University Radio York (commonly known as URY) is a

University Radio Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...

station covering the campuses of the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

. It was the first legal independent radio station in the

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. Broadcasting from

Vanbrugh College Vanbrugh College is one of the eleven colleges of the University of York. History It was opened in 1967 and is named after Sir John Vanbrugh, designer of Castle Howard. In 2013 'Green Vanbrugh' was established. This group was created to incr ...

on the University's west campus, URY has won a number of awards from various organisations including the

Student Radio Association The Student Radio Association (SRA) is a representative body which supports and acts on behalf of the UK student radio community, comprising radio stations that are associated with or linked to a place of education. It is a not-for-profit organ ...

of which it is a member.

About

Like most student radio stations, University Radio York is run entirely by volunteers, all students studying at the University of York. The station broadcasts 24 hours a day. Most programming is created during term time, outside of which broadcasting falls to a sustainer service. The schedule is made up of a variety of shows including entertainment, news, speech, drama and music. With a new intake of students each academic year, the station's output can change significantly.

History

In 1967, Mike Greasley then a student of the university, obtained a testing and development license for "Radio Heslington". The other limitations were strategically overcome and in 1969 the name Radio York not being available, University Radio York was licensed, becoming the first station independent of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

to broadcast legally in the UK. The station launch was a joint show with BBC local radio station and featured a guest broadcast by DJ

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from ...

. The station switched from its original 999 kHz induction loop system to a LPAM licence in 1999, which broadcast across both of The University of York's Heslington West and Heslington East campuses on 1350 AM. The station has also conducted several RSL FM broadcasts across the whole of the city, the last of these being in 2008. Initially the station's purpose was to broadcast current affairs, and programmes of general interest in the arts and sciences as well as popular music, however the output is now mainly entertainment-based, with additional specialist arts and speech programming. News was provided by The Student Broadcast Network until its demise however, the station's long-running news programme ''URY Newshour'' (previously ''York 60'' and ''York Report'') at 6pm is still a pivotal part of the weekly schedule. In 2008, URY broadcast 12 hours of US Presidential Election coverage. The ''URY Marathon'' was broadcast in March 2013 for 40 hours in aid of

Macmillan Cancer Support Macmillan Cancer Support is one of the largest British charities and provides specialist health care, information and financial support to people affected by cancer. It also looks at the social, emotional and practical impact cancer can have, an ...

. At the time of broadcast, it was URY's longest show ever. The two presenters, William Chalk and Tom Edwards, and one newsreader, Ben Bason, broadcast without sleep for the duration, raising over £1,800. In autumn 2013, the Chief Engineer and Assistant Chief Engineers of the time (Stephen Clarke, Thomas Haines and Andrew Durant) started a project to completely overhaul the internal audio systems of URY. The main aim of this was to remove the 'URY hum' – a low level buzz starting at 50 Hz with subsequent harmonics which filled the entire audio range. Following Alumni grant and crowd funding, and with the support of Focusrite Audio Engineering, the team was able to upgrade all studio interconnects to be digital, using Focusrite's RedNet system on the Audio Over IP protocol, Dante. In September 2015, URY was able to begin broadcasting a 'hum-less' stream. The project was nominated for a Student Radio Award in October 2016. URY's longest show at the time, ''URY 101'', was broadcast in June 2016 for 101 hours in aid of

Yorkshire Cancer Research Yorkshire Cancer Research is an English registered charity. Founded in 1925, Yorkshire Cancer Research has supported projects across the county of Yorkshire for 100 years, mainly in the county's regional universities and teaching hospitals, ...

. The show was presented by Joe Willis, Naomi Gildert and Caterina Soave, and produced by Adam Brain, Peter Rogers, Stephen Clarke and Andrew Durant. They each took shifts to ensure the broadcast continued, with the presenters getting three 7 hour sleeps over the 4 days and the producers working for 6 hours each. The entire show was done as an Outside Broadcast, from Greg's Place on the

campus. The total raised was £1710 (including £1,188.16 donated online), and the show included live music, a broadcast from the campus lake and a whole host of games and challenges. It was completed as part of

's '100 for £100' campaign. In 2018, URY were awarded a grant by the University of York of £40,000 to upgrade their studios. This included brand new audio equipment, a total interior re-design, and fancy red/blue colour schemes to match. The 40K project was completed in Christmas 2019. In September 2021, URY started broadcasting on 88.3 MHz FM as part of

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

's Limited Coverage FM trial. The next year, in September 2022, URY was awarded a limited license to continue broadcasting on 88.3 FM until 31 August 2027. Transmissions on 1350 kHz AM ceased on 25 June 2023 following 135 hours of consecutive broadcast, URY's longest show to date. In June 2024, URY was issued a Community Radio License to broadcast on DAB across the city of York.

Achievements and awards

Founding - 2009

In 1988, URY won a

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...

/ NASB award in News and Current Affairs for its coverage of the

1987 UK general election The 1987 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive general election victory for the Conservative Party, who won a majority of 102 se ...

in York and surrounding constituencies despite one of their correspondents,

Peter Gordon (radio presenter) Eagle Radio was an Independent Local Radio station in the Surrey and North East Hampshire area of England. Based in Guildford in the Guildford College campus, Eagle Radio was part of the UKRD Group of radio stations. Launch Peter Gordon launched ...

being unwell at one of the counts. The election in that constituency was notable due to 2 recounts taking place over the six and a half hours. URY won the

/ BBC Radio 1 Student Radio Station of the Year award for the first time in its history in 2005. This was also the first time the station had even been nominated for a Student Radio Award. URY's Programme Controller at the time, Matt Wareham, was also nominated for the Best Station Sound category in the same year, but did not receive an award. As part of the prize for winning Student Radio Station of the Year, on 29 May 2006 URY was broadcast on

, taking over the 4 to 7am Early Breakfast slot usually occupied by

JK and Joel Jason King (né Griffiths) and Joel Ross (né Hogg), known professionally as JK and Joel, were a radio presenting duo, best known for hosting the official UK chart on BBC Radio 1 between 2005 and 2007 and presented the CBBC shows '' Hider in ...

. The show was broadcast nationally on 97–99 FM and DAB, across the USA on

Sirius Satellite Radio Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio ( SDARS) service that operated in the United States and Canada. Sirius launched in 2002, and primarily competed with XM Satellite Radio, until the two services merged in 2008 to form Sirius XM. Li ...

and online through the

website. It was also made available by both URY and BBC Radio 1 on their websites. At the same awards in 2008, Rob Watts won bronze for best male presenter, URY Breakfast with Rob Watts and Steve Gardner won bronze for best entertainment programme, Rob Watts interviewing

Greg Dyke Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing " t ...

won gold for best interview and The Technical Difficulties won the

Kevin Greening Kevin Greening (30 December 1962 – 29 December 2007) was a British radio presenter, who co-hosted '' Radio 1 Breakfast'' on BBC Radio 1 with Zoe Ball from 13 October 1997 to 25 September 1998. Early career Kevin Greening grew up in Bristol ...

Creativity Award. At the

Student Radio Awards The Student Radio Association (SRA) is a representative body which supports and acts on behalf of the UK student radio community, comprising radio stations that are associated with or linked to a place of education. It is a not-for-profit orga ...

in 2009, The Technical Difficulties won bronze for best entertainment programme, Joshua Chambers' interview: "

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Binyam Mohamed Binyam Ahmed Mohamed (, , born 24 July 1978), also referred to as Benjamin Mohammed, Benyam Mohammed or Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi, is an Ethiopian national and United Kingdom resident, who was detained as a suspected enemy combatant by the US Go ...

" won gold for best interview and York Report won gold for best journalistic programming.

2010s

2010 was another successful year for URY at the

, where they picked up two accolades. For the second year running, the URY News Team were award-winning by getting Silver for Best Journalistic Programming and also CoCo Cole managed to win the Silver Best Female award. In 2011 URY received six nominations at the Student Radio Awards. Four of these were successful: The Chalk and Charles Show won Gold Best Entertainment Show, James Bugg's The More Beautiful Game won Bronze Best Speech. On top of this, URY picked up Silver Best Station and The Kevin Greening Award for Tess Humphrey's Prince of Humberside. In the 2012

, URY received seven nominations; for Best Station, Best Female, Best Specialist Music Programming, Best Journalistic Programming, Best Technical Achievement, Best Speech Programming and Best Interview. For the second year in a row, URY won Silver Best Station behind URN. At the 2013

, URY received nine nominations, with six awards being won on the night – Silver Best Technical Achievement, Gold and Silver awards for Best Speech Programming, with 'Trimble' also being awarded a silver award in the Kevin Greening category, a Bronze Best Entertainment award for 'The Harry Whittaker Show', and a Silver Newcomer award for Harry Whittaker. URY at the 2014

won Silver Best Journalistic Programming, for the News and Sports teams special programme, 'River Safety: York's Rising Problems'. The one-hour special, presented by former Head of News and Sport Ben Bason and produced by News Editors George Lane and Carys Brain, discussed the issue of river safety in York after a number of fatalities in 2014. At the 2015 I Love Student Radio Awards, URY were shortlisted for 4 awards, 2 in Best Audience Initiative for Freshers 2014 and YorkNext, Best Outreach Project for Alex and Tom: Getting gold for Charity and Outstanding Contribution to Student Radio for Jay Glover. The Freshers 2014 marketing and OB setup ended up winning the overall prize for Best Audience Initiative. In 2015, URY won 5 SRA Awards at the 20th Anniversary Awards ceremony – Bronze Best Male (Harry Whittaker), Gold Best Entertainment (The Harry Whittaker Show), Silver Best Event (Elections Results Night 2015), Gold Best Newcomer (Rebecca Saw) and Silver Best Technical Achievement (Roses Mini-OB Kits). The station was also nominated for Best Sports with the York Sport Report. URY Alumni Ben Bason also won Silver Best Entertainment for his show of Forge Radio. Continuing their successful year, URY were also shortlisted for the

Radio Academy The Radio Academy is a registered charity dedicated to "the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production". It was formed in 1983 and is run via a board of trustees, with a chair and a deputy chai ...

Yorkshire "Station of the Year". 2016 saw URY receive 7 nominations for the

. These were: Best Live Event or Outside Broadcast, for the 101 Hour Charity Broadcast; Best Technical Achievement, for 'Beat the Buzz'; Best Speech Programming, for After the Tone; Best Entertainment Programme, URY:PM with K-Spence; Best Multiplatform Initiative, URY Music; Best Station Branding; Best Female, Kat Spencer. Of these, 2 awards were won: 'Beat the Buzz' received Gold in the Best Technical Achievement category, and URY received Bronze for Best Station Branding (Alex Light and Nick Upton). Additionally, Biscuit News won Bronze in the Kevin Greening Award for Creativity. In 2017 URY won four awards out of five nominations at the

. Joshua Kerr was nominated for the Best Male category, and the station's Visualisation project was nominated for Best Technical Achievement, for which it won Bronze. Kat Spencer took home Gold in Best Entertainment Programme for 'URY:PM – with K-Spence', and URY received two medals in the Best Newcomer category, with Matt Stratford winning the Silver award and Will Batchelor going home with the Gold. In 2018, URY won two gold and two silver awards. The URSPY APP won Gold Best Technical Achievement, Gold Best Multiplatform Initiative and the Silver Kevin Greening Creativity Award whilst Joel Mitchell won Silver for Best Male. In 2019, URY won three gold and two silver awards at the

. The golds were Best Chart Show, Best Newcomer (Kathy Morrall) and Best Female (Hannah Sackville-Bryant). The silvers awarded to URY were for Best Technical (Matt Stratford) and Best Entertainment Program (Joel Mitchell).

2020s

In 2020, URY won three gold, three silver and one bronze awards at the

. The golds were Best Student Radio Station, Best Technical Achievement (WebStudio) and Best Chart Show. In 2021, URY won two gold and four bronze awards at the

. The golds were Best Sports Programming (Roses) and Best Chart Show. URY was also named the third Best Student Radio Station by winning bronze in that category.

References

External links

* http://ury.org.uk {{coord, 53.9482, -1.054, display=title Radio stations in Yorkshire Student radio in the United Kingdom Mass media in York Clubs and societies of the University of York