I'll send the details.

 

Thanks

Andy

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Andy

I would have thought the problem, not just for Radio Warrington, but also for most radio stations, is that they DON'T play a wide variety of music. They might play a variety of pop, but where are the programmes for those who like classical music, folk, jazz, etc?

They are ignored because they are deemed to be a minority or elitist. This may be true - but they are much more likely to make an effort to tune in to a programme that caters for their particular taste than is the casual pop listener. There are so many "pop" stations that the potential audience is fragmented so it may be that specialist programmes would, in fact, claim larger audiences for the stations brave enough to broadcast them.

And what about speech programmes? The same thing could apply.

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Adam is quite right that there is a place for classical, folk and Jazz on the radio. The difference with us is that if somebody in Warrington wanted to do a specialist music show to play these genres we would give them a show on Radio Warrington.

For example, Northern Soul is still very popular in this Town and we have a show on a sunday night to accomodate it. We also have specialist Rock shows and would love a discussion programme if we had somone who wanted to do it.

The thing is that there are thousands of internet radio stations available if you know where to look. The most successful ones are the ones which have a unique offering. A station offering "Cajun Folk music" will have a great audience because it is available to everyone in the world. An internet radio station just playing the same dross as your local FM stations will have limited appeal.

Our "unique offering" is that we are a proper "Community radio station for Warrington" including ALL interested local people as described earlier. We try and have some local content in every voice link.

If we don't have programmes which sound different to what is already available then we won't survive, transversely if we don't have popular appeal we won't have any listeners either so its a bit of a balancing act. We try to have shows which are different but still listenable.

 

Steve Lewis

Radio Warrington

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When Colin Parry became something of a "celebrity" following the IRA attacks on Warrington, he came in for some criticism (quite wrongly in my opinion) for making money out of his son's tragic death.

How long will it be before someone starts criticising Helen Newlove for doing the same.

I wonder, also, whether she is being influenced by her three young daughters in deciding that a radio station is what is needed.

If it really IS a station that will encourage young people to get involved in worthwhile projects, it will probably fail. If it becomes simply another local FM station, playing "dross" as someone aptly put it earlier, it will probably influence young people in exactly the opposite way to which Mrs Newlove is aiming.

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