Goodbye Pennine FM (again) (again)
Posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 6:39pm. #
News is reaching me, by a number of different people, that 107.9 Pennine FM is closing tonight, at 10.00pm.
This station, known variously as Huddersfield FM and Home FM before its renaming to Pennine, has a history of failure, which is a shame. In an area with plenty of hills, the station’s transmitter was weak; but it was staffed with a good amount of enthusiastic people, as I noted at the time – before it closed last year, then was resurrected for a final go.
Its last audience figures showed a reach of 18,000 people, just 9% of the available audience. Total hours were 113,000 a week.
Up in Huddersfield over the weekend, I didn’t listen to Pennine; enjoying, instead, the rather excellent music being played by Pulse 2. And I’ll not have another chance.
Plenty of other radio stations have closed down over the last couple of years. But I’ll be listening to the station as it breathes its last. My understanding is that the licence is being given back to Ofcom. I wonder if they let anyone have another go?
Dave
It’s been given a decent burial, let’s not dig the corpse up once more. 107.9 went through several regime changes in ownership and management – and after twelve years, no-one, it seems, could take it close to profitability. From hyper-local as a stand-alone operation to being part of a would-be’big’ sounding network, none of the approaches have borne fruit. Time to let it go.