DNN was a rolling news service on Digital Radio in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

Background

It was revolutionary for the British radio market as it was the first regional network of rolling news stations. Set up in 2001, the network of five stations was available in the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and the North West,

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

and the North East,

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

and Wales/West,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

and the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

and from 2003 in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

and

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

. Sue Owen was the stations launch director, with Dave Richards as her Deputy Editor. Richards took on her role upon her departure for

BBC Radio Stoke BBC Radio Stoke is the BBC's local radio station serving Staffordshire and South Cheshire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, Freeview and via BBC Sounds from studios in the Hanley area of Stoke-on-Trent. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekl ...

just six months after the stations launched. This followed a culling of staff through redundancy. The stations ran on a 20-minute menu of news, sport, travel, business and showbiz. It was a truly dip in service for news junkies, hence the strap: ''The News you Want, When you Want it!'' DNN also acted as a news bulletin provider to around 30 stations across the UK offering regional news,

sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

and travel. It was thought it would go on to be a regional rival to IRN. DNN was set up by Capital (

GCap Media GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed in May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. ...

Chrysalis Radio Global Media & Entertainment Limited, trading as Global, is a British media company formed in 2007. It is the owner of the largest commercial radio company in Europe having expanded through a number of historical acquisitions, including Chrysa ...

and GMG as part of the bid to win regional DAB licenses from the Radio Authority, who later became

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 ...

. Regulations have always demanded news and local content on new stations and DNN was seen as the carrot to win the new multiplex licenses. DNN's target audience was male and female, 35 to 55 and ABC1. After 5 years of operation and little investment DNN was absorbed into

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 ...

at the end of 2006 by the then sole owner Chrysalis. and LBC's London talk station was heard on the MXR regional multiplexes. A reduced digital news bulletin service was moved out of DNN's Heart Birmingham home and into Chrysalis London, which subsequently became

Global Radio Global Media & Entertainment Limited, trading as Global, is a British media company formed in 2007. It is the owner of the largest commercial radio company in Europe having expanded through a number of historical acquisitions, including Chrysa ...

. However, in December 2008, the DAB regional news bulletins and travel reports ceased. LBC and Heart Digital are now a straight relay of the news bulletins and output of the London FM stations, and The Arrow is now a non-stop, DJ-free music station,

Station Sound

DNN's station sound was developed by QSonic and an example of the jingle package is available on sound cloud. https://soundcloud.com/drewfoolery/digital-news-network-dnn

Presenters

* Bill Steel * Anita Clements * John Collins * Dave Richards * Gareth Setter * Amy Armstrong * James Rea * Sue Owen * Caroline Beavon * Dave McMullan * Carl Edwards (ITV News) * Lisa Dowd (Sky News) * Chris Blakemore (BBC WM)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dnn (Radio) News and talk radio stations in the United Kingdom Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom Former British radio networks Radio stations established in 2001

Background

Station Sound

Presenters

See also

References