RWSfm 103.3
 | |
| Broadcast area | Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and surrounding area |
|---|---|
| Slogan | Local Radio for Bury and Beyond |
| Frequency |
103.3 MHz RDS: RWS103.3 |
| First air date | 13 August 2010 |
| Format | Mixture |
| Owner | Radio West Suffolk Limited |
| Website | www.rwsfm.co.uk |
RWSfm 103.3 is the community radio station for Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk and the surrounding areas offering music and local information. The station was awarded a community radio licence by Ofcom in 2010 and began broadcasting on 13 August 2010.[1] Community Radio stations in the UK are required to provide a social gain to the community they serve.[1] RWSfm 103.3 is one of a growing number of such community stations in the UK and currently broadcasts around 70 hours of live programming each week, including Bury's Big Breakfast with Julie MacLeod from 7am and Bury's Big Drive Home With Ryan McClean from 4pm.
History
The station started out as a hospital radio station, based at the West Suffolk Hospital, in 1974. It was started by the St Edmundsbury Lions Club and broadcast under the name of Lions Radio. It was run by Lions Club members and its youth group, the “Leos”. From inception until the mid-1980s it was compulsory to be a member of the Lions Club or Leos before being able to work on the radio station. This idea was eventually abandoned and it became possible for anyone interested to join. The Lions Club retained overall control of the station until 1991 when it was decided that in the interests of both the radio station and the Lions Club, ownership and control of the station should be handed over to the team of presenters who had already been running it for some time.
The station had been operating for too long, from a tiny room in what was then the Amenities block. A new purpose built studio complex within the Drummond Centre was commissioned with new equipment, and in June 1992, the then Station Manager, Peter Owen, went on air as the very first Presenter of the brand new hospital radio station, Radio West Suffolk. The station went from strength to strength and early in 1995, studio 2 come on stream, providing essential facilities for training, off-air production work and as a “continuity” studio.
In June 2000 Radio West Suffolk began broadcasting on 1350AM, at that time only the tenth Hospital Radio station to do this in the country. In April 2002 the station moved to even bigger studios in the main hospital “Friends Room”, and the decision was also taken to upgrade the stations broadcast equipment at this point. In January 2003, RWS commenced broadcasting 24 hours a day/seven days a week via the Myriad computer playout system, that was purchased with a grant from the National Lottery. In December 2007 the launch of live streaming on the internet via the RWS website took place taking the station to a new level, worldwide broadcasting.
From the summer of 2015, RWSfm 103.3 launched its own local news bulletin broadcasting local news stories at half past each hour 7 days a week, 7:30am - 6:30pm. This followed a warning from the broadcast regulator Ofcom who found the station in breach of failing to adhere to its key commitments and was put on notice subsequently.
See also
- CFCH-FM: Lions radio station in Canada
- Walsall Hospital Radio Lions radio station in West Midlands
References
- 1 2 "Ofcom Radio Broadcast Update August 2010". Ofcom. 7 September 2010. Retrieved 2011-02-18.