May 30, 2018 - 2768 views
On Thursday Colwyn Bay will be waking up with a new online community radio station.
The service, to be eventually known as Bayside Radio, will launch in the town after months of work behind the scenes with local broadcasters, community groups and technology broadcast companies.
Initially the station will be taking over the studios of Coast Radio whilst final preparations are being made to Bayside Radio's sophisticated playout and studio system. It is planned that Bayside Radio will be broadcasting from their own facilities in just over a fortnight's time.
The station will begin broadcasting from just after 8am with Simon Wynne, who was originally one of the on-air team at Marcher Coast FM when the station launched in Colwyn Bay many years ago. Since then Simon has presented on a number of commercial radio stations in the North West of England and was employed at Radio 1 and BBC Three as their Media Portfolio Manager. He took early retirement a few years ago to help his familu launch a new business in Betws-y-Coed and began working on the community radio project in November of last year.
Another familiar voice on the radio will be Jeff Pearson who will broadcast weekdays from 12 till 4. Jeff is well known in the Colwyn Bay community as the former Mayor of the town has a professional background in broadcasting and was one of the management team with United Christian Broadcasters before moving into local government. Jeff is a very experienced broadcaster and presents programmes for Llandudno's Tudno FM and Radio Glan Clwyd.
Also on the weekday team is local businessman Ron Roberts who is also a Director of the company that oversees Bayside Radio. Ron will be presenting from 4pm till 6pm before playing forgotten songs and classic tracks from the 1960's and 1970's each evening from 6pm.
For launch the station is focusing on a music format of Relaxing Favourites and Solid Gold Memories during the day but once up and running, will introduce specialist music and community focused programmes in the evening and at weekends. The team will also begin to fully roll out their website and regularly update it with community news and information.
Bayside Radio is operated by Coast Community Radio and Media as a not-for-profit community interest company with the interests of Colwyn Bay residents very much in its focus. It is hoped that the station is able to apply for licences to broadcast on FM or on DAB digital radio in the not-so-distant future.
