City Newcastle First air date 24 June 1975 | Branding Your Music, Your Life Format CHR | |
Broadcast area County Durham
Tees Valley
North Yorkshire Frequency FM: 96.6 MHz
RDS: TFM
DAB: 11B | ||
TFM is a local radio station owned and operated by Bauer Radio as part of the City 1 network. It broadcasts to County Durham, Tees Valley and North Yorkshire from studios in Newcastle.
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The station currently broadcasts on 96.6 FM, DAB and online with DAB services provided by Bauer Digital. In April 2013, the station was merged with Metro Radio in Newcastle.
History
From the start of broadcasting in 1975, TFM (then known as Radio Tees) was owned by Sound Broadcasting (Teesside) Ltd and originally broadcast on 257 Medium Wave only, with a later launch on 95 VHF. After a government radio frequency re shuffle in the mid-1980s, the FM frequency was swapped with BBC Radio Cleveland and Radio Tees shifted to 96.6 FM in 1986. In 1988 Radio Tees was relaunched as TFM 96.6 after being taken over by Newcastle upon Tyne based Metro Radio Group. Shortly after this, a new Medium Wave station called Great North Radio (GNR) was launched after broadcasting rules meant TFM could not broadcast on both FM and Medium Wave.
In the late 1990s, TFM was taken over by EMAP along with the rest of the Metro Radio Group stations and integrated into EMAP's Big City Group. Shortly after this the station was re branded 96.6 TFM. In July 2007, TFM was rebranded TFM Radio and re adopted the slogan Today's Favourite Music which had first been used in the late 1990s.
In 2008, EMAP, a publicly listed company, was then bought by Bauer Media, a privately owned German based family business, the radio group was renamed Bauer Place. On 8 April 2013 the station reverted to TFM with the same slogan as Metro Radio Non-Stop Hits and More Music Variety. The RDS name was again changed to "TFM" the end of July 2013.
Merger with Metro Radio
As of Monday 8 April 2013, programming is shared with sister station Metro Radio in Newcastle. The TFM branding is retained along with separate news bulletins and advertising. Two journalists are based locally for newsgathering. The two stations were able to merge without consultation as the TFM licence area is located in one approved broadcast area (North East England).
The TFM studios in Thornaby were closed and remaining staff were moved to Newcastle. Most on-air staff were made redundant, including breakfast presenters Wayne Tunnicliffe and Amy McConnell, who were replaced by Metro Radio counterparts Steve Furnell and Karen Wight. Despite the merger, RAJAR reported an increase in weekly listener reach for TFM during the second quarter of 2013.
Programming
All programming on TFM - local, networked and syndicated - is shared with Metro Radio. The majority of the station's programming is produced from Newcastle. Other networked programming originates from 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 North East-based presenters include Steve Furnell and Karen Wight (weekday breakfast), Brian Moore (weekday daytimes), Dan Moylan (Home Run), Alan Robson (Night Owls), Chris Felton (Saturday afternoons) and Jonny Chambers (Sunday afternoons).
The station's network presenters include Paddy McGuinness, Darryl Morris, Dave Kelly, Jack Wood, Kelly Pegg, Marvin Humes, Simon Morykin, Wes Butters and So Wright.
News
TFM 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.