ContactBeacon Radio 303
"Serving the West Midlands..."
Beacon Radio
Beacon Radio, Beacon FM and back to Beacon Radio
The last station to be awarded a licence to broadcast in the 1970s, this station came on air 12th April 1976 on 303meters Medium Wave 989kHz and 97.2vhf serving Wolverhampton and the Black Country.
The licence was an experiment by the IBA to see how two stations in overlapping transmission areas would operate, BRMB being the neighbouring station in Worcestershire. Whilst BRMB played UK hits, Beacon took a rather different sound with loads of American tunes. This is probably due to the fact that the first manager at Beacon was an American, Jay Oliver, along with a Scot, Allen McKenzie. This sounds odd, until you discover he spent 12 years in Canada.
The station was renowned for pushing IBA rules - for example, during a heavy fall of snow, summer hits were played with a strapline of '...it may be snowing, but here on Beacon, we're cruising.' Also, commercial breaks had to be dinstinctly obvious, therefore a second of silence was required before the break went out. Beacon DJs were heard playing jingles over song intros. The whole heap of trouble peaked in 1978 - and Beacon's licence was ready to be taken away - when prostitutes and outbursts of swearing went out on-air. Condoms were given away freely and someone even called a Labour minister recommending that the next party conference be held on Brighton's nudist beach. Presenters from this time include Mick Wright, George Ferguson, Gavin McCoy, Chris Harper & Munro Jack.
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Station managers McKenzie & Oliver left and Clem Jones came into hold the fort. 1979 saw the arrival of Peter Tomlinson as the new MD. He saved the station's licence by normalising the output and bringing in specialist music programming. However, the American sound continued. In 1980, Bob Pierson became Programme Controller, and in 1985 as MD, he oversaw the arrival of Jim Duncan, Gordon Astley, Pete Wagstaff (now at Telford FM) and Tony Paul. Pete later became PC himself.
Times were hard in the 1980s and money was short. The IBA gave permission for stations to take on a separate frequency for a neighbouring area. Beacon took on 103.1 for Shrewsbury and Telford. And so the Beacon service for Shropshire started on 14th July 1987. For ten years, the station took on the strapline 'Latest Hits, Greatest Memories'. Evening specialist shows were dropped at the end of the 80s with request and chart shows coming in - a format replicated across the country in following years. The AM frequency carried some specialist shows on the order of the IBA along the 'use it or lose it' policy that affected other stations.
Presenters included Dale Winton, Will Tudor, Bill Young, Chris Ashley, Tony Paul, Graham Hall, Stephen Rhodes and 'Midnight Line' phone-in with this site's editors namesake, Ian Perry.
The 'use it or lose it' rules led to the creation of WABC on the medium wave services. See below for more details. Beacon, was sold to GWR in 1993, however, a cunning bit of work at the negotiating table, meant that GWR couldn't take full control for three years - a stay of execution of you like. Programming ideas were actioned by GWR, but Beacon retained it's jingles and music selection during that intermediate time.
The end of Beacon 'as it was' took place when the agreement period expired. Alan Mullett and Pete Wagstaff left when the men in suits arrived from Bristol. In 1997, Beacon was relaunched in true GWR clone style, as Beacon FM, 'the better music mix'. As with other GWR stations, jingles went out, liner cards and voiced IDs came in and a lot of presenters moved to the AM service WABC, possibly to escape the purge. The late night, highly popular phone in was axed and the music mix that GWR are now so well known for, came in.
The revamp was met with a huge protest, in the press, out in public and even vandalism to the building, the latter of which cannot be condoned. Beacon FM quickly became just another mark on the GWR chalk board of acquisitions, rather than the individual station it used to be. Audience figures fell for both stations, arguably due to the revamp, but also the increase in competition in the local radio market with smaller scale stations and regionals opening up too. The station is now part of the even larger radio group known as GCap - Capital Radio & GWR merged in 2005.
Beacon FM currently broadcasts from studios at 267 Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton. And if you remember the jingle, you'll remember the postcode "WV6 0DQ"
Information amended from the excellent Aircheck UK webpage
Beacon Radio Jingles
- Beacon Radio - coming soon