BBC Wiltshire Sound
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| City | Swindon |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Wiltshire |
| Slogan | A Passion for Wiltshire Life |
| Frequency | 103.5FM, 103.6FM, 104.3FM, 104.9FM, DAB (NOW Wiltshire) Freeview channel 721 |
| First air date | 4 April 1989 |
| Format | Local news, talk and music |
| Language(s) | English |
| Owner |
BBC Local Radio, BBC West/BBC South |
| Website | BBC Wiltshire |
BBC Wiltshire is the BBC Local Radio station and BBC Online service for the English county of Wiltshire. The station marked its 25th anniversary in 2014.
The station was launched as BBC Wiltshire Sound on 4 April 1989, with its main studios and headquarters in Prospect Place, Swindon. The station was not initially titled 'BBC Radio Wiltshire' because at that time its competitor GWR owned the copyright of 'Wiltshire' and 'Radio' in whatever combination.
The first presenter heard on air was Paul Chantler. The early logo of the station featured the White Horse at Westbury. BBC Wiltshire Sound had a reputation for solid local programming focusing on news and information.
From 1991 to 1994 the station's Programme Editor was Mike Gray, who left to found the successful Kiss 102 and Kiss 105 radio stations in Manchester and Yorkshire. Amongst Gray's innovations was giving 17-year-old Swindon student Mark Franklin his own programmes, which led to him being spotted and hired as a presenter on Top Of The Pops. Other specialist music presenters at the time included leading jazz singer Rosemary Squires.
One of BBC Wiltshire Sound's best-known features was the long-running soap opera Acrebury in which all the characters were voiced by presenter and actor Gerry Hughes, for which he was awarded a Guinness World Record. The city of Salisbury was given its own breakfast show for a time, due to its relative isolation in the south of the county. However both the Salisbury breakfast show and Acrebury were discontinued as part of a virtual relaunch of the station in 2000. Along with a number of presenter departures, the changes led to listener protests at the station's headquarters and unflattering headlines in the local newspaper.
The 2000 relaunch gave listeners in Swindon separate programmes from the rest of the county, introduced in response to the rapid growth of the town and its new unitary authority status. New presenters brought in for the Swindon programmes included Dan Chisholm and Peter Heaton-Jones.
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