Free Radio Shropshire & Black Country
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| Broadcast area | Shropshire, Wolverhampton and Black Country |
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| Slogan | All the biggest hits - All day long |
| Frequency | 103.1 & 97.2 MHz RDS: Free SHR & Free WLV DAB Online |
| First air date | 12 April 1976 |
| Format | Contemporary |
| Audience share | 5% (August 2011, [2]) |
| ERP | 2.00 kW, 2.70 kW |
| Owner | Bauer Media Group |
| Website | planetradio |
Free Radio Shropshire & Black Country (previously known as Beacon Radio), is an Independent Local Radio station serving Shropshire and the Black Country in the West Midlands region of England. The station, owned and operated by the Bauer Media Group, broadcasts from studios in Oldbury as part of the Bauer City 1 network.
Beacon Radio began broadcasting to Wolverhampton and the Black Country from studios at 267 Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton on mediumwave 303 metres, and 97.2 MHz (from Turner's Hill) at 6 a.m. on 12 April 1976.
The first presenter was Mike Baker and the first song to be played was Eric Carmen's "Sunrise". The station originally set out to broadcast Beautiful Music including soul and country rock with a heavy bias towards American chart music with artists like Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles.
The station's original Managing Director was Jay Oliver, an American who, with his Programme Controller Allen McKenzie (a Scot/Canadian), was responsible for the Mid-Atlantic sound that flooded the West Midlands for three years (including a US-style jingle package).
As with other UK commercial stations at the time, the station's commitment to news and speech broadcasting under news editor Mike Stewart in its opening year, particularly in the evenings, was extensive; and its late-evening music programmes appeared to offer the presenters a freedom to enlighten, with a wide choice of recordings, as well as to entertain.
The station became successful, although facing competition from the already established commercial station, BRMB in nearby Birmingham. However, the station came in for criticism from the UK licensing authority (then, the Independent Broadcasting Authority) for being too American sounding and not wide ranging enough in its programming. Due to this, the senior management and output changed in mid-1979.
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