Real Radio North West

105.4 Real Radio

Broadcast area	North West England
Frequency	105.4 MHz / DAB: 12C (MXR Digital North West)
First air date	8 September 1998 (As Century FM)
Format	Hot AC
Audience share	4.10% (December 2011, [1])
Owner	GMG Radio
Website	realradionorthwest.co.uk

105.4 Real Radio is an independent local radio station controlled by GMG Radio. It is the flagship station of the Real Radio network and has a regional license to broadcast to North West England. The station was part of the Century Network for over ten years until it was rebranded in 2009.

The station was launched in 1998 as Century Radio, part of Border Radio Holding's Century Network. Capital Radio Group took over the station in 2000, and GCap Media in 2005. GMG Radio acquired the Century stations in 2006, rebranding them in 2009 to conform to the branding and network programming of the other stations in the Real Radio network.

Launch as Century 105.4

The station was born as Century Radio in 1998 as the second Century station in the UK, the first being Gateshead-based 100-102 Century Radio. Owned by Border Television, the station was set up by managing director John Myers, who had also established the north east station. Like the first station, Myers also presented the breakfast show under the pseudonym Morgan.

The station's launch was the subject of an episode of a BBC Two fly-on-the-wall documentary Trouble at the Top, mainly following Myers. The episode, entitled "Degsy Rides Again", showed Myers' attempts to train lunchtime phone-in host Derek Hatton, a controversial local ex-politician who had never before presented on radio. Myers was not confident enough in Hatton for him to appear on pre-launch publicity, although his show "The Degsy Debate" performed well at the first RAJAR. Also amongst its launch presenters was controversial shock jock Scottie McClue.^[1]

The documentary also covered the station's acquisition of exclusive commentary rights for Manchester United F.C.'s games. They remained United's official radio partner for almost a decade until selling the rights to Xfm Manchester for the 2007–08 season.

Myers left the group to head GMG Radio, overseeing the launch of the similar Real Radio brand. Capital Radio bought the Century network, and was subsequently acquired by GCap Media. GMG Radio acquired the Century stations in October 2006, reuniting Myers and John Simons (programme director on the original Gateshead station) with the brand.^[2]

Present

The station operates from studios in Laser House, an office-building in Salford Quays. Also housed in this building are Real Radio's sister stations 100.4 Smooth Radio and 106.1 Real Radio XS. The programming team is led by Programme Director Dave Shearer.

As well as 13 hours of local output on weekdays, 12 hours on Saturdays & 10 hours on Sundays, the station produces and broadcasts networked programming for four other Real Radio stations in the North East of England, Yorkshire, Wales and Central Scotland.

The station was also simulcast on Channel M at various times of the day until its closure in 2012. Originally, the station was used as a soundtrack to its breakfast traffic cameras programme which provided live footage from Manchester's traffic cameras. However, when the traffic camera footage programme ended, the simulcast hours were expanded and the in-vision became a holding slide of the station logo with two lines of scrolling text containing news and sports headlines and the song that the station is currently playing.

On Monday 19 December 2011, the station announced that its weekday breakfast presenters David Ditchfield and Paul Salt (known on air as 'Ditchy and Salty') would be dropped from their peak time slot and moved to networked overnight slots with their last breakfast show airing on Friday 23 December 2011.^[3] Two days later, the station announced their replacements as ex-Drivetime co-host Lorna Bancroft, weekend & overnight presenter Oli Kemp and breakfast co-presenter Debbie Ousbey, ^[4] who began presenting weekday breakfast from January 2012.

A week after the new programme's launch, the station announced that BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Sam Walker would become a breakfast presenter from 2 April 2012.^[5] Walker now co-presents a relaunched breakfast show alongside Lorna Bancroft, with Oli Kemp returning to weekday overnight & weekend breakfast shows and Debbie Ousbey leaving the station.

Programming

Past presenters

News and sport

Real Radio runs a seven-day North West news service. On weekdays, bulletins are broadcast on the hour between 6am and 6pm with headlines on the half-hour between 6am & 9am and 4pm & 6pm. Sports updates are broadcast during these during half hourly bulletins at breakfast and drivetime. At weekends, bulletins are broadcast on the hour between 7am and 2pm.

In the evenings and overnight between 8pm and 5am on weekdays, and between 3pm and 6am on weekends, the stations carry Sky News Radio bulletins provided by IRN in London.

As Century, the station won three awards in the 2008 IRN Awards, including for Best Scoop, in which they managed to obtain an interview from a witness who saw the shooting of Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones.

References

External links

• Official website

v t e Guardian Media Group Subsidiaries and divisions GMG Radio Real Radio North East · North West · Scotland · Wales · Yorkshire Real Radio XS 96.3 Scotland · 106.1 Manchester · Digital Smooth Radio Smooth Radio · 105.2 Smooth Radio Other Jazz FM (licensed to Jazz FM Investments Ltd) Newspapers The Guardian · The Guardian Weekly · The Observer Other Channel M · GMG Property Services · guardian.co.uk Joint ventures and shareholdings Development Hell (29.5%) · EMAP (50%) · Seven Publishing (41.9%) · Trader Media Group (50%) Other C. P. Scott · Guardian Student Media Award · Scott Trust · John Edward Taylor Category

Coordinates: 53°28′10″N 2°17′22″W / 53.4695°N 2.2895°W / 53.4695; -2.2895