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BBC GMR to change name
philengland
Posts: 8,183 Forum Member
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I've read else where that BBC GMR name is to go and the old name BBC RADIO MANCHESTER is to be re-born from 3rd April. On that day a new breakfast presenter Terry Christian, and in June, Shobna Gulati, former Coronation Street and Dinnerladies star will get a show on the station at the weekend!
Whats in a name anyway? its the presenters and the content of a station that makes it not the name!
Whats in a name anyway? its the presenters and the content of a station that makes it not the name!
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GMR or BBC Radio Machester did well to get Terry Christian for breakfast, after he was reporedly lined up for XFM when they were recruiting presnters.
Seems they are possibly going for a younger audience.
I guess it makes sense as there is now more willingness to call the whole of the Manchester area 'Manchester' rather than 'Greater Manchester'. The GMR jingles call GMR a 'Manchester' station.
I suggest BBC Manchester is more likely as a new name as BBC stations as GLR is now BBC London.
The abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils, such as the Greater Manchester Council, did not affect the geographical existence of the counties.
Therefore, Greater London and Greater Manchester still exist officially as ceremonial counties:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceremonial_counties_of_England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London
Sorry for continuing off-topic, but 'Greater London' has exsisted since 1965. It had no central political body between 1986 and 2000 but it was still a defined area including in terms of other regulatory and non-political bodies such as the emergency services
Turn out how they kept Terry and sign his up to present the Breakfast show was simple, offer him more money that Gcap could offer him, thus he went with the money
Perhaps that's why BBC local radio has no identity and poor listenership. I still don't know what BBC London now calls itself, despite living here.
I don't think any other BBC local stations have been messed about with quite so incompetently.
Just as well in Wigan we are classed as being in Greater Manchester. However the signal in this area is so weak its a joke. DAB is the same. Radio Lancashire Merseyside and Stoke are stronger signals.They are only interested in what goes on within Manchester anyway. So let it go back to Manchester.
It's because the BBC is launching a separate station for cheshire.
From a previous thread, this link gives the details:
6-9 Terry Christian
9-12 Heather Stott
12-2 Allan Beswick
2-5 TBA
5-? Eamonn O'Neal
When the old Radio Manchester became GMR you could almost hear the cost savings being made, lets hope this is a reverse.
I remember reading somewhere that Greater Manchester does not actually exist any more, sorry no source, although we still have Greater Manchester police and fire service. It's a bit of a mess, I've no idea which county, if any, I live in.
I also remember hearing a survey, probably on GMR, that said people from Salford, Bury, Wigan, Rochdale, Sale etc regard Manchester as their city centre and consider themselves as mancunians (there will be exceptions of course!). So the name 'Manchester' covers them.
The Greater Manchester COUNCIL got abolished in April 1986 but, as I said earlier, it made no difference to the actual official ceremonial counties. You continue to live in Greater Manchester to this day. You certainly didn't revert back to the old counties of Lancashire or Cheshire.
There is further confusion because the Royal Mail didn't recognise Greater Manchester, so in postal terms people remained in Lancashire or Cheshire. This was totally illogical as the Royal Mail acknowledged the existence of Merseyside. However, counties are no longer required on letters so this anomaly will hopefully die out.
The informal use of the term 'Manchester' to refer to the whole conurbation has grown significantly in recent years, in the same way as 'London' usually refers to the whole conurbation known as Greater London. Thus it would make sense to rename BBC GMR as BBC Manchester.
Have a look at the figures for BBC Local radio in Cumbria, Cornwall, Devon, Humberside, Norfolk, Suffolk, the channel islands and many other parts of England ( http://www.rajar.co.uk/INDEX2.CFM?menuid=9 ). They all have huge audiences and a great amount of public loyalty. A commercial station in those areas would kill for a 39% audience share, but the BBC locals have it.
You obviously do know because it is called 'BBC London' (and has been for a long long time). But as Inkblot said it is a particually diffrent case to the other stations (no other BBC local station has the competition that BBC London does for a start)
Admittedly the mixture of diffrent names it's recently aquired isn't great - 'BBC London 94.9' officially, 'BBC Radio London on Digital' according to their news jingle, and 'BBC R London' on Sky's EPG
It's a similar case in London, some parts of central London still have 'Kent', 'Surrey' and 'Middlesex' in their Royal Mail addresses despite not being in those counties since 1965
As for GMR I think it is a good decision to go back to Radio Manchester. They do need to sort out their coverage though. Perhaps a move of transmitter to Key's site at Saddleworth would do the trick. They seem to have better coverage particularly in east Manchester. I suppose the Holme Moss site was OK when Radio Manchester started and most people listened on MW, and was used for convenience as the BBC owned the site.
In the Saddleworth area you find some of the Oldham Metropolitan Borough signs have either paint poured all over them or 'Welcome to Yorkshire' stuck on over them, over the Oldham bit.
Likewise we had 'Countywatch' here, who took down all the Lancashire County Council 'Welcome to Lancashire' signs and placed them in various locations along what was the 'true' boundary on roadsides near to the River Mersey or Yorkshire.
Why do people do this, committing illegal action in admittedly a typically English way? because people still feel strongly about where they live, despite what the Government tells them.
The Government has added to the confusion - you have tradtional counties, ceremonial counties, postal counties, administrative counties, unitary authorities, metropolitan boroughs, city-regions...shall I go on?!
No wonder why people get annoyed!
A thousand years of county identities shouldn't be swept aside for Whitehall-created non-entities that lasted just twelve years in some cases!
I don't listen to GMR (not in that area)
but I assume they say things like
"Good Morning you're listening to BBC GMR"
that sounds fine
"Good Morning you're listening to BBC Radio Manchester"
Not quite as good
What will they do for RDS (only 8 characters and 4 are taken by "BBC_"
BBC_MCR
Yes, the shcedule is being completely overhawled. A lot of the specialist shows are being scrapped too, and a lot of offence has been caused as a result.