Broadcast area Rutland & Stamford First air date 13 December 1998 Owner Lincs FM Group | Frequency FM: 97.4, 107.2 MHz Format Contemporary | |
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Sister stations Compass FM
Dearne FM
KCFM
Lincs FM
Ridings FM
Rother FM
Trax FM | ||
Rutland Radio is an Independent Local Radio station which started broadcasting on 13th December 1998 from Knights Yard, Gaol Street (off Melton Road) in Oakham to Rutland on 107.2FM (Manton) and Stamford on 97.4FM (East Casterton, which also carries NOW Peterborough).
Contents
Lincs FM ownership
The station has been owned by the Lincs FM Group in Lincoln since launch. It has numerous sister stations, sharing programming with certain 'siblings'.
Licence
It received the licence from the Radio Authority to broadcast to Rutland on 4 June 1998 (the day licences were awarded to the two nearby stations that have now become Oak FM). The group of licences had been advertised en-masse, and two stations were proposed for the area. It turned out to be initially three.
Although eight stations had applied for the licence by 3 February 1998, only Rutland Radio had submitted proposals for Rutland - the other seven were for Leicestershire. Rutland had only come back into existence a year before the station commenced.
The station has tried in the past to find a slot on a local DAB multiplex, but they would need to be on two as Rutland is covered by the Leicestershire licence and Stamford by the Peterborough licence.
Broadcasting content
The station is officially aimed at people aged between 25 and 54. There is a half-hour farming programme from 7am on Sunday, at the same time and presenter as Lincs FM. Rutland's weather forecasts were provided by MOD meteorologists at Kendrew Barracks. There are two weekly podcasts - the Best Bits and one for the farming programme.
The station's local community involvement is both for Oakham, Uppingham and Stamford. Much of the advertising is piggy-backed on Lincs FM content; Springfields shopping outlet in Spalding makes a frequent appearance in adverts and sponsorship. Rutland has the highest average house-prices in the East Midlands, so it has advertiser-friendly demographics. Within its small broadcast area are three well-known public schools: Oakham School, Uppingham School and Stamford School (with Stamford High School).
In early 2010 the station dropped the "Hits & Memories" format it had taken from launch in favour of a new "The Music You Love" format. The format focuses more on new adult contemporary, easy-listening and oldies music rather than current chart pop and classic hits. Following a group wide rebrand in early 2013, all taglines including "Hits & Memories" and "The Music You Love" were dropped, replaced by "The difference is...". This manifests itself on air in station idents proclaiming "the difference is the music". Rutland Radio continues to carry a separate music log (along with Compass and Ridings) from the bulk of Lincs FM stations, but carries "the difference is..." slogan.
It is the only station to actually be local to the area, with closest rivals Heart 102.7 in Peterborough (formerly Hereward FM) taking most programmes from London, and the rest with Heart 103 in Cambridge. However, much of the stations output is recorded by presenters at sister stations in the group before airing, with two live shows, Rob Persani between 0600-1100 and Joseph Begley between 1400-1800.
Awards
In December 2009 it won the Sony Radio Academy Nations & Regions Award for the East Midlands. It also won this in 2008, and this award is for stations with a TSA (total survey area) of under 300,000. Coincidentally, Rob Persani is Chairman of the East Midlands branch of the Radio Academy. The station was also nominated at the 2009 Arqiva Commercial Radio awards for station of the year (TSA >300,000), which was a shortlist of only 3 stations in the whole UK.