Huntingdon Community Radio is a community

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 ...

operating from studios in

Huntingdonshire Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popul ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It was awarded a broadcast licence by

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 ...

in 2009, and has been broadcasting on 104 FM across

and online since April 2011."Huntingdon’s new radio station announces FM frequency"
''

Eastern Daily Press The ''Eastern Daily Press'' (''EDP'') is a regional newspaper covering Norfolk, northern parts of Suffolk and eastern Cambridgeshire, and is published daily in Norwich, UK. Founded in 1870 as a broadsheet called the ''Eastern Counties Daily ...

'', 18 March 2011.

History

HCR started life in 1995 when a group of volunteers opened a temporary studio above Bookmakers Braybrook Racing in Huntingdon. Obtaining a

Restricted Service Licence A UK Restricted Service Licence (often called an RSL), is typically granted to radio stations and television stations broadcasting within the UK to serve a local community or a special event. Licences are granted by the broadcasting authority Ofc ...

, HCR initially went on air for three weeks. Following the initial broadcast, a partnership was established with the community college in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. The purpose of the partnership was to allow sixth form students to practice and develop an interest in broadcast media. This partnership, along with purpose built studios, remained extant for several years before the station moved to new studios at RAF Wyton. The volunteer committee lobbied Ofcom for the allocation of a full-time community licence for Huntingdon. Following a successful bid, HCR was awarded a full-time licence in 2009. Following the award of the licence, the station became known as HCR104fm, using the previous name as a byline. It went on air permanently in May 2011. The station has national news each hour from SKY and local news in association with The Hunts Post each day. The station is funded through a mix of grants, advertising and sponsorship.

Programming

Programming on the station runs 24 hours a day. Each weekday evening at 7pm, the station airs a community-based interview show, ''Over to You''. A radio soap opera, ''Huntsford'', aired on the station in 2010 before being relaunched in 2017."Popular radio soap opera coming back to the airwaves"
''The Hunts Post'', 15 November 2016.

References

External links

* {{coord, 52.329098, -0.180999, display=title Community radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio stations in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Huntingdon