10/09/2020
This week, we need to say a big Happy Birthday to our colleagues on Whiteladies Road here in Bristol. Because BBC Radio Bristol has just turned fifty years of age. BBC Local Radio stations began to be introduced at the tail end of the 1960's. It was part of the public service broadcasters' response to the huge success of offshore commercial pirate radio stations in the middle sixties. The early BBC local stations were also part financed by the local authorities in their municipality. At first, the new stations languished on FM, in a period when most listeners were still tuned to medium wave broadcasts. Nevertheless, they gradually established themselves. The Conservative governments of Heath and later Thatcher allowed for some commercial radio stations, although they were still very limited, and Radio West came on the air in 1981 to compete with Radio Bristol. The commercial station merged with Wiltshire Radio to form GWR in 1985. Community radio services were introduced in the noughties by the Blair government, again in response to major pirating of the radio spectrum through the eighties and nineties. Here at ShoutOut, we have worked with both community and BBC stations to bring events like Pride to the airwaves. The working relationship is cordial and although we are at opposite ends of radio organisation, ShoutOut shows how different levels of radio in the UK can co-operate to make relevant programming for our communities. Happy Birthday BBC Radio Bristol and here's to the next fifty!
