What's New
BY Sarah Patterson April 24, 2024
What's New April 7, 2021
British radio station shutters after its unpaid presenters quit
Presenters at a local West Yorkshire radio station in England have walked away after being told there isn’t sufficient income to sustain the service.
Until last week, a full lineup of local presenters filled the station’s schedule, including former Pulse 2 Breakfast presenter Chris Johnson.
The station hoped to fill the gap left by the departure of Radio Aire and Pulse 2.
WYR was launched by YO1 Enterprises, which also started other recently launched online ‘postcode’ stations including HG1 RADIO in Harrogate.
In a statement from station presenters, posted by Johnson, the reason for the end of presenter-led programs is due to the lack of revenue required to keep operating.
Johnson said that, regrettably, WYR “will cease broadcasting presenter-led shows” after midnight. However, the station has since shut down completely.
A single post on the station’s website now reads “thanks for the memories”.
The downfall of WYR began as early as 2015.
Originally, WYR began as a DAB+ radio station. As a DAB+ station, WYR broadcast into Leeds, “…a key area for the business…”, and its studios were close to the “Leeds United” football club.
When the DAB multiplex for the Leeds market closed down in 2015, meant that WYR could not broadcast to its “…key area…of business…”, Leeds. Thus WYR became an online service.
Consequently, WYR had less revenue resulting in first, the presenters being dismissed, then WYR being a ‘music box’ then shutting down.
Source article: https://radiotoday.co.uk/2017/11/radio-yorkshire-to-cease-dab-broadcasting/
If WYR wanted to resume DAB+ broadcasting in Leeds, it was not a recent applicant to apply for a DAB+ channel, reference https://www.ofcom.org.uk/manage-your-licence/radio-broadcast-licensing/small-scale-DAB-licensing/small-scale-multiplex-applications. Ofcom is the UK’s regulator of communications services, similar to our ACMA.
Conclusion, there is insufficient available information in making WYR continue its operations.
Thank you,
Anthony of analytical Belfield
This is very similar to what happened when a group of local people in Newcastle NSW Australia tried to set up a revival of the old 2UW.After several weeks they realised that sponsorship and investment were harder than they planned.Soon revenue dried up and the staff were not being paid.The station closed down 3 months.But as I understand there is another group who have revived 2UW on a streamlined budget with volunteers and feeds from news sources.This saved a lot of money and I think the station is still operation on streaming today