Radio Pennine

Pennine Radio was the original name for what is now The Pulse of West Yorkshire in Bradford, the independent local radio station for West Yorkshire . It was launched on September 16, 1975.

It was the brainchild of Steve Harris and Terry Bate, the latter being a founder member of Metro Radio in Newcastle and Radio Trent in Nottingham .

The first presenter was Steve Merike and the first record he played was Honeybus 'I Can't Let Maggie Go' . Other original presenters on "Pennine 235" were Peter Levy ., Austin Mitchell, Stewart Francis, Roger Kirk, Julius K. Scragg, Liz Allen, Dorothy Box, Mike Smith, Gerald Harper, Stewart Coxhead and Mike Hurley http://hurleyburley.com/mike.htm] The original news department included the first News Editor Tony Cartledge (went to Metro), Steve Harris (Deputy News Editor), Mike Smith (Sports Editor) and reporters Martin Campbell (later a senior figure at Ofcom) Peter Milburn (later managing director of Red Dragon Radio in South Wales), Alan Brook, Helen Maskill, Nigel Baker (went to Reuters), Paul Cooke, who also presented 'The Pennine Soul Express' (went to Capital Radio) and Peter Judge. Later in the 70's, Jim McVicar, Vyvyan Mackeson (went to YTV), Barbara Groom (went to LBC and now at the National Broadcasting School), Tim Wyatt, Gerry Radcliffe, Will Venters (went to YTV) and Christa Ackroyd (a presenter on Yorkshire Television's Calendar and BBC 1's BBC Look North), . Other Pennine people from that early era included Frazer Hines, Ian Scott formally from Piccadilly Radio (late show '78/79) and went on to broadcast under his real name Ian Hutchinson (Hutch) on BBC Radio Jersey, Brian McSharry, Paul Kaye, Mike Boothroyd, Venessa Hill, Paul Owens, Dave Gregory, Terry Davies (presented breakfast around the turn of the 80s and left for Essex Radio), Paul Fairburn (took over on breakfast from Terry and continued until leaving for (Red Rose), Nick Risby (went to Radio Broadland), Bob Preedy (later Radio Hallam, Aire, Tees, Magic 828, BBC Leeds, Humberside, York, YTV continuity announcer) Alan Ross (went to CBC which later became Red Dragon FM) but returned in summer '86 for afternoons and then breakfast). Richard Horsman spent 20 years at Pennine, working as 'features producer', host of 'Chips' the UK's first radio programme for computer enthusiasts and five years as News Editor in the 1990s. He is now Associate Principle Lecturer at the Centre for Journalism Leeds Trinity University College.

Roger Kirk presented on Pennine from day one. He presented various programmes on the station, but he will probably best be remembered for his late show and Solid Gold Sunday and a weekly 50's 'Rock'n'Roll' show.

One of the many highlights of Pennine's history was having ex-BBC Radio 1 lunch-time presenter Paul Burnett host the breakfast show for 12 months from autumn 1984-5.

24 hour broadcasting began in autumn 1984 - the gap between Roger Kirk's late show and Steve Truelove's early show being filled by Dave Nixon, who became legendary for his Night Strike competition: pool on the wireless!

Mid-80s Pennine people included Martin Kelner and Steve Truelove (both went to BBC Radio 2), Mark Flanagan (left for the start of Ocean Sound), Andy Hitchcock (went to BBC Radio York), Tony Fisher (left for BBC Radio Leeds) and Simon Pattern (went to Viking FM, then BBC Radio York and is now Managing Editor at BBC Radio Humberside). The show that pulled in the biggest audience of the week was the Sunday Request Show presented by Dorothy Box, Bob Preedy and Brian Cooke - with a regular audience of 65,000 listeners. Brian Cooke went on to present weekend breakfast shows and after presenting on Classic Gold went on to work for Magic 828.

Andy and Tony teamed up to become Ronnie and Gordon Groovesticker on Pennine's tea-time soap opera Mulberry Terrace. which ran from spring 1985 to summer 1986.

A huge date in the history of Pennine Radio was 4 December 1984 - at 6.30am the station officially began broadcasting to a much larger area. Having resigned the original franchise early, Managing Director Mike Boothroyd, Programme Controller Will Venters, Chief Engineer Steve Bowley, Sports Editor Tony Delahunty and the rest of the team at Pennine House were thrilled to win back their franchise, which transformed the station from one of the UK's smallest Independent Local Radio Station's to one of the biggest. Pennine was now broadcasting to not only Bradford, West Leeds and the Aire Valley on 235 m MW/1278 kHz AM and 96 MHz VHF, but now had new transmitters at Vicar's Lot overlooking its new additional area of Kirklees and Calderdale on 196 m MW/1530 kHz AM and 103.4 MHz VHF. In August 1985, 103.4 was changed to 102.5 as the first of the ILR frequency changes under the mid-80s "Geneva convention" to lump ILR and BBC local FM frequencies into sub-bands. The 103.4 frequency started to relay the new Doncaster signal of Radio Hallam a month later.

The station was part of the Yorkshire Radio Network from 1987, and its AM transmitters were used for the very first form of Classic Gold . Pennine 235 as it was originally known became Pennine Radio which then turned into Pennine FM after they were forced to split frequencies .

In 1990, Pennine lost its 103.2 frequency to incremental broadcaster Bradford City Radio, it is now used by Sunrise Radio (Yorkshire) .

After the take over of YRN by The Metro Radio Group, Pennine FM was rebranded as The Pulse of West Yorkshire. The Metro Radio Group was itself taken over by EMAP. In the November of 1995, EMAP sold both The Pulse and its AM sister service, Great Yorkshire Gold to The Radio Partnership for £4.6m. Earlier the same year, they'd paid £98.7m for the Metro Radio Group. In 1999 The Radio Partnership was acquired by The Wireless Group, which was later swallowed up by UTV.

The Pennine link hasn't been lost entirely, to this day The Pulse still broadcasts from Pennine House, in Forster Square in Bradford [15].