Belfast Community Radio or BCR, was a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

that broadcast to

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

between 1990 and 1996. The station broadcast from the basement of Russell Court Complex on

's Lisburn Road. It was replaced by

Belfast CityBeat Q Radio (formerly known as Citybeat and Belfast CityBeat) is a Northern Irish radio station. It broadcasts to Greater Belfast on 96.7 MHz FM and on DAB Digital Radio across all of Northern Ireland. From 5 April 2007, Citybeat became availa ...

History

BCR was launched at 7:30 a.m. on 6 April 1990 with Rick Nugent who was the first

presenter A presenter is a person or organization responsible for the running of a public event, or someone who conveys information on media via a broadcasting outlet. Presenter may refer to: People * News presenter, person who presents news during a new ...

, the first song was "''Feet of a Dancer''" by Maira O'Connell. In 1992, in attempt to boost audience the station adopted a 'Classic Hits Format' and became known as Classic Trax BCR but by 1994 had reverted to 96.7 BCR. In 1995, the word 'community' in the title was replaced for 'city' in a further attempt to distance the station from its community roots which had failed to interest audience. During its final month on air the station simply became known as 96.7FM. BCR struggled to establish a listener base and was eventually relaunched as

in 1996. In contrast with its forerunner, Citybeat became a huge success and is now one of the most popular stations in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

Stuart Robinson Stuart Robinson (born 20 June 1979) is a Northern Ireland broadcaster with Cool FM, Downtown Radio and Downtown Country. He previously launched and became the longest running presenter to date on rival station Belfast CityBeat from 1996 before h ...

presented the final programme on BCR on 30 September 1996. The last track played was

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

and "''Sacrifice''". At midnight BCR changed to Citybeat. At the time of its demise, BCR was pulling in little over 30,000 listeners.

Former presenters

BCR presenters prior to the 1996 relaunch included Rick Nugent, Maurice Jay, Mary Johnston, Eddie McDermott Davy Cunningham,

, Owen Beers, Mal Reynolds, Noel Hyndman, Phil Doyle, Lawrence John, David Johnston, Lisa Flavelle, Olive Melville, Kenny Tosh, Paul Orr, Ricky K, Stephen Nolan, Denise Watson and Davy Cash.

External links

transdiffusion.org
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- General details on the station. Radio stations in Northern Ireland Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom Mass media in Belfast Radio stations established in 1990 1990 establishments in Northern Ireland Radio stations disestablished in 1996 1996 disestablishments in Northern Ireland {{NorthernIreland-media-stub