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

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds, 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 populat ...

. 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 call ...

, 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 Stirlin ...

, which was ultimately awarded to Drake Circus Shopping Centre 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 L ...

(between St Helens and

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the 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 north-east and Warrington t ...

), Hope Mountain (between Buckley 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 masts and towers, radio and observation tower in Liverpool, England, built in 1969 and opened by Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II. It was designed by James A. Roberts Associates in B ...

(on top of Radio City's studios). In 2018, BBC Radio Merseyside launched on the BBC Sounds 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. This was part of a new plan by BBC Local Radio to stop using AM frequencies across all of its stations. In addition, BBC Radio Merseyside also broadcasts on Freeview 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 ...

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 BBC's local radio station serving Greater Manchester. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at MediaCityUK in Salford Quays. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience o ...

on Saturday and Sunday nights. During the station's downtime, BBC Radio Merseyside simulcasts overnight programming from BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio London.

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 ( LBC) *

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 * 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, ...

(

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 b ...

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 Rad ...

/ deceased) * Brian Jacques * Alan Parry (

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 * 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