City Sheffield Slogan Your Music, Your Life Format Contemporary hit radio | Broadcast area South Yorkshire First air date 1 October 1974 | |
Frequency FM:
97.4 MHz (Sheffield)
102.9 MHz (Barnsley and Rotherham)
103.4 MHz (Doncaster)
RDS: HALLAM
DAB: 11C | ||
Hallam FM is an independent local radio station serving South Yorkshire from studios in Sheffield. The station is owned and operated by Bauer Radio and forms part of Bauer's City 1 network of stations.
Contents
History
The station started broadcasting on 1548 kHz/194m AM, 95.2 and 95.9 MHz FM under the name of Radio Hallam from its studios at Hartshead in Sheffield City Centre on 1 October 1974. The first presenter heard on air was ex-BBC Radio 1 DJ Johnny Moran - the first record he played was I've Got the Music in Me by Kiki Dee, which stuck after a minute and a half.
In 1987, Radio Hallam merged with neighbouring Yorkshire stations Pennine Radio in Bradford and Viking Radio in Hull to form the now-defunct Yorkshire Radio Network. Currently, Hallam FM shares some weekend programming and news material with Radio Aire in Leeds.
The frequencies were changed during the 1980s to 96.1 FM for Rotherham, 97.4 FM for Sheffield, 102.9 FM for Barnsley, and 103.4 for the rest of South Yorkshire. After a take-over of the parent company YRN by the Metro Radio Group, the AM frequency became Great Yorkshire Gold. The Rotherham transmitter was turned off in the 1990s as part of Hallam's licence agreement and is now used by Rother FM. Hallam also moved its studio facilities to 900 Herries Road, just minutes from Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough ground. The office space at Hartshead is now used by the Sheffield Star newspaper.
As the Metro Radio group was bought by EMAP, Hallam FM also became part of the Big City Network in Northern England.
In 2011 Bauer Media's Big City Network was replaced by the Place Portfolio containing the group's radio stations which are focused on specific areas of the country.
Unification of Bauer Place stations
As of 17 February 2014 the following changes were made to Bauer Place stations in England and Scotland:
Broadcasting
Hallam FM's main competitors are BBC Radio 1, Capital Yorkshire & Heart Yorkshire. Other local competing stations include BBC Radio Sheffield, Peak FM, Rother FM, Dearne FM and Trax FM.
The station broadcasts on analogue frequencies on 97.4 FM (Tapton Hill), 103.4 FM (Clifton, near the M18) and 102.9 FM (Ardsley) in Sheffield, Doncaster and Barnsley respectively. Almost the whole region is covered on 103.4 FM. The station also broadcasts via DAB on the Bauer Radio multiplex, and online.
Programming
Local programming is produced and broadcast from Hallam FM's Sheffield studios from 6am-2pm and 3-7pm on weekdays, 2-6pm on Saturdays and 12-4pm on Sundays.
Hallam FM also airs networked programming from sister station Key 103 in Manchester via the Bauer City 1 network. The Vodafone Big Top 40 is syndicated from Global Radio at its Capital studios in London for broadcast on over 145 commercial radio stations across the UK.
The station's local presenters include John Harrison, Liesl Soards and James Crookes (Big John at Breakfast), Richie Pearson (weekday daytime, Saturday afternoons), Simon Morykin (Home Run, Saturday breakfast) and Carl Spencer (Sunday afternoons).
News
Hallam FM broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays, from 7am to 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Headlines are broadcast on the half hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside sport and traffic bulletins.
National bulletins from Sky News Radio are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons from Key 103's Manchester newsroom.