The Radio Partnership
Encyclopedia
About
Initially, the Metro Radio GroupMetro Radio group
Metropolitan Broadcasting or the Metro Radio Group as it was more commonly known, was a group of Independent Local Radio stations in North East of England.-History:The group originally consisted of:* Metro FM...
(which owned TFM
TFM Radio
TFM Radio is a Thornaby-on-Tees based Independent Local Radio station. Launched in June 1975 as Radio Tees, with the callsign "You've got a friend on 257" it was the first independent local radio station serving the area of the Tees Valley with parts of North Yorkshire and County Durham...
, Metro FM
Metro FM
Metro FM is a national radio station in South Africa owned by the SABC.- History :The station started broadcasting in October, 1986 as Radio Metro to compete with the now defunct Radio Bop...
and Great North Radio
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 . This happened after the Metro Radio group decided to split the FM and AM frequencies up.-Programming:...
, bought Viking FM, Hallam FM
Hallam FM
Hallam FM is an independent local radio station serving South Yorkshire and the North Midlands from studios in Sheffield. The station is owned and operated by Bauer Radio and forms part of Bauer's Place Network of stations.-History:...
, Pennine FM and Classic Gold
Classic Gold
Classic Gold was a network of three "Gold" music formatted stations which broadcast on AM in Bradford, Hull and Sheffield. They were the Pennine Radio, Viking Radio and Radio Hallam's medium wave franchises...
) was acquired by East Midland Allied Press
EMAP
Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences...
in 1996. Ownership rules meant that because they owned Radio Aire in the same area, one of the station had to be sold, and that was Pennine FM and its AM sister station which were purchased in a management buyout from senior staff and ex-Metro Group executives for £4.6m. Under the new company, called The Radio Partnership, the station was renamed The Pulse
The Pulse of West Yorkshire
The Pulse is a British Independent Local Radio station that serves the Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale areas of West Yorkshire. The station was originally known as Pennine Radio...
and it became number one in the West Yorkshire radio market for the first time in its history.
The Radio Partnership expanded over the years to include other stations, such as Signal Radio in Stoke-on-Trent.
In 1999, Kelvin MacKenzie
Kelvin MacKenzie
Kelvin Calder MacKenzie is an English media executive and former newspaper editor. He is best known for being editor of The Sun newspaper between 1981 and 1994, an era in which the paper was established as Britain's best selling newspaper.- Biography :MacKenzie was educated at Alleyn's School...
's Talk Radio UK bought The Radio Partnership and formed The Wireless Group to include the national broadcaster and a series of local stations. In July 2005, The Wireless Group was in turn acquired by UTV radio
UTV Radio
UTV Radio is a UK media company, and owner of several radio stations in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. It is a growing branch of UTV Media....
.