City Wigan First air date 1 April 1997 | Frequency 102.4 MHz Format Adult Contemporary | |
Broadcast area Metropolitan Borough of Wigan & Metropolitan Borough of St Helens Slogan No.1 for Wigan and St. Helens | ||
Wish FM is a British Independent Local Radio that serves the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester and the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside. The station takes its name from the initials WIgan and St Helens.
Contents
The station broadcasts on 102.4 FM from a transmitter powered by a wind-up generator at Billinge Hill on the border of Wigan and St. Helens and has been on air since 1 April 1997.
It was the first licence applied for and won by Tony Dewhurst and Jeff Graham of the recently formed Independent Radio Group.
The studios are located in the Orrell district of Wigan, but in early 2007, the station's owners approached UK media regulator Ofcom to ask permission to move the station's base to Newton Le Willows, Merseyside, as part of a plan to share a single building with two other stations from the UTV Radio group: Tower FM and Wire FM. However, after selling-off Stockport-based Imagine FM, UTV Media (now Wireless Group) decided to keep Wish FM in Orrell, and moved Wire FM and Tower FM into the Orrell base.
Programming
Local programming is produced and broadcast from Wish FM's Orrell studios from 6am-7pm on weekdays, 6am-6pm on Saturdays and 8am-12pm on Sundays with additional programming for local sports coverage.
Networked programming originates from Wireless Group's Signal Radio studios in Stoke-on-Trent. The Vodafone Big Top 40 is produced by Global Radio at its Capital studios in London for broadcast on 145 commercial radio stations in the UK.
The station's local presenters include Chris Milow (Wish FM Breakfast with Chris Milow) and Marc Henry (Wish FM's Home Run). and former Big Brother 9 housemate, local lad Luke Marsden co-presents Saturday morning breakfast.
News and Sport
Wish FM broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 6pm on weekdays, from 8am to 1pm on Saturdays and from 8am to 12pm on Sundays. Headlines are broadcast on the half-hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows. The station also simulcasts hourly Sky News Radio bulletins at all other times.
Wish FM also covers sport heavily with full, live match commentaries on every Wigan Athletic league game and Wigan Warriors and St Helens R.F.C. matches in the Super League.