BBC Lincolnshire - Launch in 1980 (+ 87 idents)

If you're going to launch a station in Lincolnshire, a peal of bells from the Cathedral is a pretty good way to do it.

Nick Brunger uttered the first words on BBC Radio LIncolnshire on the 11th of November, 1980. Roy Corlett was in charge, with the signal booming from the massive mast at Belmont. Its premises were, and still are, in the former Radion cinema, built in 1939 to the design by WJ King, whose hand can be was seen in so many UK cinemas. Much evidence of its past remains inside to this day; not least the ghost of an 'ice-cream lady', despite the fact the building had served as a supermarket between the two uses. Its broadcast equipment is also worth preserving: Lincolnshire still enjoys the simply delicious 'stereo' BBC Mark III desk with the faders the 'wrong way'. It's kept alive by body parts transplanted from dead desks across the UK.

The station boasted a lovely early news jingle at launch, along the lines of 'Pop goes the Weasel', hardly a sure sign of some of the excellent identification jingles to come later in its evolution, once Alfasound got stuck in. Including, as heard here, a song to die for.

Radio Lincolnshire was the second in the second bundle of BBC stations, after the Anann Comittee had reported on local radio, and, frankly, largely been ignored. It had nearly scraped into the first tranche as the final station (and fully BBC-funded, unlike some at the outset), but lost out to Durham at the eleventh hour. It then bounced up and down subsequent lists as discussions ensued as to how large the Lincoln operation would be. The new stations were designated as A, B or C status; and there was much talk on how many hours they'd broadcast and whether the newer stations would share any programmes. Lincolnshire was envisaged as a '14 man' station . A definite plan was issued in 1978 about the prospect of BBC Radio in Lincolnshire, alongside 17 others, with the list later focused on the first 9. Back then, the BBC and the IBA (commercial radios' regulator) worked together to ensure that areas without any local radio got at least one station. Such was the haggling, commercial radio could easily have led the way in the County.

The station now enjoys average time spend listening (Rajar/Ipsos, BBC Lincs TSA, W3 2014) of a staggering 16.6 hours per week. By any measure, a phenomenal performance.