ContactSpire FM
"The Spirit of Salisbury..."
Spire FM 102
Spire FM 102
Providing a commercial radio service for South Wiltshire and West Hampshire, Spire takes it's name from the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.
"A Sunday Morning, 10am...". Born on 5th September 1992 and broadcasting from City Hall Studios in Malthouse Lane. Salisbury, part of the City Hall entertainments venue, the station was originally part of 'The Local Radio Company', but is currently part of... erm... 'The Local Radio Company'.
The station's logo until recently devoured by the new 'TLRC' was formed of 5 'waves', representing the rivers in the stations TSA. Back in July 1992, GWR bought a forty percent share in Spire FM.
Among Spire's accolades since launch: it was the Station of the Year in the Sony Awards of 1994, 1997, 2001 and 2003, it received a BT Press Award for local news coverage in 1995 and 1996, a KPMG Award for Marketing Excellence in 1997 and the station was also proud to receive a 1999 award from the management team of Salisbury City Centre - the rather long award title being 'The Business that made the biggest contribution to Salisbury' in 1999.
And the station frequently - with its 43 per cent Reach in the 90s made headlines as having daytime shows with the highest share of audience in the UK. (One of which was presented by this author - shameless egotistm, I know).
The brand very nearly made it into another area renowned for it's spire - that being the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield - it entered the running in 1997, but along with other bidders lost out to Peak 107. As the Spire 107 logo was recreated from the Salisbury version, but with a 'bend' at the top (Chesterfield's cathedral known for having a dodgy spire , the Spire FM application was unfairly known as "that bent Spire lot" by competitors.
The station's legendary MD's were launch boss Chris Carnegy and ITV1 Meridian Tonight presenter Ian Axton (also the owner of the new Andover Sound). The station's launch producer was one Andrew White who as the 'World's Best Producer' was responsible for the "10th Anniversary programme, downloadable below). You will find this web author in there try to voice "Szechuan Prawn".
The station's jingle packages included AJ Productions (1992 and 1994), Alfasound (1996) with the almighty great big news jingle that sang "Spire Efffemmmmmmm... Neeeewwwwwwwwwwwwws", Bespoke Music (1999 and later). The first Bespoke package was commissioned by this web author after hearing Tim James' surprisingly excellent demo for RSL station "Pier FM" in Weston-super-Mare.
The audio and vocal quality was excellent and with a little work, the lyric was re-sung Spaaaa FM. We added another syllable to make it Spi-re FM and a series of great jingle packages were born as the rest of the then TLRC and later Radio Investments group commissioned syndication across their network of stations.
Individual station identity was lost forever, but Tim James had very full pockets. And he deserved it.
The station's transmitter is based at Camp Hill. The Drivetime presenter is Craig Hicks. Despite Craig's show, the station remains one of the UK's best performing radio stations and remains a legendary station not only in South Wiltshire and West Hampshire, but throughout the UK radio industry.
Spire FM. The Spirit of Salisbury.
Information amended from the excellent Aircheck UK webpage
Spire FM Jingles
- Spire FM Package 1 - AJ Productions - 1992 (if you have this, please email)
- Spire FM Package 2 - AJ Productions - 1994
- Spire FM Package 3 - Alfasound - 1996
- Spire FM Package 4 - Bespoke Music - 1999 (in "rar" format)
- Spire FM Launch - "A Sunday morning, 10AM..." - 1992
- Spire FM Weather - "With Wood BMW of Salisbury..." - 1996
- Spire FM 10th Anniversary - Excellent review by Andrew White - 2002
- InSpired by Love - Excellent cut from AJ Productions - 1994