End of an era as Radio City tower hosts final live broadcast on Christmas Eve
www.theguardian.com
Station overlooking Liverpool hosted most pop stars coming through the city – except those with a fear of heights

It is known across Liverpool as the Radio City tower but that moniker may not be around much longer as the structure hosts its final live broadcast on Christmas Eve.

Microphone cables are being bundled up and heaving contacts books packed into boxes, leaving empty what is arguably the most famous building of the city’s skyline – St Johns Beacon, to use its proper name.

Built in 1969, originally as a luxury revolving restaurant that was one visited by Queen Elizabeth II, the tower was listed Grade II in 2020, with Historic England describing it as “embodying the technological bravura and spirit of the space age”.

  • @[email protected]English
    2•2 days ago

    All these local radio stations being rebranded as “Hits Radio” is quite sad. Instead of every area having their own unique station identity, we’ve now got these very generic, bland stations. I think many are controlled from the same place and broadcast the same music at the same time but then have DJs for each local station.

    It’s kind of like a local, well loved brand that’s been around for decades gets bought by some nation wide company and turns it to shit.

    • GreatAlbatrossMEnglish
      1•1 day ago

      They’re mostly very, very, very automated.

      Any human that can possibly be replace with a server, or multiple humans replaced with one central one, they’ve done it.

    • @I_Miss_DanielEnglish
      2•2 days ago

      It’s a tricky industry I think.

      We’re seeing about a 4% year on year decline in FM listeners if I remember correctly. Advertisers like metrics that radio can’t deliver. Spotify and YouTube are the main winners.

      I still run a volunteer run community station and we’re able to break even, but with power bills over $1,000 a month plus insurances and other fees, it’s not so easy. We’re still having fun though :)

      • @[email protected]English
        3•2 days ago

        It’s really, really hard to get a licence to broadcast in the uk, so there’s really very few radio stations that reflect modern music tastes outside of large city centres

        • @[email protected]English
          2•2 days ago

          I still listen to radio, however its almost all online radio.

          Modern Pop, 2000’s Pop, 90’s Pop, 80’s Pop, just really don’t interest me or anyone else in my family, however its the vast majority of the radio.

          Soma FM for me.