Magic 1152

This article is about the Newcastle Upon Tyne Magic station. For the Manchester Magic station, see Piccadilly Magic 1152.

Magic 1152

City of license	Newcastle upon Tyne
Broadcast area	Tyne and Wear
Slogan	"The Best of the 60s, 70s & more"
Frequency	1152 kHz, DAB Digital Radio
Format	Oldies
Audience share	6.6% (March 2011, [1])
Owner	Bauer Radio
Website	magic1152.co.uk

Magic 1152 is the name of an Independent Local Radio station in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. It forms part of the Magic network owned by Bauer Radio. It shares a studio complex with sister station Metro Radio at the 55 Degrees North complex, next to the Tyne Bridge. Magic 1152 broadcasts on 1152 AM, Virgin Media channel 932 (Newcastle upon Tyne only), and on DAB radio.

GNR era

Main article: Great North Radio

Great North Radio or G.N.R as it was sometimes called was formed in March 1989 using the AM frequencies of Metro Radio and Radio Tees [2]. This happened after the Metro Radio group decided to split the FM and AM frequencies up.

GNR's output consisted of "golden oldies" from the 1950s through to the 1980s, with specialist programmes on an evening.

Programming

In December 2001, EMAP decided that it was more economical for the Magic network to share off-peak programmes and in line with the other Magic AM stations began networking between 10am-2pm, and 7pm-6am. During these hours it was simply known as Magic, although there were local commercial breaks, and local news on the hour.

In January 2003 after a sharp decline in listening, the station ceased networking with the London station, Magic 105.4, and a regional northern network was created with Manchester's Magic 1152 at the hub at the weekend and the Newcastle station as the hub during the week. This arrangement remained until 2006, when all network programmes were broadcast from Newcastle. During networked hours, local adverts are aired, as well as a local news summary on the hour during the day. IRN is taken in the evening and overnight.

From July 2006, more networking was introduced across the Northern Magic AM network which means only 4 hours a day will are presented from the local studios, this show will be between 06:00 and 10:00am. weekday breakfast is presented by Steve Colman, Saturday Breakfast is presented by John Caine and Sunday Breakfast is presented by Steve White.

Imaging

The station presently uses very few sung idents, mostly they can be heard after the news each hour, these are produced by Steve England. The rest of the time idents are in the form of Voice-overs which use the voice of Mark Thorburn one of Magic's presenters.

External links

• Magic 1152 Newcastle
• Magic Radio homepage