BBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC's local radio station serving

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...

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

BBC Sounds BBC Sounds is a Closed platform, walled garden streaming media and audio download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile pho ...

, from studios on Hanover Street in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. 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 calle ...

, the station has a weekly audience of 203,000 listeners and a 6.8% share as of September 2022.

History

BBC Radio Merseyside was the third BBC Local Radio station to start broadcasting, launching on 22 November 1967 and broadcasting from the sixth floor of council-owned offices in Commerce House, Liverpool. In late 1981 Radio Merseyside moved to a new purpose-built studios on

Paradise Street, Liverpool Paradise Street is a street in Liverpool, Merseyside in the Liverpool One shopping area. It lies south of Whitechapel and north of Duke Street. The street contains many stores and restaurants including McDonald's, USC, Urban Outfitters, Sport ...

. Broadcasts began from the new studios on 7 December 1981. On 15 July 2006, Radio Merseyside moved from its former home to a new purpose-built studio building on the corner of Hanover Street and College Lane in Liverpool. This building has two ground-floor studios next to a public performance space. An open learning centre is on the first floor and the main office is on the second floor. In October 2006, the studio building was nominated and made the

Building Design Building design refers to the broadly based architectural, engineering and technical applications to the design of buildings. All building projects require the services of a building designer, typically a licensed architect. Smaller, less complica ...

shortlist for the inaugural

Carbuncle Cup The Carbuncle Cup was an architecture prize, given annually by the magazine ''Building Design'' to "the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months". It was intended to be a humorous response to the prestigious Stirling ...

, which was ultimately awarded to

Drake Circus Shopping Centre Drake Circus Shopping Centre is a covered shopping mall in the centre of Plymouth, England, which opened in October 2006. The building was designed by London-based architects Chapman Taylor and built by Bovis Lend Lease. Situated behind the r ...

in Plymouth. Until the late 1980s the station was generally on air from breakfast until teatime, with any programming after 18:00 devoted to specialist music and magazines aimed at specialist interests and at ethnic minority communities. In early 1989, the four BBC stations in north west England launched an evening service called ''Network North West''. It was broadcast each night from 19:30 until midnight. In May 1991, the four north-west stations joined the

BBC Night Network The BBC Night Network (sometimes referred to on-air as BBC North FM and originally Radio North East) was an all-evening radio network which linked up the North East England, Yorkshire and the Humber, and later the North West England regions of BBC ...

, which had previously provided evening programming for the BBC's six north-east and Yorkshire stations. At this point, local broadcasts ended at 19:05 (19:00 at weekends) until midnight, extending to 00:30 in the early 1990s, and to 01:00 by the end of that decade.

Transmitters

BBC Radio Merseyside broadcasts on 95.8 MHz
Allerton Park
and DAB ffrom the Allerton Park site and DAB signals come from the Bauer Digital Bauer Liverpool 10C Multiplex from

Billinge Hill Billinge Hill, also known as Billinge Lump, is in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens in North West England. With a maximum elevation of , it is the highest point of Merseyside. It lies in Billinge, within the historic county boundaries of ...

(between St Helens and

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas, Lancashire, River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the nor ...

), Hope Mountain (between

Buckley Buckley may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Buckley's, a Canadian pharmaceutical corporation * Buckley Aircraft, an American aircraft manufacturer * Buckley Broadcasting, an American broadcasting company * Buckley School (California), ...

and

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

) and the

Radio City Tower Radio City Tower (also known as St. John's Beacon) is a radio and observation tower in Liverpool, England, built in 1969 and opened by Queen Elizabeth II. It was designed by James A. Roberts Associates in Birmingham. It is 138 metres tall, and ...

(on top of Radio City's

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

s). In 2018, BBC Radio Merseyside launched on the

app. Local sports commentaries are not broadcast on this service, due to licensing agreements. In March 2020, BBC Radio Merseyside's 1485 AM signal was switched off and its licence was handed back to

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

. This was part of a new plan by

BBC Local Radio BBC Local Radio (also referred to as Local BBC Radio) is the BBC's local and regional radio division for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of forty stations. History The popularity of pirate radio was to challenge a change within ...

to stop using AM frequencies across all of its stations. In addition, BBC Radio Merseyside 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 722 in the

BBC North West BBC North West is the BBC English Region serving Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, North Yorkshire (western Craven), West Yorkshire (western Calderdale), Derbyshire (western High Peak), Cumbria (Barrow-in-Furness and So ...

region.

Programming

Local programming is produced and broadcast from the BBC's Liverpool studios from 6am - 1am on weekdays and from 6am - 10pm at weekends. The late show, airing from 10pm - 1am, is simulcast with

BBC Radio Lancashire BBC Radio Lancashire is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Lancashire. It broadcasts on FM, AM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Darwen Street in Blackburn. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly aud ...

on Friday nights and originates from

BBC Radio Manchester BBC Radio Manchester is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving Greater Manchester. It broadcasts on frequency modulation, FM, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at MediaCityUK in Salford ...

on Saturday and Sunday nights. During the station's downtime, BBC Radio Merseyside simulcasts overnight programming from

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...

and

BBC Radio London BBC Radio London is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM broadcasting, FM frequency, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, ...

Notable past presenters

Norman Thomas Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. Early years Thomas was the ...

Pete Price Peter Lawrence Price (the Lizard) (born 04 February 1946) is a British radio presenter best known for his work in Liverpool. He hosted the Sunday night talk radio show ''Pete Price: Unzipped'', which was broadcast across Liverpool sister stat ...

* Simon O'Brien *

Shelagh Fogarty Shelagh Fogarty (born 13 January 1966) is a radio and television presenter and journalist. She currently presents the afternoon programme on LBC, having previously co-hosted the BBC Radio 5 Live breakfast show with Nicky Campbell. Early life Fo ...

(

LBC LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadcast ...

) *

Rob McCaffrey Robert Andrew McCaffrey, 1963) is a British television presenter. He is most notable for presenting shows such as ''Goals On Sunday'' and ''You're On Sky Sports''. McCaffrey also replaced Jeff Stelling as presenter of ''Soccer Special'' (the midwe ...

Ray Stubbs Raymond J. Stubbs (born 24 May 1956) is an English broadcaster and former footballer. He worked as a presenter for the BBC, ESPN and BT Sport, and now works for Talksport radio. His most recent role is presenting the coverage of the World Seni ...

* Eddie Hemmings * Wayne Clarke *

Janice Long Janice Berry ( Chegwin; 5 April 1955 – 25 December 2021), known professionally by her first married name Janice Long, was an English broadcaster who was best known for her work in British music radio. In a career that spanned five decades, s ...

(

BBC Radio Wales BBC Radio Wales is a Welsh radio station owned and operated by BBC Cymru Wales, a division of the BBC. It began broadcasting on 13 November 1978, replacing the 'Radio 4 Wales' opt-out service (previously the Welsh Home Service). Radio Wales br ...

Greatest Hits Radio Greatest Hits Radio is a classic hits radio network in the United Kingdom, owned and operated by Bauer. Overview The network launched on 5 January 2015 as the "Bauer City 2 Network", and rebranded on 7 January 2019 due to the success of Ra ...

/ deceased) *

Brian Jacques James Brian Jacques (, as in "Jakes"; 15 June 1939 – 5 February 2011) was an English novelist known for his ''Redwall'' series of novels and ''Castaways of the Flying Dutchman'' series. He also completed two collections of short stories entit ...

Alan Parry Alan Parry (born 1948 in Garston, Liverpool) is an English sports commentator, concentrating on football and athletics. He has commentated for all four main broadcasters of football in the UK – the BBC, BT Sport, ITV and Sky TV, as well a ...

(

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

) * Rob Palmer * Gerry Harrison * Stephen Parry *

Debi Jones Debi Jones (born 1958 in Crosby, Lancashire) is a radio and television broadcaster, journalist, singer, politician and actress. Jones has presented shows for the BBC, Granada Television, BFBS Radio and Radio City. She presenting the afternoon ...

* Billy Butler

Controversy

During a breakfast show on 25 June 2007, presenter Simon O'Brien accidentally broadcast an unedited interview in which he said, "''fuck the government, fuck the planners''". O'Brien resigned from the station later in the day. He later went on to present a short-lived Saturday breakfast show on the now defunct talk radio station

Radio City Talk Radio City Talk (previously City Talk 105.9) was an Independent Local Radio station in Liverpool, England. In May 2020, it was announced by Bauer that Radio City Talk would cease broadcasting, after concluding that the station was no longer fi ...

in Liverpool. Radio City Talk later used the phrase that led to his resignation as part of their launch marketing for the station.

References

External links

BBC Radio Merseyside

Hope Mountain (Digital)

{{coord, 53.399097, -2.992277, display=title Radio stations established in 1967 Radio stations in Merseyside

Mass media in Liverpool Radio stations in Liverpool