BBC Radio Cornwall is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via

BBC Sounds BBC Sounds is an Over-the-top media service, over-the-top audio streaming media, streaming and download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, Streaming media, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide ...

from studios at Phoenix Wharf in

Truro Truro (; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England; it is the southernmost city in the United Kingdom, just under west-south-west of Charing Cross in London. It is Cornwall's county town, s ...

. According to

RAJAR Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR; ) was established in 1992 to operate a single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom. RAJAR is jointly owned by the BBC and Radiocentre. RAJAR's predecessor was c ...

, the station has a weekly audience of 92,000 listeners of May 2025.

Overview

Until 31 December 1982, local radio services for

had amounted to a regional weekday breakfast show '' Morning Sou'West'', aired on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's frequencies in

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

and Cornwall, plus five-minute regional bulletins on Saturday mornings and Mondays to Saturdays at lunchtime and teatime. There was no regional output on Sundays. On 17 January 1983, BBC Radio Cornwall (and

BBC Radio Devon BBC Radio Devon is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Devon. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios in the Mannamead area of Plymouth. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of ...

) launched, although for its first few years on air, both stations shared an afternoon programme.

Technical

BBC Radio Cornwall is broadcasts on 95.2 MHz for East Cornwall from the Caradon Hill transmitting station located on

Bodmin Moor Bodmin Moor () is a granite moorland in north-eastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in size, and dates from the Carboniferous period of geology, geological history. It includes Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall, and Rough To ...

, 96.0 MHz on the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the Great Britain, British mainla ...

and 103.9 MHz from Redruth transmitting station located on Lanner Hill for West Cornwall, as well as on DAB. It was also broadcast on 630 kHz and 657 kHz AM until 2 March 2020, when those transmitters were closed for cost savings. The station also broadcasts on

Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...

TV channel 713 in the BBC South West region and streams online via

Programming

Local programming is produced and broadcast from the BBC's

studios from 6 am to 10 pm on weekdays, from 6 am to 6 pm on Saturdays and from 6 am to 2 pm on Sundays. Daniel Pascoe's show (Saturdays 6 pm to 8 pm) and his BBC Introducing show (Saturdays 8 pm to 10 pm) are both broadcast to

and BBC Radio Somerset. David White's Boogie Wonderland show used to be broadcast on Saturdays between 10 pm to 1 am and was also broadcast to stations in the BBC South West and BBC West regions. This programme, along with all other late night regional programming, ended on 7 October 2023 due to BBC cutbacks, and was replaced with a networked England-wide late show which broadcasts every night of the week. During the station's overnight downtime, BBC Radio Cornwall simulcasts

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts mainly news, sport, Talk show, discussion, interviews and phone-ins, and is on air 24 hours a day. It is the principal BBC radio station Broadca ...

Cornish language output

Radio Cornwall is one of two radio stations to have broadcast programmes in the

Cornish language Cornish (Standard Written Form: or , ) is a Southwestern Brittonic language, Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. Along with Welsh language, Welsh and Breton language, Breton, Cornish descends from Common Brittonic, ...

. A five-minute weekly news bulletin, ''An Nowodhow'', is broadcast every Sunday at 1.55pm. When Radio Cornwall was first set up Cornish language content was limited to around 2 minutes per week. In 1987, a new weekly 15-minute-long bilingual show, Kroeder Kroghan, detailing Celtic cultural events taking place in

, was introduced.Martin John Ball, James Fife, ''The Celtic Languages'', 1993

Presenters

Notable past presenters

* Rod Lyon * Caroline Righton * Jonathan Samuels (now at

Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network and news organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of ...

) * Brenda Wootton

References

External links

BBC Radio Cornwall
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bbc Radio Cornwall

Companies based in Cornwall Radio stations in Cornwall 1983 establishments in the United Kingdom Radio stations established in 1983