BRMB in 1979 

2 September 2017 tbs.pm/13321

BRMB・19 February 1974
94.8MHz・261m・1152kHz

BRMB Radio (Birmingham Broadcasting Ltd), Radio House, PO BOX 555, BIRMINGHAM B6 4BX
Tel: 021-3594481/9

Directors A J Parkinson (Chairman); David Pinnell (Managing); G N Battman; Reg Davies (Sales); B Foyle; J F Howard; J C Mason; John Russell (Programme); E Swainson.

Officers David Wood (Chief Engineer); Tony Trethewey (Company Secretary); Brian Sheppard (News Editor); Andrew Peet (Publicity and Promotions Manager).

IBA Local Advisory Committee for Independent Local Radio in Birmingham F E Pardoe (Chairman); S G Bliss, JP; Cllr MAR Ellis; Mrs S Gaunt; Miss D Lawless; J Sever, MP; Mrs R Phillips; Harmit Singh Kalsi; Cllr J M Taylor; S Wright, JP.


News Editor Brian Sheppard interviews the Chancellor, Dennis Healey, for BRMB’s ‘Newsline on Sunday’ programme.

BRMB Radio has become as much a part of Birmingham life as Aston Villa, the Bull Ring and Spaghetti Junction. Nearly 1.4 million listeners now tune in to BRMB Radio during the week, to listen to a mixture of music, news and information 24 hours a day.

The prime aim of local radio, of which BRMB never loses sight, is to be local. The immense success of BRMB Radio can be attributed to a large extent to the relationship the station has with its listeners, always friendly, providing ‘community radio’ in every sense of the phrase. All tastes and interests are catered for from a lively breakfast show with fun phone-ins and competitions (not forgetting regular traffic reports and a major news bulletin at 8 a.m.) to a morning show aimed at housewives, including guests from showbusiness, talks on cookery and items of general interest.

The lunchtime magazine show brings together items of local and national interest: comment on the news; information on community subjects such as social security, tax, investments; and humour, music and entertainment.

An afternoon show features Tradio an immensely popular hour where listeners phone in to buy, sell or exchange goods between £5 and £100. Needless to say, the phone lines are always jammed!

As well as news on the hour 24 hours a day, there are major bulletins at 8 a.m., 12.30 p.m. and 6 p.m. including local, national and international news and sport.

The evening Talk-in is a very popular programme, with no shortage of phone-in contributors on subjects ranging from local housing problems to sport. There are always local experts and guests ready to answer listeners’ questions and advise them on many subjects.

For younger listeners the BRMB Radio Rock Show takes to the air every weekday evening between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Music continues throughout the night with a service to night-shift workers in Birmingham and the Midlands.

In becoming a part of the Midlands BRMB Radio also involves itself in the community off air. The station has sponsored a series of highly successful Youth Concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at Birmingham Town Hall. Held on eight Saturday mornings throughout the year, the concerts were recorded and subsequently broadcast on the station’s Sunday evening classical music show. The BRMB Radio Music Scholarship was held for the first time in 1978 and over 70 young musicians from all over the Midlands entered the competition. The final concert was held at the Birmingham School of Music with thirteen participants. The winner of the Junior Section from Hagley received £300 towards a musical instrument and in the Senior Section, Peter Bradley aged 21 from Kidderminster won a three-year Music Scholarship of £500 per annum and an instrument grant worth £500.

Successful community campaigns are also a feature of BRMB Radio involvement in problem areas within the Midlands. These range from a Job Link service for unemployed school leavers to Adult Literacy campaigns for inner city inhabitants. BRMB Radio also broadcasts items of community interest and public service announcements.

BRMB’s electronic newsroom gathers news round the clock and reporters cover every major story in the Midlands at such places as the National Exhibition Centre, British Leyland and many other major national companies based in the area. Five hours of sports coverage every Saturday afternoon means that people in Birmingham and the Midlands get sports news, results and comment quickly. There are live reports from major cricket and football matches in the area, and BRMB’s Sports Editor keeps the pot bubbling with the interclub rivalry inherent in Midland sport.

IBA Transmitters
VHF Transmitter
(FM with stereo capability)
Lichfield (NGR: SK 164 043)
94.8 MHz
Max erp 2 kW
Circular polarisation
Aerial ht. 1390 ft aod

MF Transmitter
(medium wave, mono only)
Langley Mill (NGR: SP 160 968)
261 m (1152 kHz)
Transmitter power 0.8 kW

Air Date: 19.2.74

VHF COVERAGE. The map shows the area within which most listeners should obtain satisfactory mono reception on VHF and, with adequate aerials, good stereo reception. Medium wave coverage is designed as far as possible to match VHF.

A Transdiffusion Presentation

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2 responses to this article

Nigel Stapley 3 September 2017 at 5:37 pm

I remember picking BRMB up in good-quailty FM at Brimfield in north Herefordshire in July 1980 when I was on a camping holiday there. Heard Roger Day again for the first time since he’d left Piccadilly a year or so beforehand. BRMB also used to have a good show late on weekday nights playing non-mainstream stuff.

(Brimfield, incidentally, is only a mile or so from the transmitter site at Woofferton. This meant that we could pick up a very strong Voice Of America signal on medium wave during daylight hours).

Pamela Moutoussi 28 April 2020 at 11:37 pm

I won a BRMB scholarship on piano. I also played on Barry Grayson’s Fun With music for schools.

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