Skyline Community Radio

Skyline Community Radio is one of the "third tier" of UK radio stations licenced by Ofcom, which launched in January 2006. The station broadcasts on 102.5FM from studios based in Hedge End, Hampshire, to primarily the villages of Hedge End, West End and Botley, although it can be received in other parts of the Borough of Eastleigh.

The station plays a wide range of music, along with regular items of interest to the local community, focusing on groups such as amateur dramatic societies, choirs, senior citizens clubs and scout groups, which are considered too small to be given much airtime by larger radio stations in the area. Skyline is run almost entirely by volunteers, and although many of them have broadcasting experience from Hospital or University radio, for many this is their first time on the radio, with training given by the station.

The name Skyline dates back to a London pirate station from the 1980s, also run by David Algate, licencee of the community station. There was also an RSL in Southampton in 1994 called Skyline FM, probably most noted for it's closure ahead of the publicised date due to the presentation team withdrawing their services and equipment when it was discovered that some of the licences had not been paid for by the licencee. The community station has had a difficult time compared to some community stations, with owner and licencee David Algate attempting to sell the station in 2007 due to the ongoing costs of the station not being met by advertising or external funding. This attempt was unsuccessful, but did provoke a fair deal of discussion as to whether or not it was legal to sell a community station on various internet forums relating to the media. The station was also threatened with legal action by a member of staff who had been hired to act as programme controller, and in doing so caused the departure of many volunteers who had been with Skyline from the start. This was due to the programme controller not receiving the payment he had been promised, something that was publicised on the website they were using at the time, www.skylinefm.com.

More recently, Skyline featured in the Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin 107 due to one of their presenters causing a listener to complain to the regulatory authority about the content of his broadcast. No investigation into the complaint could take place as the radio station had failed to maintain a system to record it's output and retain the recordings, which in itself is a matter treated very seriously indeed.

Long-term listeners believe that Skyline radio reached an optimum output between mid 2006 and late 2007 with memorable evening shows from presenters Adam Quantrill, Charles Taylor, Colin Hanslip and Steve Ridout, though some popular shows remain on the station.

Contrary to the output of older music during the day, the evening output was generally newer music which was not provided by the other local radio stations in the area at that time. Adam Quantrill presented popular 90s and 00s music shows from 8 till 10pm on thursdays and fridays (with Steve Ridout). Charles Taylor presented the Skyline Dance show from 10pm till midnight on various weeknights and the station was the first in the South to play the major new dance music releases, many of which were very successful in the UK's charts. Another successful programme presented by Colin Hanslip is the Chill Factor which, although no longer broadcast on Skyline, can still be heard on several stations in the country, including nearby Forest FM.

One of Skyline's current all-time favourite programmes, possibly the most popular on the station at the moment, is that of Matt Aldous on saturday evenings from 7 till 10pm, including several popular features.

The station is widely regarded as having specialist evening music shows covering such musical genres as big band (wartime music, not rock 'n' roll), classical and acoustic guitar, world music, easy listening, 60s and 70s pop and album rock, and new music.

Although there have been several staff changes Skyline Community Radio continues to be very unique in southern Hampshire. It's radical daytime format, based upon 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s music is deliberately different to many other stations who generally fail to cater to anyone over 70.

A handful of Skyline's daytime presenters (past and present) have been reputable for attracting listeners and presenters from other stations to tune in for a giggle at the stations output. An example is the weekday late morning presenter who is widely known in the transmission area, in addition to media-related forums, as 'laughing boy' for laughing during almost every link...

External links

* [http://www.skyline.fm Official web site]
* [http://www.ofcom.org.uk Ofcom web site]