City | Middlesbrough |
---|---|
Broadcast area | Teesside, County Durham, North Yorkshire |
Slogan | North Yorkshire, County Durham, Tees Valley. Proud Of Where We Live |
Frequency |
FM: 95.0, 95.8, MHz DAB: 11B RDS: BBCTEES |
First air date | 31 December 1970 |
Format | Mainly local news and talk |
Language(s) | English |
Former callsigns | Radio Teesside Radio Cleveland |
Owner |
BBC Local Radio, BBC North East and Cumbria |
Website | Website |
BBC Tees is the BBC Local Radio service for the English areas of Teesside, County Durham and some of North Yorkshire. It broadcasts from its studios in Middlesbrough on 95.0 (Bilsdale West Moor) and 95.8 (Whitby) FM.
The station was originally launched as Radio Teesside at 6 pm on 31 December 1970 with a local news programme entitled Teesside Tonight, presented by George Lambelle, who later won five major programming awards.
On 1 April 1974 the station became known as Radio Cleveland, when the county of Cleveland was formed. The station moved to new offices in 1983. On 1 April 1996, the county of Cleveland split into , Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, and Redcar and Cleveland. These four boroughs along with nearby Darlington now form the governmental sub-region of Tees Valley. Also included in the main coverage area is the Army's main garrison at Catterick Garrison, which is also included in the transmission area of Radio York on 104.3 FM.
On Saturday 11 August 2007 the station rebranded itself as BBC Tees, due to its broadcasting area no longer being associated with the name Cleveland. The BBC Tees brand was already associated with its 'Where I Live' website and 'BBC Bus', which have both since been discontinued.
The signal on 95 FM is relatively strong and comes from the 900-foot Bilsdale transmitter on the North York Moors, which transmits the main television signals for Teesside and North Yorkshire, and national radio frequencies, as well as the commercial stations TFM, 100-102 Real Radio and Capital FM on 106.4 FM. A relay transmitter covering the town of Whitby broadcasts on 95.8 FM. The DAB signals come from the Bauer 11B multiplex at Eston Nab (near the A174 road) and Brusselton (near Shildon between the A68 and A6072).