1.
Shropshire
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Shropshire Council was created in 2009, a unitary authority taking over from the previous county council and five district councils. The borough of Telford and Wrekin has been a unitary authority since 1998. The county has many towns, including Whitchurch in the north, Newport north-east of Telford. The Ironbridge Gorge area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, covering Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, there are other historic industrial sites in the county, such as at Shrewsbury, Broseley, Snailbeach and Highley, as well as the Shropshire Union Canal. The Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers about a quarter of the county, Shropshire is one of Englands most rural and sparsely populated counties, with a population density of 136/km2. The Wrekin is one of the most famous landmarks in the county, though the highest hills are the Clee Hills, Stiperstones. Wenlock Edge is another significant geographical and geological landmark, the River Severn, Great Britains longest river, runs through the county, exiting into Worcestershire via the Severn Valley. Shropshire is landlocked and with an area of 3,487 square kilometres is Englands largest inland county, the county flower is the round-leaved sundew. The area was part of the lands of the Cornovii. This was a tribal Celtic iron age kingdom and their capital in pre-Roman times was probably a hill fort on the Wrekin. Ptolemys 2nd century Geography names one of their towns as being Viroconium Cornoviorum, after the Roman occupation of Britain ended in the 5th century, the Shropshire area was in the eastern part of the Welsh Kingdom of Powys, known in Welsh poetry as the Paradise of Powys. It was annexed to the Angle kingdom of Mercia by King Offa in the 8th century, in subsequent centuries, the area suffered repeated Danish invasion, and fortresses were built at Bridgnorth and Chirbury. Many defensive castles were built at this time across the county to defend against the Welsh and enable effective control of the region, including Ludlow Castle, the western frontier with Wales was not finally determined until the 14th century. Also in this period, a number of foundations were formed, the county largely falling at this time under the Diocese of Hereford. The county contains a number of historically significant towns, including Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth, additionally, the area around Coalbrookdale in the county is seen as highly significant, as it is regarded as one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution. The village of Edgmond, near Newport, is the location of the lowest recorded temperature in England, the origin of the name Shropshire is the Old English Scrobbesbyrigscīr, which means Shrewsburyshire. The name may, therefore, be derived indirectly from a name such as Scrope. Salop is an old name for Shropshire, historically used as a form for post or telegrams
2.
Wolverhampton
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Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 249,470, the demonym for people from the city is Wulfrunian. Historically part of Staffordshire, the city is named after Wulfrun, prior to the Norman Conquest, the areas name appears only as variants of Heantune or Hamtun, the prefix Wulfrun or similar appearing in 1070 and thereafter. Alternatively, the city may have earned its name from Wulfereēantūn after the Mercian King. The variation Wolveren Hampton is seen in records, e. g. in 1381. The city grew initially as a market town specialising in the woollen trade, in the Industrial Revolution, it became a major centre for coal mining, steel production, lock making and the manufacture of cars and motorcycles. The economy of the city is based on engineering, including a large aerospace industry. A local tradition states that King Wulfhere of Mercia founded an abbey of St Mary at Wolverhampton in 659, the Mercians and West Saxons claimed a decisive victory and the field of Woden is recognised by numerous place names in Wednesfield. In 985, King Ethelred the Unready granted lands at a place referred to as Heantun to Lady Wulfrun by royal charter and this became the site for the current St. Peters Church. A statue of Lady Wulfrun, sculpted by Sir Charles Wheeler, Wolverhampton is recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 as being in the Hundred of Seisdon and the county of Staffordshire. The lords of the manor are listed as the canons of St Mary, with the tenant-in-chief being Samson, Wolverhampton at this date is a large settlement of fifty households. In 1179, there is mention of a market held in the town and this charter for a weekly market held on a Wednesday was eventually granted on 4 February 1258 by Henry III. From the 16th century onwards, Wolverhampton became home to a number of industries including lock and key making and iron. Wolverhampton suffered two Great Fires, the first in April 1590, and the second in September 1696, both fires started in todays Salop Street. The first fire lasted for five days and left nearly 700 people homeless and this second fire led to the purchase of the first fire engine within the city in September 1703. There is also evidence that Wolverhampton may have been the location of the first working Newcomen Steam Engine in 1712. In Victorian times, Wolverhampton grew to be a town mainly due to the huge amount of industry that occurred as a result of the abundance of coal. The remains of this wealth can be seen in houses such as Wightwick Manor and The Mount
3.
Black Country
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The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands in England, West of Birmingham, including Dudley, Walsall and Sandwell. In the Industrial Revolution, it one of the most industrialised parts of Britain with coal mines, coking, iron foundries. The 14-mile road between Wolverhampton and Birmingham was described as one town in 1785. The first trace of The Black Country as an expression dates from the 1840s, the name is believed to come from the soot from the heavy industries that covered the area, although the 30-foot-thick coal seam close to the surface is another possible origin. The borders of the Black Country can be defined by using the cultural and industrial characteristics of the area. Areas around the canals which had mines extracting mineral resources and heavy industry refining these are included in this definition, cultural parameters include unique foods and dialect. The Black Country Society defines the Black Countrys borders as the area on the thirty foot coal seam and this definition includes West Bromwich and Oldbury, which had many deep pits, and Smethwick. The thick coal that underlies Smethwick wasnt mined until the 1870s, Sandwell Park Collierys pit was located in Smethwick and had thick coal as shown in written accounts from 1878 and coal was also heavily mined in Hamstead further east. Smethwick and Dudley Port were described as a thousand swarming hives of metallurgical industries by Samuel Griffiths in 1872, warley is also included, despite lacking industry and canals, as housing for industrial workers in Smethwick and Oldbury was built there. Another geological definition, the seam outcrop definition, only areas where the coal seam is shallow. Some coal mining areas to the east and west of the geologically defined Black Country are therefore excluded by this definition because the coal here is too deep down, the seam outcrop definition excludes areas in North Worcestershire and South Staffordshire. This is the basis for much of the controversy over definitions and he describes going into the black country of Staffordshire - Wolverhampton, Bilston and Tipton. He introduces the area as that region of mines and forges, commonly called the Black Country. The phrase was used again, though as a rather than a proper noun. An alternative theory for the meaning of the name is proposed as having been caused by the darkening of the soil due to the outcropping coal. In 1642 at the start of the Civil War, Charles I failed to capture the two arsenals of Portsmouth and Hull, which although in cities loyal to Parliament were located in counties loyal to him. As he had failed to capture the arsenals, Charles did not possess any supply of swords, pikes, guns, or shot, all these the Black Country could, from Stourbridge came shot, from Dudley cannon. Numerous small forges which then existed on every brook in the north of Worcestershire turned out successive supplies of sword blades and his method was employed on the Kings behalf
4.
Slogan
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The Oxford Dictionary of English defines a slogan as a short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising. A slogan usually has the attributes of being memorable, very concise and these attributes are necessary in a slogan, as it is only a short phrase. Therefore, it is necessary for slogans to be memorable, as well as concise in what the organisation or brand is trying to say, the word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic and Irish sluagh-ghairm. Slogans vary from the written and the visual to the chanted and their simple rhetorical nature usually leaves little room for detail and a chanted slogan may serve more as social expression of unified purpose than as communication to an intended audience. George E. Shankels research states that, English-speaking people began using the term by 1704, the term at that time meant the distinctive note, phrase or cry of any person or body of persons. Slogans were common throughout the European continent during the Middle Ages, crimmins research suggests that brands are an extremely valuable corporate asset, and can make up a lot of a businesss total value. With this in mind, if we take into consideration Kellers research and these include, name, logo and slogan. Brands names and logos both can be changed by the way the receiver interprets them, therefore, the slogan has a large job in portraying the brand. Therefore, the slogan should create a sense of likability in order for the name to be likable. Dass, Kumar, Kohli, & Thomas research suggests there are certain factors that make up the likability of a slogan. The clarity of the message the brand is trying to encode within the slogan, the slogan emphasizes the benefit of the product or service it is portraying. The creativity of a slogan is another factor that had an effect on the likability of a slogan. Lastly, leaving the name out of the slogan will have a positive effect on the likability of the brand itself. The original usage refers to the usage as a clan motto among Highland clans, marketing slogans are often called taglines in the United States or straplines in the United Kingdom. Europeans use the terms baselines, signatures, claims or pay-offs, sloganeering is a mostly derogatory term for activity which degrades discourse to the level of slogans. Slogans are used to convey a message about the product, service or cause that it is representing and it can have a musical tone to it or written as a song. Slogans are often used to capture the attention of the audience it is trying to reach, if the slogan is used for commercial purposes, often it is written to be memorable/catchy in order for a consumer to associate the slogan with the product it is representing. A slogan is part of the aspect that helps create an image for the product
5.
Frequency
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Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as frequency, which emphasizes the contrast to spatial frequency. The period is the duration of time of one cycle in a repeating event, for example, if a newborn babys heart beats at a frequency of 120 times a minute, its period—the time interval between beats—is half a second. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as vibrations, audio signals, radio waves. For cyclical processes, such as rotation, oscillations, or waves, in physics and engineering disciplines, such as optics, acoustics, and radio, frequency is usually denoted by a Latin letter f or by the Greek letter ν or ν. For a simple motion, the relation between the frequency and the period T is given by f =1 T. The SI unit of frequency is the hertz, named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, a previous name for this unit was cycles per second. The SI unit for period is the second, a traditional unit of measure used with rotating mechanical devices is revolutions per minute, abbreviated r/min or rpm. As a matter of convenience, longer and slower waves, such as ocean surface waves, short and fast waves, like audio and radio, are usually described by their frequency instead of period. Spatial frequency is analogous to temporal frequency, but the axis is replaced by one or more spatial displacement axes. Y = sin = sin d θ d x = k Wavenumber, in the case of more than one spatial dimension, wavenumber is a vector quantity. For periodic waves in nondispersive media, frequency has a relationship to the wavelength. Even in dispersive media, the frequency f of a wave is equal to the phase velocity v of the wave divided by the wavelength λ of the wave. In the special case of electromagnetic waves moving through a vacuum, then v = c, where c is the speed of light in a vacuum, and this expression becomes, f = c λ. When waves from a monochrome source travel from one medium to another, their remains the same—only their wavelength. For example, if 71 events occur within 15 seconds the frequency is, the latter method introduces a random error into the count of between zero and one count, so on average half a count. This is called gating error and causes an error in the calculated frequency of Δf = 1/, or a fractional error of Δf / f = 1/ where Tm is the timing interval. This error decreases with frequency, so it is a problem at low frequencies where the number of counts N is small, an older method of measuring the frequency of rotating or vibrating objects is to use a stroboscope
6.
Hertz
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The hertz is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units and is defined as one cycle per second. It is named for Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the first person to provide proof of the existence of electromagnetic waves. Hertz are commonly expressed in SI multiples kilohertz, megahertz, gigahertz, kilo means thousand, mega meaning million, giga meaning billion and tera for trillion. Some of the units most common uses are in the description of waves and musical tones, particularly those used in radio-. It is also used to describe the speeds at which computers, the hertz is equivalent to cycles per second, i. e. 1/second or s −1. In English, hertz is also used as the plural form, as an SI unit, Hz can be prefixed, commonly used multiples are kHz, MHz, GHz and THz. One hertz simply means one cycle per second,100 Hz means one hundred cycles per second, and so on. The unit may be applied to any periodic event—for example, a clock might be said to tick at 1 Hz, the rate of aperiodic or stochastic events occur is expressed in reciprocal second or inverse second in general or, the specific case of radioactive decay, becquerels. Whereas 1 Hz is 1 cycle per second,1 Bq is 1 aperiodic radionuclide event per second, the conversion between a frequency f measured in hertz and an angular velocity ω measured in radians per second is ω =2 π f and f = ω2 π. This SI unit is named after Heinrich Hertz, as with every International System of Units unit named for a person, the first letter of its symbol is upper case. Note that degree Celsius conforms to this rule because the d is lowercase. — Based on The International System of Units, the hertz is named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who made important scientific contributions to the study of electromagnetism. The name was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1930, the term cycles per second was largely replaced by hertz by the 1970s. One hobby magazine, Electronics Illustrated, declared their intention to stick with the traditional kc. Mc. etc. units, sound is a traveling longitudinal wave which is an oscillation of pressure. Humans perceive frequency of waves as pitch. Each musical note corresponds to a frequency which can be measured in hertz. An infants ear is able to perceive frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, the range of ultrasound, infrasound and other physical vibrations such as molecular and atomic vibrations extends from a few femtoHz into the terahertz range and beyond. Electromagnetic radiation is described by its frequency—the number of oscillations of the perpendicular electric and magnetic fields per second—expressed in hertz. Radio frequency radiation is measured in kilohertz, megahertz, or gigahertz
7.
Digital audio broadcasting
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Digital audio broadcasting is a digital radio standard for broadcasting digital audio radio services, used in several countries across Europe and Asia Pacific. The DAB standard was initiated as a European research project in the 1980s, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation launched the first DAB channel in the world on 1 June 1995, and the BBC and Swedish Radio launched their first DAB digital radio broadcasts in September 1995. DAB receivers have been available in many countries since the end of the 1990s, DAB may offer more radio programmes over a specific spectrum than analogue FM radio. Audio quality varies depending on the used and audio material. Most stations use a bit rate of 128 kbit/s or less with the MP2 audio codec, which requires 160 kbit/s to achieve perceived FM quality. 128 kbit/s gives better dynamic range or signal-to-noise ratio than FM radio, but a more smeared stereo image, however, CD quality sound with MP2 is possible with 256…192 kbps. An upgraded version of the system was released in February 2007, DAB is not forward compatible with DAB+, which means that DAB-only receivers are not able to receive DAB+ broadcasts. However, broadcasters can mix DAB and DAB+ programs inside the same transmission, DAB+ is approximately twice as efficient as DAB, and more robust. In spectrum management, the bands that are allocated for public DAB services, are abbreviated with T-DAB, where the T stands for terrestrial. More than 30 countries provide DAB transmissions, and several countries, such as Norway, UK, Australia, Italy, Malta, Switzerland, The Netherlands, in many countries it is expected that DAB will gradually replace FM radio. Norway was the first country to announce national FM radio analog switchoff starting from 2017, DAB has been under development since 1981 at the Institut für Rundfunktechnik. In 1985 the first DAB demonstrations were held at the WARC-ORB in Geneva, later DAB was developed as a research project for the European Union, which started in 1987 on initiative by a consortium formed in 1986. The MPEG-1 Audio Layer II codec was created as part of the EU147 project, a choice of audio codec, modulation and error-correction coding schemes and first trial broadcasts were made in 1990. Public demonstrations were made in 1993 in the United Kingdom, the protocol specification was finalized in 1993 and adopted by the ITU-R standardization body in 1994, the European community in 1995 and by ETSI in 1997. Pilot broadcasts were launched in countries in 1995. The UK was the first country to receive a range of radio stations via DAB. Commercial DAB receivers began to be sold in 1999 and over 50 commercial, the standard was coordinated by the European DAB forum, formed in 1995 and reconstituted to the World DAB Forum in 1997, which represents more than 30 countries. In 2006 the World DAB Forum became the World DMB Forum which now presides over both the DAB and DMB standard, in October 2005, the World DMB Forum instructed its Technical Committee to carry out the work needed to adopt the AAC+ audio codec and stronger error correction coding
8.
Effective radiated power
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Effective radiated power, synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency power transmitted from a theoretical half-wave dipole antenna. It is differentiated from effective isotropic radiated power mainly by use of antenna gain instead of absolute gain in the calculation. The term antenna gain is assumed to be absolute unless specifically stated to be relative, the gain is then multiplied by the power actually accepted by the antenna to result in the actual ERP value. Power losses which occur prior to the antenna, e. g. in the line or from inefficiency in the generator itself are therefore not included in the calculation of ERP or EIRP. Antenna gain is closely related to directivity and often used interchangeably. However, gain is less than directivity by a factor called radiation efficiency. Whereas directivity is entirely a function of wavelength and the geometry and type of antenna, specifically, accelerating charge causes electromagnetic radiation per Maxwells equations. Therefore, antennas use a current distribution on radiating elements to generate electromagnetic energy that propagates away from the antenna and this coupling is never 100% efficient, and therefore antenna gain will always be less than directivity by this efficiency factor. The receiver would not be able to determine a difference, maximum directivity of an ideal half-wave dipole is a constant, i. e.0 dBd =2.15 dBi. Therefore, ERP is always 2.15 dB less than EIRP, the ideal dipole antenna could be further replaced by an isotropic radiator, and the receiver cannot know the difference so long as the input power is increased by 2.15 dB. Unfortunately, the distinction between dBd and dBi is often left unstated and the reader is forced to infer which was used. For example, a Yagi-Uda antenna is constructed from several dipoles arranged at intervals to create better energy focusing than a simple dipole. Since it is constructed from dipoles, often its antenna gain is expressed in dBd, obviously this ambiguity is undesirable with respect to engineering specifications. A Yagi-Uda antennas maximum directivity is 8.77 dBd =10.92 dBi and its gain necessarily must be less than this by the factor η, which must be negative in units of dB. Neither ERP nor EIRP can be calculated without knowledge of the power accepted by the antenna, let us assume a 100 Watt transmitter with losses of 6 dB prior to the antenna. ERP <22. 77dBW and EIRP <24. 92dBW, polarization has not been taken into account so far, but properly it must be. When considering the dipole radiator previously we assumed that it was aligned with the receiver. Now assume, however, that the antenna is circularly polarized
9.
Bauer Media Group
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The portfolio includes print shops, postal, distribution and marketing services. Bauer Media Group has a workforce of approximately 11,000 employees in 17 countries, Bauer Verlagsgruppe has been managed by five generations of the Bauer family. Originally a small printing house in Germany, Bauer Media Group entered the UK with the launch of Bella magazine in 1987, under the name of H Bauer Publishing they became Britains third largest publisher. Bauer further expanded in the UK with the purchase of Emap Consumer Media, the group acquired Australian magazine publisher, ACP Magazines from a London-based private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners, in 2012. That increased the turnover to more than €2 billion. In November 2010, Heinz Heinrichs daughter Yvonne Bauer became CEO, in the UK there are two divisions of the Bauer Media Group. The original UK business trades as H Bauer Publishing under CEO David Goodchild and its sister company is known as Bauer Media with CEO Paul Keenan. David Goodchild is also CEO of Bauers Australasian businesses, titles include womens weekly and TV listings magazines, namely Bella, Take a Break, thats life. This is as well as a number of puzzle magazines, in 1987 Bella was H Bauers first venture into publishing in the UK. In 1990, H Bauer launched a womens magazine named Take a Break. H Bauer also has a title, thats life. The H Bauer Publishing brand also includes puzzle magazines that carry the Take a Break name,1991 saw H Bauers first TV listings publishing with the launch of TVQuick magazine. TVQuick ceased publication in July 2010, in 1999 H Bauer launched TVChoice at a much lower price point than other titles on the market. TVChoice overtook its competitor in the February 2008 audited ABCs and has been the number one weekly newsstand magazine in the UK since. In September 2003, H Bauer launched Total TVGuide to cover the number of programmes available on Freeview. Bauer Media is a media group, with locations across the UK. Following their purchase of Emap in 2007, The Bauer Media Group acquired a collection of media brands and this includes heat and Grazia as well as a radio portfolio of national radio brands such as KISS FM UK and Magic, and regional radio brands across major UK cities. In 2013, Bauer Media also acquired the Absolute Radio Group from Times of India, Bauer Media also broadcasts TV music channels including The Box TV, in a joint venture with Channel 4
10.
Independent Local Radio
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Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. The same name is used for Independent Local Radio in Ireland, until the early 1970s, the BBC had a legal monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK. Upon the election of Edward Heaths government in 1970, this policy changed and it is possible that Heaths victory was partly due to younger voters upset by the UK government closing down the popular pirate radio stations. The new Minister of Post and Telecommunications, Christopher Chataway, announced a Bill to allow for the introduction of radio in the United Kingdom. This service would be planned and regulated in a manner to the existing ITV service. The Sound Broadcasting Act received Royal Assent on 12 July 1972, the IBA immediately began to plan the new service, placing advertisements encouraging interested groups to apply for medium-term contracts to provide programmes in given areas. The first major areas to be advertised were London and Glasgow, the London news contract was awarded to London Broadcasting Company and they began broadcasting on 8 October 1973. The London general contract went to Capital Radio, who began broadcasting on 16 October 1973, in total,19 contracts were awarded between 1973 and 1976. Due to government limits on expenditure and turbulence in the broadcasting field, no further contracts were awarded until 1980. All stations were awarded an AM and an FM frequency, on which they broadcast the same service, in the late 1980s, the expansion of ILR continued at a similar rate. Under the Broadcasting Acts, the IBA had a duty to ensure that any area it licensed for radio could support a station with the advertising revenue. Therefore, many areas were not included in the IBAs ILR plans as it was felt that they were not viable. Nevertheless, the served by ILR continued to increase and 1986 the IBA sanctioned in principle the idea that different services could be broadcast on each stations FM. The first experimental part-time split service was provided by Radio Forth, by 1988, the government had decided that the practice of splitting was beneficial and a quick way to increase choice for listeners. The IBA then began a programme of encouraging ILR stations to split their services, the usual format was to have a gold service on AM and pop music on FM, although Radio City tried City Talk on AM before abandoning the format. The 1990 Broadcasting Act provided for the abolition of the IBA, the IBA continued to regulate radio under the new name of the Radio Authority, but with a different remit. As a light-touch regulator, the Radio Authority was to issue licences to the highest bidder and this led to the awarding of three national contracts to Classic FM, Virgin 1215 and Talk Radio. At this point in time the wave band had become unpopular with radio groups
11.
West Midlands (region)
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The West Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It covers the western half of the area known as the Midlands. The city of Coventry is also located within the West Midlands county, the region is geographically diverse, from the urban central areas of the conurbation to the rural western counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire which border Wales. The region also encompasses five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Wye Valley, Shropshire hills, Cannock Chase, Malvern Hills, Warwickshire is home to the town of Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of the writer William Shakespeare. The highest point in the region is Black Mountain, at 703 metres in west Herefordshire on the border with Powys, Wales. The region contains five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including all of the Shropshire Hills, Malvern Hills and Cannock Chase, the Peak District national park also stretches into the northern corner of Staffordshire. Served by many lines in the areas such as the West Coast Main Line. The Welsh Marches Line and the Cotswold Line transect the region as well as the Cross Country Route, there are plans to reopen the Honeybourne Line. Numerous notable roads pass through the region, with most converging around the central conurbation, the M6 toll provides an alternative route to the M6 between Coleshill and Cannock, passing north of Sutton Coldfield and just south of Lichfield. The M40 connects the region through South East England to London, with its terminus at its junction with the M42, it passes close to Warwick. The M42 connects the M5 at Bromsgrove, passing around the south and east of Birmingham, joining the M40 and M6, passing Solihull and Castle Bromwich, to Tamworth, the M50 connects the M5 from near Tewkesbury to Ross-on-Wye in the southwest. The M54 connects Wellington in the west, passing Telford, to the M6 near Cannock, the A5 road traverses the region northwest-southeast, passing through Shrewsbury, Telford, Cannock, Tamworth and Nuneaton. As part of the planning system, the Regional Assembly is under statutory requirement to produce a Regional Transport Strategy to provide long term planning for transport in the region. This involves region wide transport schemes such as those carried out by the Highways Agency, within the region, the local transport authorities carry out transport planning through the use of a Local Transport Plan which outlines their strategies, policies and implementation programme. The most recent LTP is that for the period 2006-11, in the West Midlands region, the following transport authorities have published their LTP online, Herefordshire, Shropshire U. A. The transport authority of Stoke-on-Trent U. A, Major towns and cities in the West Midlands region include, Bold indicates city status. The region is based on the former region of Mercia. The Battle of Edgehill in October 1642 started the English Civil War, jane Bunford of Bartley Green until 1982 was the tallest woman ever in the world, and now the second tallest, and the tallest person ever in the UK, at 7 ft 11in
12.
Oldbury, West Midlands
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Oldbury is a town in Sandwell, West Midlands in England. It is a part of the Black Country, and the centre of the borough of Sandwell. At the 2011 census, the ward of Oldbury had a population of 13,606, however, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council give the population figure of Oldbury as 50,641. The place name Oldbury, comes from the Old English Ealdenbyrig, eald being Old English for old, Byrig is the plural of burh in Old English - a burh being a fortification or fortified town. It became an Urban District in 1894, receiving Municipal Borough status in 1935, the geographical county boundaries were also changed to include the whole of Warley as part of Worcestershire, formerly both Rowley Regis and Smethwick had been in Staffordshire. In 1974, Oldbury became part of the new Sandwell Metropolitan Borough, since 1986, after the abolition of the West Midlands County Council, Sandwell effectively became a unitary authority. Sandwell Councils headquarters are situated in Oldbury Town Centre, Oldbury comes within the B68 and B69 postal districts, the latter of which also covers part of Tipton. The postal town is Oldbury, although it came under the Warley post town, along with Smethwick, Rowley Regis. Jodie Stimpson, the British triathlete, was born in Oldbury in 1989, the Sadlers rose to become an eminent family in Oldbury during the nineteenth century. Notable figures included John Sadler and Sir Samuel Alexander Sadler, Joseph Willott, Jr. member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, was born in Oldbury in 1855. Oldbury is the birthplace of Sir John Frederick Bridge, who was a famous organist, composer and he was known as Westminster Bridge because of his long stint as organist at Westminster Abbey. He composed special music for Queen Victorias Jubilee and King Edward VIIs coronation, in addition to choral, instrumental. His brother Joseph Cox Bridge was also an organist, composer and author, jack Judge was a songwriter and music-hall entertainer best remembered for writing the song Its a Long, Long Way to Tipperary. The new library building in the town is named after him, Martin Elliott Martin, educated at Oldbury Grammar School, was a photographer, best known for the iconic poster Tennis Girl. In his early years, the comedian Frank Skinner lived in Oldbury at 181 Bristnall Hall Road and he attended Moat Farm Infants School, St Huberts Roman Catholic Junior School and Oldbury Technical School, and has been a TV comedian since the late 1980s. The boxer Pat Cowdell, who achieved stardom during the 1970s and 1980s, was born in nearby Smethwick, mick Aston, archaeologist and star of the TV programme Time Team, was born in Oldbury and attended Oldbury Grammar School. Tony Freeth, Author of Sons Of Albion book, and attended Albright High School, the first branch of Lloyds Bank was opened in Oldbury in 1864. The branch was founded to serve fellow Quakers Arthur Albright and John Wilsons local chemical factory, the original building survives to this day, but was recently made redundant as a bank and is now a Subway fast food restaurant. Subway moved from building early in 2012
13.
Medium wave
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Medium wave is the part of the medium frequency radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. Practical groundwave reception typically extends to 200–300 miles, with distances over terrain with higher ground conductivity. Most broadcast stations use groundwave to cover their listening area, Medium waves can also reflect off charged particle layers in the ionosphere and return to Earth at much greater distances, this is called the skywave. At night, especially in winter months and at times of low solar activity, when this happens, MF radio waves can easily be received many hundreds or even thousands of miles away as the signal will be reflected by the higher F layer. This can allow very long-distance broadcasting, but can also interfere with distant local stations, due to the limited number of available channels in the MW broadcast band, the same frequencies are re-allocated to different broadcasting stations several hundred miles apart. On nights of good skywave propagation, the signals of distant station may interfere with the signals of local stations on the same frequency. These channels are called clear channels, and they are required to broadcast at higher powers of 10 to 50 kW and this arrangement had numerous practical difficulties. The Commerce Department rarely intervened in such cases but left it up to stations to enter into voluntary timesharing agreements amongst themselves, the addition of a third entertainment wavelength,400 meters, did little to solve this overcrowding. In 1923, the Commerce Department realized that as more and more stations were applying for commercial licenses, on 15 May 1923, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover announced a new bandplan which set aside 81 frequencies, in 10 kHz steps, from 550 kHz to 1350 kHz. Each station would be assigned one frequency, no longer having to broadcast weather, class A and B stations were segregated into sub-bands. Today in most of the Americas, mediumwave broadcast stations are separated by 10 kHz and have two sidebands of up to ±5 kHz in theory, in the rest of the world, the separation is 9 kHz, with sidebands of ±4.5 kHz. Both provide adequate quality for voice, but are insufficient for high-fidelity broadcasting. In the US and Canada the maximum power is restricted to 50 kilowatts. Those stations which shut down completely at night are known as daytimers. In most cases there are two limits, a lower one for omnidirectional and a higher one for directional radiation with minima in certain directions. The power limit can also be depending on daytime and it is possible, other countries may only operate low-powered transmitters on the same frequency, again subject to agreement. For example, Russia operates a transmitter, located in its Kaliningrad exclave and used for external broadcasting. Due to the demand for frequencies in Europe, many countries operate single frequency networks, in Britain
14.
Turner's Hill
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This article is about Turners Hill, West Midlands. For the village of that name in West Sussex, see Turners Hill, Turners Hill or Turners Hill is the highest hill in the West Midlands, England, at 271m above sea level. The hill is situated on the border of Dudley and Rowley Regis, in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in a rural part of the predominantly industrial Black Country. The hill can be seen from miles away, and offers good views to Clent Hills, Kinver Edge, Shatterford Hill, Barr Beacon and on a clear day to the Shropshire. There are good views of the hill from the M5 Motorway between Junctions 1 and 2, there are working quarries on the southern end of the hill that are used to obtain diabase. On top of the hill are two radio transmission towers which can be seen for many miles. Dudley Golf Course is also situated on the hill, Rowley Hills Aerial Photo of Turners Hill Mike Browns page about the Radio Transmitters
15.
Linda Ronstadt
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Linda Maria Ronstadt is an American popular music singer. She has also earned nominations for a Tony Award and a Golden Globe award and she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. On July 28,2014, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts, in total, she has released over 30 studio albums and 15 compilation or greatest hits albums. Ronstadt charted 38 Billboard Hot 100 singles, with 21 reaching the top 40,10 in the top 10 and this success did not translate to the UK, with only her single Blue Bayou reaching the UK Top 40. Her duet with Aaron Neville, Dont Know Much, peaked at number 2 in December 1989, in addition, she has charted 36 albums,10 top-10 albums and three number 1 albums on the Billboard Pop Album Chart. Her autobiography, Simple Dreams, A Musical Memoir, was published in September 2013 and it debuted in the Top 10 on The New York Times Best Seller list. She has lent her voice to over 120 albums and has more than 100 million records. Christopher Loudon, of Jazz Times, wrote in 2004 that Ronstadt is blessed with arguably the most sterling set of pipes of her generation, after completing her last live concert in late 2009, Ronstadt retired in 2011. She was diagnosed as having Parkinsons disease in December 2012, which left her unable to sing. Linda Maria Ronstadt was born in 1946 in Tucson, Arizona, daughter to Gilbert Ronstadt, a prosperous merchant who ran the F. Ronstadt Co. and Ruth Mary Ronstadt. Ronstadt was raised on the familys 10-acre ranch with her siblings Peter, Michael J. the family was featured in Family Circle magazine in 1953. Lindas father came from a pioneering Arizona ranching family and was of German, English, the familys influence on and contributions to Arizonas history, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies, and music, are chronicled in the library of the University of Arizona. Her mother Ruth Mary, of German, English, and Dutch ancestry, was raised in Flint and she was a daughter of Lloyd Groff Copeman, a prolific inventor and holder of many patents. Copeman, with nearly 700 patents to his name, invented a form of the toaster, many refrigerator devices, the grease gun, the first electric stove. His flexible rubber ice cube tray earned him millions of dollars in royalties, later, as a solo artist, she released Hand Sown. Home Grown in 1969, which has described as the first alternative country record by a female recording artist. With the release of chart-topping albums such as Heart Like a Wheel, Simple Dreams and she set records as one of the top-grossing concert artists of the decade. Referred to as the First Lady of Rock and the Queen of Rock and her rock-and-roll image was as famous as her music, she appeared six times on the cover of Rolling Stone and on the covers of Newsweek and Time
16.
Eagles (band)
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The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971 by Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner. With five number-one singles, six Grammy Awards, five American Music Awards, and six number one albums, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s. Hotel California is ranked 37th in Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and their Greatest Hits was the best selling album of the 20th century in the U. S. They are the music act and the highest-selling American band in U. S. history. The band released their album, Eagles, in 1972. Their next album, Desperado, was successful than the first, only reaching number 41 on the charts. However, the album does contain what would go on to be two of the bands most popular tracks, Desperado and Tequila Sunrise, the band released On the Border in 1974, adding guitarist Don Felder as the fifth member midway through the recording of the album. The album generated two top 40 singles, Already Gone and their first number one, Best of My Love. Their 1975 album One of These Nights included three top 10 singles, One of These Nights, Lyin Eyes, and Take It to the Limit, guitarist and vocalist, Joe Walsh, also joined the band in 1975. The album yielded two singles, New Kid in Town and Hotel California. The Eagles disbanded in July 1980 but reunited in 1994 for the album Hell Freezes Over and they toured consistently and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2007, the Eagles released Long Road Out of Eden, their first full album in 28 years. The next year launched the Long Road Out of Eden Tour in support of the album. In 2013, they began the extended History of the Eagles Tour in conjunction with the bands documentary release, following the death of Frey in January 2016, Henley stated in several interviews that he didnt think the band would perform again. However, in March 2017 it was announced that the Eagles would be headlining two concerts in July 2017, the Eagles began in early 1971, when Linda Ronstadt and then-manager John Boylan recruited local musicians Glenn Frey and Don Henley for her band. While on the tour, Frey and Henley decided to form a band together, Frey later credited Ronstadt with suggesting Leadon for the band, and arranging for Leadon to play for her so Frey and Henley could approach him about forming a band together. They also pitched the idea to Meisner and brought him on board and these four played live together behind Ronstadt only once for a July concert at Disneyland, but all four appeared on her eponymous album. It was later proposed that J. D. Souther should join the band, the four were signed in September 1971 to Asylum Records, the new label started by David Geffen, who was introduced to Frey by Jackson Browne
17.
Independent Broadcasting Authority
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The Independent Broadcasting Authority was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television – and commercial and independent radio broadcasts. The IBA came into being when the Sound Broadcasting Act 1972 gave the Independent Television Authority responsibility for organising the new Independent Local Radio stations, Independent Television Commission formally replaced the IBA on 1 January 1991 in regulatory terms, however the Authority itself was not officially dissolved until 2003. It established and part-funded a National Broadcasting School to train on-air, the IBAs approach to regulation was more robust than its successors, and it assumed the ultimate role of the broadcaster. The IBA took a very hands-on approach and placed the interests of the viewer before anything else, for example, if two ITV licensees wanted to merge, or another wanted to change its broadcast name, this would require approval by the IBA. This direct approach extended to also, the IBA could place limits on how many soap episodes could be shown per week. In 1960, two years after the scandal in America, the IBAs predecessor imposed a £1,000 cap on the value of prizes that would increase over the years to £6,000 in 1981 and be lifted in 1993. The Six Thousand Four Hundred Pound Question was only asked every other week so as not to break the regulatory £3, 200/week maximum. For several years until July 1990 the IBA put out a weekly programme under the title Engineering Announcements, transmitted outside normal programme hours. These provided valuable information for members of the radio and television trade. Regional programming on ITV was a concern for the IBA. In particular, the IBAs E&D Department developed SABRE that enabled mainland broadcast television channels to be received for re-broadcasting in the Channel Islands. During the early 1980s, the E&D Department designed and manufactured the specialised broadcast receiving and monitoring equipment used to build the national broadcast network for Channel Four, e&Ds engineers also designed and built some of the first digital audio equipment for satellite broadcasting including systems using data packets. In the late 1980s the IBA was appointed as regulator and transmitter operator for the first DBS service for the UK, in advance of this, the rival Sky Television plc was able to launch an analogue service from Luxembourg regulated satellites. After around a year, the merged with BSB. These assets are now within the portfolio operated by Arqiva, in 2008 the IBAs extensive archive was lodged with the University of Bournemouth. The IBAs Membership of the European Broadcasting Union was passed to United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting, the Engineering staff of the IBA contributed many papers to international standards groups and conferences over many years. Its lasting legacy is a set of IBA Technical Reviews published over a period of 16 years from 1972 to 1988, the complete set of these Reviews as well as some other documents and records is available for free download. The reviews were written by the technical staff of the IBA but some articles were written by others from the Independent Television companies
18.
Shrewsbury
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Shrewsbury SHROOZ-bree is the county town of Shropshire, England. It is on the River Severn and has a population of approximately 72,000. and is nicknamed the heart of shropshire. Shrewsbury is a town whose centre has a largely unaltered medieval street plan and over 660 listed buildings. The town has historically been a centre for the wool trade, horticulture remains popular, and the Shrewsbury Flower Show is one of the largest horticultural events in England. The A5 and A49 trunk roads cross near to the town and its later Welsh name Amwythig means fortified place. Over the ages, the important town has been the site of many conflicts. The Angles, under King Offa of Mercia, took possession in 778, nearby is the village of Wroxeter,5 miles to the south-east. This was once the site of Viroconium, the fourth largest cantonal capital in Roman Britain, as Caer Guricon it is a possible alternative for the Dark Age seat of the Kingdom of Powys. The importance of the Shrewsbury area in the Roman era was underlined with the discovery of the Shrewsbury Hoard in 2009, Shrewsburys known history commences in the Early Middle Ages, having been founded c.800 AD. It is believed that Anglo-Saxon Shrewsbury was most probably a settlement fortified through the use of earthworks comprising a ditch and rampart, There is evidence to show that by the beginning of the 900s, Shrewsbury was home to a mint. The Welsh besieged it in 1069, but were repelled by William the Conqueror, Roger de Montgomery was given the town as a gift from William, and built Shrewsbury Castle in 1074, taking the title of Earl. He founded Shrewsbury Abbey as a Benedictine monastery in 1083, the 3rd Earl, Robert of Bellême, was deposed in 1102 and the title forfeited, in consequence of rebelling against Henry I and joining the Duke of Normandys invasion of English in 1101. In 1138, King Stephen successfully besieged the castle held by William FitzAlan for the Empress Maud during the known as the Anarchy. It was in the late Middle Ages when the town was at its height of commercial importance. This was mainly due to the trade, a major industry at the time, with the rest of Britain and Europe, especially with the River Severn. The Shrewsbury Drapers Company dominated the trade in Welsh wool for many years, Shrewsburys monastic gathering was disbanded with the Dissolution of the Monasteries and as such the Abbey was closed in 1540. However, it is believed that Henry VIII thereafter intended to make Shrewsbury a cathedral city after the formation of the Church of England, but the citizens of the town declined the offer. Despite this, Shrewsbury thrived throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, largely due to the towns fortuitous location, as a resultant a number of grand edifices, including the Irelands Mansion and Drapers Hall, were constructed
19.
Amplitude modulation
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Amplitude modulation is a modulation technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. In amplitude modulation, the amplitude of the wave is varied in proportion to the waveform being transmitted. That waveform may, for instance, correspond to the sounds to be reproduced by a loudspeaker and this technique contrasts with frequency modulation, in which the frequency of the carrier signal is varied, and phase modulation, in which its phase is varied. AM was the earliest modulation method used to transmit voice by radio and it was developed during the first two decades of the 20th century beginning with Roberto Landell De Moura and Reginald Fessendens radiotelephone experiments in 1900. It remains in use today in many forms of communication, for example it is used in two way radios, VHF aircraft radio, Citizens Band Radio, and in computer modems. AM is often used to refer to mediumwave AM radio broadcasting, when it reaches its destination, the information signal is extracted from the modulated carrier by demodulation. In amplitude modulation, the amplitude or strength of the oscillations is what is varied. For example, in AM radio communication, a continuous wave signal has its amplitude modulated by an audio waveform before transmission. The audio waveform modifies the amplitude of the wave and determines the envelope of the waveform. In the frequency domain, amplitude modulation produces a signal with power concentrated at the carrier frequency, each sideband is equal in bandwidth to that of the modulating signal, and is a mirror image of the other. Standard AM is thus sometimes called double-sideband amplitude modulation to distinguish it more sophisticated modulation methods also based on AM. One disadvantage of all amplitude modulation techniques is that the receiver amplifies and detects noise, increasing the received signal to noise ratio, say, by a factor of 10, thus would require increasing the transmitter power by a factor of 10. For this reason AM broadcast is not favored for music and high fidelity broadcasting, another disadvantage of AM is that it is inefficient in power usage, at least two-thirds of the power is concentrated in the carrier signal. The carrier signal contains none of the information being transmitted. However its presence provides a means of demodulation using envelope detection, providing a frequency. The receiver may regenerate a copy of the frequency from a greatly reduced pilot carrier to use in the demodulation process. Even with the carrier totally eliminated in double-sideband suppressed-carrier transmission, carrier regeneration is possible using a Costas phase-locked loop and this doesnt work however for single-sideband suppressed-carrier transmission, leading to the characteristic Donald Duck sound from such receivers when slightly detuned. Single sideband is used widely in amateur radio and other voice communications both due to its power efficiency and bandwidth efficiency
20.
WABC (AM)
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WABC, known as NewsTalkRadio 77 WABC is a radio station in New York City. Owned by the division of Cumulus Media, the station broadcasts on a clear channel and is the flagship station of the Westwood One Network. WABC shares studio facilities with sister stations WNSH, WPLJ, WABCs transmitter is located in Lodi, New Jersey. Its 50,000 watt non-directional clear channel signal can be heard at night much of the eastern U. S. Beginning January 2009, its programming has also carried on WPLJs HD3 digital sub-channel. One of the countrys oldest radio stations, WABC began broadcasting, originally as WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, WABC has programmed a talk radio format since 1982. The station uses on-air slogans such as Breaking News and Stimulating Talk, New Yorks 50,000 Watt Beacon of Freedom, many WABC hosts moved on to national syndication. The station currently serves as the flagship for syndicated talk-radio hosts Mark Levin, John Batchelor and Don Imus. It was where the nationally syndicated programs hosted by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity got their start, from 1981 to 1982, WABC ran a full service news intensive adult contemporary format with some talk and sports programming weekday evenings. During this time, WABC was among the most listened to stations in North America. WABCs only current sports contract is with the United States Military Academy for Army football games. In addition to the aforementioned Yankees coverage, the station served two stints as the flagship for the New York Jets and was also the home of the New Jersey Devils beginning in 1988. WABC also previously carried Seton Hall University mens basketball, early in its Top 40 incarnation, WABC served as the original radio flagship of the New York Mets. A notable aspect of WABCs Mets coverage was Howard Cosell and former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca handling the pre-, the station lost those rights to WHN following the 1963 season. The Jets first called WABC home in the 1980s, but left toward the end of the decade for WCBS, the team would return to the station in 2000 after spending the previous seven seasons on WFAN. After then-sister station WEPN became the Jets flagship, WABC began simulcasting the games over their airwaves due to its stronger signal, the arrangement ended in 2008 as WEPN began simulcasting all its programming on two other stations. In December 2001, broadcast rights to the Yankees were lost after 21 years to WCBS, WABC also lost the radio rights to the Devils in 2005, as New Jerseys hockey team moved to WFAN to substitute for the stations loss of the New York Rangers to WEPN. The loss of evening sports programming has forced WABC to attempt to solidify its evening talk lineup, WJZs studio and transmitter were initially housed in a shack located on the factory roof, that was only accessible by ladder
21.
WABC-TV
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WABC-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of the ABC Television Network, located in New York City. WABC-TV is owned by the ABC Owned Television Stations subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of the Disney Media Networks subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The stations studios and offices are located near Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, adjacent to ABCs corporate headquarters, its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building. WABC-TV is best known in broadcasting circles for its version of the Eyewitness News format and for its morning show, in the few areas of the eastern United States where an ABC station isnt receivable over-the-air, WABC is available on satellite via DirecTV and Dish Network. The station signed on August 10,1948, as WJZ-TV, Channel 7s call letters came from its then-sister radio station, WJZ. The stations original transmitter site was atop The Pierre Hotel at 2 East 61st Street, the stations original studios were located at 77 West 66th Street, with studios at 7 West 66th Street. An underground tunnel linked ABC studios at 7 West 66th Street to the lobby of the Hotel des Artistes, another studio inside the Hotel des Artistes was used for Eyewitness News Conference. S. At about the time, construction was started at 30 West 67th Street on the site of a former parking lot. Both buildings were completed in June 1979 and WABC-TV moved its offices from 77 West 66th Street to 7 Lincoln Square, transmitter maintenance engineer Donald DiFranco died in the attack. The station eventually established transmission facilities at the Empire State Building, on May 27,2007, WABC-TVs studios suffered major damage as the result of a fire that knocked the station off the air shortly before the start of the 11,00 PM Newscast. The stations building was evacuated and the fire was brought under control, though the studio was said to be damaged, having suffered smoke. WABC-TV resumed broadcasting at around 1,00 AM on May 28,2007, starting with the 5,00 PM Newscast on June 20,2007, the station resumed the Eyewitness News and Live. Broadcasts from its studios at Columbus Avenue and 66th Street. WABC-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, at 12,30 PM on June 12,2009, the stations digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 45 to VHF channel 7. WABCs digital signal was difficult to receive over-the-air in New York City. On June 29,2009, WABC filed an application with the FCC to increase power from 11.69 kW to 27 kW, on January 31,2010, the FCC granted a special temporary authority for the station to increase power to 26.9 kW. WABCs sister station, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia was also pulled from Cablevisions New Jersey systems in Mercer, Ocean, in July 2010, ABCs parent company Disney announced that it was involved in a carriage dispute with Time Warner Cable, its first with that provider in 10 Years. This dispute involved 4 ABC owned-and-operated stations, Disney Channel and the ESPN networks, if a deal wasnt in place, the affected stations and cable channels wouldve been removed from Time Warner and Bright House Networks systems across the country
22.
Orion Media
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Orion Media was a UK commercial radio group, founded in 2009 after a management buy-in, with backing from Lloyds Development Capital. It was created from the sale of several radio stations in the English Midlands previously owned by Global Radio. In May 2016, the company was sold to Bauer Media Group, following Global Radios acquisition of GCap Media in 2007, it was deemed that Global had an unfair advantage in the West Midlands market as they owned the vast majority of stations. The OFT wanted to re-install competition in the Midlands area, causing Global to sell some of their stations, in June 2009, the new group was named Orion Media. In January 2012, Orion Media announced that its four FM stations in the West Midlands region were to be renamed Free Radio - replacing the individual names BRMB, Mercia, Wyvern, the rebranding took place at 7pm on Monday 26 March 2012. On 24 May 2012, Orion Media announced it would relaunch its Gold West Midlands stations on AM frequencies, on 6 May 2016, Orion announced they had been bought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee, reportedly between £40 and £50 million. On 6 May 2016, the owners, Orion, announced they had been bought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee
23.
Free Radio 80s
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Free Radio 80s is an Independent Local Radio station serving the Birmingham, Coventry, Shropshire and Black Country Herefordshire and Worcestershire areas, broadcasting on medium wave and DAB. The station, owned and operated by Bauer Radio, was launched on Monday 4 September 2012, and plays a selection of chart hits from the 1980s alongside local news and sports coverage. Orion Media was formed in 2009, following the purchase of five Midlands-based radio stations - namely BRMB, Mercia, Wyvern, Beacon, in early 2012, Orion announced plans to rebrand BRMB, Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern into one station as a means of generating greater revenue. They were renamed as Free Radio on 26 March 2012, on 24 May 2012, Orion Media announced it would relaunch its Gold West Midlands stations on AM frequencies and DAB as Free Radio 80s. Gold was replaced by test transmissions for Free Radio 80s in the week of August. On 6 May 2016, the owners, Orion, announced they had been bought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee. The commentaries were subsequently moved to Gold, six months before the launch of Free Radio 80s, the following season, Free Radio 80s continued to air sports programming under The Goalzone strand, an hour-long chat show on Monday and Friday evenings. On 17 May 2016, the head of sport, Tom Ross, presented his final programme after 35 years working for BRMB, Xtra AM, Capital Gold
24.
GCap Media
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GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed in May 2005 and it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE250 Index. On 31 March 2008 the company agreed a takeover by Global Radio for £375 million and this was completed on 6 June 2008, and the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Radio. On 1 November 2008, Global Radio discontinued using the name GCap Media, Capital Radio Group was, until May 2005, a London-based British radio group. The company was set up to operate a General Entertainment Independent Local Radio service in October 1973. Capital Radio was the second commercial radio station to launch in the UK. In the 1980s the station was allowed to operate services on AM. In 1993, Capital bought BRMB, and in 1994 the Southern Radio Group which owned, fox FM in Oxfordshire and Red Dragon FM in Wales were also purchased in the 90s. Capital also acquired the Century FM stations in 2000 as well as Border Television in order to acquire its radio stations, all in all, Capital Radio Group controlled 22 analogue and 59 digital radio licences. In July 1998 Capital Radio Group bought the financially troubled alternative radio station, in the early 21st century, Capital Radio Group expanded its range of FM stations, and also started broadcasting digital-only stations such as Capital Disney and Capital Life. GWR Group was a British radio company with assets including the nationwide station Classic FM. The letters GWR were chosen because its launch coincided with the reopening of the Great Western Railway in Bristol in 1985, between 1996 and 1999 GWR was a major shareholder in London News Radio, which owned and operated Londons LBC and News Direct radio stations. These stations were sold to Chrysalis Radio in 2002, GWR was owned by Daily Mail and General Trust plc, various asset management firms, Sir Peter Michael and other small shareholders. Until the merger, the group was chaired by Ralph Bernard and its office was in Passage Street. During its existence, GWR acquired the Marcher Radio Group, Mid Anglia Radio Group, Chiltern Radio Group and East Anglian Radio Group to name,1985, Wiltshire Radio merges with Radio West to form GWR. 1988, GWR joins Classic FM partnership,1996, GWR acquires full control of Classic FM. 1998, GWR wins Digital One license,1999, Digital One begins broadcasting, launches Internet radio broadcasts. This allowed it to syndicate a number of programmes across its network of radio stations, on Friday and Saturday evenings the network splits, with most stations taking Non-Stop Party and Party Anthems while the other stations take School Daze and Hairbrush Divas
25.
Free Radio Birmingham
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Free Radio Birmingham is an Independent Local Radio station serving Birmingham and surrounding areas. It is owned and operated by Bauer Radio and broadcasts on 96.4 FM and DAB Digital Radio, the station is part of the Bauer City 1 network, which broadcasts a mix of chart, contemporary and classic hits alongside local news and information. The original station name, BRMB, was not an acronym, instead, the original company, Birmingham Broadcasting Ltd. wanted something that combined a US-style call-sign with the company name - e. g. Birmingham - and broadcasting -, equalling BRMB. In 1988, as a response to government disapproval of the simulcasting of programmingon both FM and mediumwave, a station was launched on the 1152 kHz frequency. Xtra AM became BRMBs gold service, playing classic hits, while BRMB itself began to cater for a younger audience. At this stage, BRMB was part of Midlands Radio plc, however, they sold the other stations to the GWR Group whilst Capital kept hold of BRMB and Xtra AM. Xtra was on the air for nine years until the majority of its programming was switched to London, in July 2009, the station was sold officially to a company backed by Lloyds Development Capital and Phil Riley which was named Orion Media. On 9 January 2012, Orion Media announced that BRMB would be rebranded as Free Radio Birmingham, along with its sister West Midlands stations Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern. Live football commentaries on Aston Villa and Birmingham City matches continued to broadcast on Free Radio 80s on AM, on 6 May 2016, the stations owners, Orion, announced they had been bought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee, reportedly between £40 and £50 million. In February 2017, most of Free Radios off-peak networked output from Birmingham was replaced by programming from the Bauer City 1 network in Manchester, Local programming is produced and broadcast from Free Radios Birmingham studios from 6am-7pm on weekdays, 2-6pm on Saturdays and 12-4pm on Sundays. Free Radio Birmingham also carries networked programming from sister station Key 103 in Manchester via the Bauer City 1 network, the Vodafone Big Top 40 is produced by Global Radio at its Capital studios in London for broadcast on 145 commercial radio stations in the UK. The stations local presenters include Dan Kelly, Naomi Kent, Dan Morrissey, the stations networked presenters include Paddy McGuinness, Darryl Morris, Marvin Humes and Wes Butters. Free Radio Birmingham broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays, headlines are broadcast on the half hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside sport and traffic bulletins. National bulletins from Sky News Radio are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons, BRMB was originally based in Aston Road North, in the Aston area of Birmingham, near the Spaghetti Junction. These were the former Alpha Television Studios, the home of ATV, the current Free Radio studios are based in the Brindleyplace development near Broad Street in Birmingham city centre. Since August 2011, local programming for the Coventry and Warwickshire station has been produced, the FM signal - 10kW ERP - is broadcast from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter, and can be received throughout a large part of the West Midlands. Free Radio in Birmingham organises a number of public events including the Walkathon. The station also sponsors the Bupa Great Birmingham Run and the Acorns Midnight Walk
26.
Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire
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Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire is an Independent Local Radio station serving Coventry and Warwickshire, England. The station, which is owned and operated by Bauer Radio, broadcasts from studios shared with Free Radio Birmingham, in 1987, the station moved FM frequencies, along with most ILR stations at the time to 97.0 FM. Shortly after this a new transmitter on 102.9 FM was created to serve South Warwickshire. In 1989, along with BRMB in Birmingham, the AM frequency was split from the FM transmissions to create a new station called Xtra AM which played music from the 1960s and 1970s. During this period numerous presenters from other GWR stations joined Mercia, including Craig Strong, Tim Gough, Rachael Hopper, from 2002 onwards, the slogan was Playing the best mix of the 80s, 90s and today. In 2007, it reverted to the old slogan of Todays Best Mix, in July 2009, the station was sold officially to a company, backed by Lloyds Development Capital and Phil Riley, called Orion Media. Currently, eight hours of programming are broadcast each weekday with four hours on weekend afternoons. Outside of these hours, programming is networked with the rest of the Bauer City 1 network. On 9 January 2012, Orion Media announced that Mercia would be rebranded as a Free Radio station from April 2012, along with its sister West Midlands stations Beacon, BRMB and Wyvern. The Mercia brand was phased out on Wednesday 21 March 2012 in preparation for the rebrand, on 6 May 2016, the stations owners, Orion, announced they had been brought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee, reportedly between £40 and £50 million. Local programming for Coventry and Warwickshire is produced and broadcast from Free Radios Birmingham studios from 6-10am and 3-7pm on weekdays, 2-6pm on Saturdays, the four Free Radio stations also share a regional daytime programme from 10am-3pm on weekdays, presented from the Birmingham studios by Dan Morrissey. Free Radio Coventry and Warwickshire also carries networked programming from sister station Key 103 in Manchester via the Bauer City 1 network, the Vodafone Big Top 40 is produced by Global Radio at its Capital studios in London for broadcast on 145 commercial radio stations in the UK. The stations local presenters include John Dalziel, Roisin McCourt and Tom Newitt, the stations networked presenters include Paddy McGuinness, Darryl Morris, Marvin Humes and Wes Butters. Free Radio Coventry and Warwickshire broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays, headlines are broadcast on the half hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside sport and traffic bulletins. National bulletins from Sky News Radio are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons, Official Coventry website Official Warwickshire website
27.
Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire
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Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire is an Independent Local Radio station serving Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The station, owned and operated by Bauer Radio, broadcasts from studios in Worcester on 96.7,97.6, and 102.8 FM, Radio Wyvern originally went on-air on 4 October 1982. The original Wyvern name derived from the River Wye and River Severn, the initial Presentation team consisted of Sammy Southall at Breakfast, Roy Leonard in the morning, Graham Hughes in the afternoon and rock shows, and Mike George at drivetime. Weekend presenters included Jeff Roberts, Rob Yarnold and Bob Lee, managing Director from 1984 until 1996 was Norman Bilton who joined Wyvern from Two Counties Radio in Bournemouth and Metro Radio in Newcastle. The station has played host to many well-known broadcasters over the years, Neil Fox began his professional broadcasting career here in 1984, and the line Wyvern News, this is Howard Hughes became very familiar to listeners. Rich Edwards, who joined in the early days, presented on Classic Hits until its abrupt closure in 2007. David Holdsworth, now with the BBC was the stations News Editor, several of the original presenters including Mike George, Graham Hughes, and Roy Leonard went on to long careers with BBC radio and television. Some time later, it was rebranded as Classic Hits, and by this time a local service. In 2007, Laser Broadcasting abruptly relaunched the AM station as SunshineRadio, Wyvern was latterly acquired by GWR and later, Global Radio, who moved the station to new studios at Kirkham House in the Perdiswell Park area of Worcester. In July 2009, the station was officially to a company backed by Lloyds Development Capital. Following the take over In January 2010, Wyvern FM rebranded as Wyvern and launched a new station slogan, Local programming is retained at breakfast and weekday drivetime. The Wyvern brand was phased out on 21 March 2012 in preparation for the rebrand, on 6 May 2016, the stations owners, Orion, announced they had been brought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee, reportedly between £40 and £50 million. Local programming is produced and broadcast from Free Radios Worcester studios from 6-10am and 3-7pm on weekdays, 2-6pm on Saturdays, the four Free Radio stations also share a regional daytime programme from 10am-3pm on weekdays, presented from the Birmingham studios by Dan Morrissey. Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire also carries networked programming from sister station Key 103 in Manchester via the Bauer City 1 network, the Vodafone Big Top 40 is produced by Global Radio at its Capital studios in London for broadcast on 145 commercial radio stations in the UK. The stations local presenters are Richard Hurst and Helen Wheels, David Francis, the stations networked presenters include Paddy McGuinness, Darryl Morris, Marvin Humes and Wes Butters. Free Radio Herefordshire and Worcestershire broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays, headlines are broadcast on the half hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside sport and traffic bulletins. Local bulletins are produced from Free Radios Birmingham newsroom, national bulletins from Sky News Radio in London are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons from Key 103s Manchester newsroom. Sammy Southall Elliott Webb Robin Banks Dean Roberts Davinia Palmer Neil Fox Mike George Richard Clarke Sam and Mark Official website Radio Wyvern launch documentary
28.
Gem 106
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Gem 106 is an English regional radio station broadcasting to the East Midlands, owned and operated by Bauer Radio. The station is transmitted from the Copt Oak transmitter close to the M1 north of Leicester in the National Forest, Radio 106 launched at 6am on Tuesday 23 September 1997. Billed as Radio for Grown Ups, the new station was led by ex-Radio Trent managing director Ron Coles with former Centre Radio MD Ken Warburton as programming controller. The first presenter on air was Dickie Dodd, Radio 106s launch schedule included a heavy emphasis on speech content, including daily guests on mid-morning shows and a nightly 3-hour phone-in. Specialist music output featured country, soul and motown at weekends, the stations launch team included Kevin Fernihough, Mark Keen, Willie Morgan, Kenny Hague, Jake Yapp, Peter King and Sarah Graham. In April 1998, John Myers took control of the station, other additions to the team included Steve Jordan and Bernie Keith. In May 2000, Century 106, along with the other Century stations in the North East, David Lloyd left the station to join Galaxy 105 in Leeds while presenter Adrian Allen walked out mid-show in protest. The sale to Capital brought an increase in the sports coverage - as emphasised in the slogan music, fun. More new presenters joined Century, including Ian Skye, Jason King, Stuart Ellis, when Capital later merged with GWR, the Office of Fair Trading ordered Century to be sold off. Heart 106 was launched on 29 August 2005, a further, more subtle rebrand was applied in September 2006 which saw the dropping of the frequencies from station names across the Heart Network. On 25 June 2007, Chrysalis announced the sale of Heart, along with its sister stations The Arrow, LBC and Galaxy, for £170 million to Global Radio. Following Globals takeover of GCap Media, the Office of Fair Trading again ordered Global to sell off Heart and four other Midlands stations - BRMB, Mercia FM, Wyvern FM and Beacon Radio. In May 2009, the stations were sold to Orion Media, on 9 November 2010, Orion Media announced that Heart 106 would be relaunched and renamed as Gem 106 on 1 January 2011. Under the rebrand, the station ended its agreement with Global Radio which allowed it to use the Heart identity. Gem 106 was launched at midnight on Saturday 1 January 2011 with a programme presented by Orions director of programming and marketing David Lloyd. The GEM name stands for Great East Midlands, the created and used from 1988 onwards for GEM-AM an AM. The majority of the programming is locally produced and broadcast from Nottingham. The station also carries the nationally syndicated Vodafone Big Top 40 With Marvin Humes on Sunday afternoons, as of March 2016, Gem refreshed their imaging and jingle package using a custom package from Wise Buddah
29.
Phil Riley
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Phil Riley was Chief Executive of Chrysalis Radio from June 1999 to July 2007, having played a major role in establishing Chrysalis Radio as one of the leading new entrants in the UK radio industry. Phil resigned his post after leading the successful sale of Chrysalis Radio to private company Global Radio in July 2007 and he is a Fellow of The Radio Academy and now owns Orion Media in the West Midlands. Rileys radio career started in 1980, when he joined Birminghams BRMB as a graduate trainee, in 1990, he was appointed Managing Director of 96.3 Radio Aire in Leeds where he was responsible for the launch and success of Magic 828, the original Magic station. Phil was active in the development of radio, sitting on the board of the Digital Radio Development Bureau. On a wider level, Phil held main board memberships of The Radio Centre for over ten years. He also sat on the Rajar Board, Phil has an MBA from Columbia Business School. He advised media company boards on strategy matters, and at the end of 2007 was named Executive Chairman of a bid for EMAP Radio, backed by Private Equity group Vitruvian Partners. In May 2009, Riley purchased BRMB, Mercia, Wyvern, Beacon in the West Midlands, in January 2012, Riley announced that all these stations apart from Gem 106 would be rebranded as Free Radio in order to give Orion better marketing opportunities. On Thursday 3 July 2014, Riley received a Special Award at the Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards
30.
Free Radio (network)
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Free Radio is a group of five Independent Local Radio stations in the West Midlands of England. The network, owned and operated by Bauer Radio, was launched on Monday 26 March 2012 as a result of the rebranding of four stations - BRMB, Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern. On Tuesday 4 September 2012, a secondary AM station broadcasting 1980s chart music, the FM stations form part of the Bauer City 1 network, carrying local and network programming. BRMB began broadcasting to Birmingham and the areas on 19 February 1974 - the fourth ILR station to launch in the UK. Beacon Radio has served Wolverhampton and the Black Country since 12 April 1976 with its area expanded to cover Shropshire in 1987. Mercia Sound was launched in Coventry and Warwickshire on 23 May 1980, the group was bought for £18 million by Capital Radio plc in 1993, who sold Mercia to the GWR Group but retained BRMB. GWR went on to buy Beacon from its holding company BCCL in 1995, the four licences came under the same ownership in 2005 when GWR and Capital merged to form GCap Media. The stations were bought in May 2009 by a led by former Chrysalis Radio chief executive Phil Riley. On 9 January 2012, Orion announced that it would rebrand its four West Midlands stations as Free Radio from March 2012 onwards. The former on-air station brands were phased out on Wednesday 21 March 2012 in preparation for the rebrand, on 6 May 2016, the networks owners, Orion, announced they had been bought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee, reportedly between £40 and £50 million. As of August 2016, Free Radio is now aligned with the Bauer City 1 network, the four stations began carrying networked programming from Bauers Manchester studios in February 2017. On 24 May 2012, Orion Media announced it would relaunch its Gold West Midlands stations on AM frequencies, the station broadcasts locally produced programming playing 1980s chart music alongside news & information and sports programming. The station launched on Tuesday 4 September 2012, the four Free Radio local stations broadcast programming to each of their coverage areas at breakfast and drivetime on weekdays and on weekend afternoons. The four stations share a regional programme each weekday from 10am-3pm, output outside of these hours consist of programming from the Bauer City 1 network, broadcast largely from sister station Key 103 in Castlefield, Manchester. Local news bulletins are broadcast on all stations hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays and from 7am to 1pm on weekends with headlines on the hour during weekday breakfast
31.
West Bromwich Albion F.C.
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The club was formed in 1878 and has played at its home ground, The Hawthorns, since 1900. Albion were one of the members of the Football League in 1888 and have spent the majority of their existence in the top tier of English football. They have been champions of England once, in 1919–20 and have been runners-up twice but they have had success in the FA Cup. The first came in 1888, the year the league was founded, and they also won the Football League Cup at the first attempt in 1966. The clubs longest consecutive period in the top division spanned twenty-four years between 1949 and 1973, and from 1986 to 2002 they spent their longest ever spell out of the top division and they currently play in the Premier League. The team has played in blue and white stripes for most of the clubs history. The club was founded as West Bromwich Strollers in 1878 by workers from George Salters Spring Works in West Bromwich, the club joined the Birmingham & District Football Association in 1881 and became eligible for their first competition, the Birmingham Cup. They reached the quarter-finals, beating several longer-established clubs on the way, in 1883, Albion won their first trophy, the Staffordshire Cup. Albion joined the Football Association in the year, this enabled them to enter the FA Cup for the first time in the 1883–84 season. In 1885 the club turned professional, and in 1886 they reached the FA Cup final for the first time and they reached the final again in 1887, but lost 2–0 to Aston Villa. In 1888 the team won the trophy for the first time, as FA Cup winners, they qualified to play in a Football World Championship game against Scottish Cup winners Renton, which ended in a 4–1 defeat. Thus when the Football League started later that year, Albion became one of the founder members. Albions second FA Cup success came in 1892, beating Aston Villa 3–0 and they met Villa again in the 1895 final, but lost 1–0. The team suffered relegation to Division Two in 1900–01, their first season at The Hawthorns and they were promoted as champions the following season but relegated again in 1903–04. The club won the Division Two championship once more in 1910–11, and the season reached another FA Cup Final. Albion won the Football League title in 1919–20 for the time in their history following the end of World War I. The team finished as Division One runners-up in 1924–25, narrowly losing out to Huddersfield Town, in 1930–31, they won promotion as well as the FA Cup, beating Birmingham 2–1 in the final. The Double of winning the FA Cup and promotion has not been achieved before or since, Albion reached the final again in 1935, losing to Sheffield Wednesday, but were relegated three years later
32.
Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.
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Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club /ˌwʊlvərˈhæmptən/ is a professional association football club based in the city of Wolverhampton, West Midlands. The club was known as St. Lukes FC and was founded in 1877. They compete in the Championship, the second highest tier of English football, the following season saw two further managers dismissed as the club then suffered a second relegation, ending up in League One. However, in the season they gained promotion back to the Championship where they currently reside. The clubs current head coach is Paul Lambert, who took charge in November 2016, having become professional, the club were nominated to become one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888, in which they played the first Football League match ever staged. They ended the season in third place, as well as reaching their first FA Cup Final, losing 0–3 to the first Double winners. At the conclusion of the campaign the club relocated for a time when they moved to Molineux. Wolves lifted the FA Cup for the first time in 1893 when they beat Everton 1–0, and added a second triumph in 1908, two years after having dropped into the Second Division. After struggling for years to regain their place in the top division, the club suffered a further relegation in 1923, entering the Third Division. Eight years later Wolves regained their status after winning the Second Division title under Major Frank Buckley. This game had been the last in a Wolves shirt for Stan Cullis, the 1950s were by far the most successful period in the clubs history. Captained by Billy Wright, Wolves finally claimed the championship for the first time in 1953–54. This became the final spur for Gabriel Hanot, the editor of LÉquipe, to propose the creation of the European Cup, although the decade opened with a fourth FA Cup victory and almost the first double of the 20th century, the 1960s saw Wolves begin to decline. Cullis was sacked in September 1964 in a season that ended with relegation and this exile would last only two seasons though, as they were promoted in 1967 as runners-up. During the close season in 1967, Wolves played a season in North America as part of the fledgling United Soccer Association league which imported clubs from Europe. Playing as the Los Angeles Wolves, they won the Western Division, the clubs return to the English top flight heralded another period of relative success under Bill McGarry, with a fourth place in 1971 qualifying them for the newly created UEFA Cup. They lifted silverware though two later, when they won the League Cup for the first time by beating Manchester City 2–1 in the final. The club was saved from liquidation at the last minute when it was purchased by a consortium fronted by former player Derek Dougan
33.
Soham murders
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The Soham murders occurred in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England, on 4 August 2002. The victims were two 10-year-old girls, Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Aimee Chapman and their bodies were found near RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, on 17 August 2002, by a local farm worker. His girlfriend, Maxine Ann Carr, was the teaching assistant at St Andrews Primary School. Carr had provided Huntley with an alibi and received a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for perverting the course of justice. On Sunday,4 August 2002, Wells and Chapman had attended a barbecue at Wells home in Redhouse Gardens, at around 6,15 pm, they went out to buy some sweets. On their way back they walked past the home of Ian Huntley, Huntley saw the girls and asked them to come into his house. He said that his girlfriend, Maxine Carr, their assistant at St Andrews Primary School, was in the house too. She had in fact gone to visit family in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, shortly after the girls entered the house, Huntley murdered them. Huntleys motive for killing Wells and Chapman may never be known, Huntley had allegedly suspected Carr of cheating on him. The police suspected that Huntley killed the girls in a fit of jealous rage, Huntleys mother also said that she suspected this. The police found no evidence of premeditation, meanwhile, over the next two weeks, Huntley appeared in several television interviews on Sky News and the BBCs regional news programme Look East, speaking of the shock in the local community. One reporter suggested to Huntley that he may have been the last person to speak to the girls before they disappeared, to which Huntley replied, Yeah, Police also seized a white van from a caravan park in Wentworth, some 10 miles from Soham, on 7 August. This sighting was made public on 13 August and that evening, a dog walker alerted police to two mounds of earth at Warren Hill, just outside Newmarket. The suggestion was that these might be the graves of the two missing girls, however, an overnight examination revealed that the mounds of earth were badger setts, and no trace of either girl was found. The same man was believed to have followed a 12-year-old girl in the same area. The same vehicle had since been spotted in Glatton, also in Cambridgeshire and this information was included in an appeal on Crimewatch, but did not shed any light on what might have happened to the two missing girls. Carr was also interviewed by the press after her return from Grimsby during the first week of the search for the girls and she showed a reporter a thank-you card given to her by Wells on the last day of the school year. Carr said, She was just lovely, really lovely and urged the missing girls to just come home
34.
Key 103
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Key 103 is a local radio station owned and operated by Bauer Radio as part of the City 1 network. It broadcasts to Manchester from studios in Castlefield, originally named Piccadilly Radio, from its set up in 1974, the station was renamed in August 1988 when it was decided to re-brand Piccadilly Radios FM frequency to the new name Key 103. The original Piccadilly Radio, now known as Key 2 continued to broadcast on the AM frequency of 1152 kHz. The station broadcasts on the analogue frequency 103 FM, from a 4KW transmitter on Saddleworth Moor, Key 103s programming can also be heard from their website, but only within the UK. The DAB signal is broadcast from transmitters located at Winter Hill and these transmissions are only aimed towards the city and are not as extensive as the FM frequency, which can be heard over much of north west England and into North Wales. In May 2016, two additional transmitters were launched at Littleborough and Saddleworth. The majority of programming - local and networked - is produced and broadcast from Key 103s studios in Castlefield, the Vodafone Big Top 40 is produced by Global Radio at its Capital studios in London for broadcast on 145 commercial radio stations in the UK. The stations local presenters are Gemma Atkinson, Mike Toolan and Matt Haslam, Debbie Mac, Adam Cole, So Wright, Adam Catterall, the stations network presenters include Paddy McGuinness, Darryl Morris, Marvin Humes and Wes Butters. Key 103 broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays, headlines are broadcast on the half hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside sport and traffic bulletins. National bulletins from Sky News Radio are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons from the Manchester newsroom
35.
Bauer City 1
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Bauer City 1 is a network of 20 CHR local radio stations in Northern England, Scotland and the West Midlands, owned and operated by Bauer Radio. The stations, which carry separate localised branding, air a mix of local and networked music-led programming, alongside news, travel. The majority of networked programming is produced and broadcast from Key 103 in Manchester, local programming - consisting of at least 12 hours on weekdays and 4 hours on Saturdays and Sundays - is mainly produced and broadcast live from the originating stations studios. The main exception is TFM, which shares all programming with Newcastle-based Metro Radio, the majority of networked programming is broadcast from Key 103 in Castlefield, Manchester and Clyde 1 in Clydebank, Glasgow. Networked output also originates from Forth 1 in Edinburgh, apart from some weekend and overnight output, separate networked shows are produced for Scotland and England. The changes were introduced during August 2015, in February 2017, the Free Radio group of stations in the West Midlands began carrying off-peak programming from the network, replacing most of its own regional output from Birmingham. Clyde 1 provides live football commentaries throughout the season, alongside a nightly edition of its sports show, Superscoreboard, Clyde 1 also opts out of Floorfillers on Saturday evenings to air The GBXperience. Metro Radio and TFM opt out of the late show from Sunday to Thursday nights to air the long-running North East talk show. As of July 2016, Key 103 also airs a local show on Monday - Thursday nights. Initially airing as a late night show, it was replaced six months later by a music-led show. Radio City airs football talk programming - the Legends Phone-In on Monday and Thursday evenings and Saints, the four Free Radio stations in the West Midlands share a regional daytime show on weekdays from 10am-2pm, presented from the Birmingham studios by Dan Morrissey. Forth 1 and Radio Borders air Super Scoreboard sports shows on Saturday afternoons - with the latter providing in-depth rugby union coverage, all stations in the network carry their own local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays and from 9am to 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Headlines are broadcast on the half-hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside sport, on weekends at 7am & 8am and from 2pm-6pm bespoke networked bulletins air. These are produced by Clyde 1 for all the Scottish stations, at all other times, mainly evening & overnight, hourly national bulletins originate from Sky News Radio
36.
Global (company)
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Global is a British media company formed in 2007, which owns a large number of radio stations across the country. The company has expanded through a number of acquisitions, including Chrysalis Radio, GCap Media, Global also has a television broadcasting division and runs artist management services. A year later on 31 October 2008 Global Radio officially took control of all GCap Media, the GCap Media name was dropped at this time. The GCap purchase gave Global the network of FM stations which GCap had operated as The One Network, plus Classic FM, XFM, Capital Xtra, Gold, following the acquisition of GCap Media, Global was required to sell off a number of stations in the Midlands. The stations were bought by Orion Media, headed by Phil Riley, the remaining stations briefly formed The Hit Music Network before being merged with the Galaxy network and Capital London into the Capital network. On 25 June 2012, Global acquired GMG Radio for a sum thought to be between £50 and £70 million, it continued to be run separately while a review was conducted. In May 2013, the Competition Commission ruled that Global would be required to sell seven stations across the network, when this failed Global Radio launched an appeal against the decision. The appeal was based on three grounds, Real and Smooth as alternatives to the Greater Manchester stations, reliance on significant adverse effects in the North-West Globals remedy proposal. On 6 February 2014, it was announced that a number of stations would be sold to the Irish broadcaster Communicorp, most stay under their current brands though the Real stations will be renamed Heart and carry the Heart network off-peak programming as provided by Global. Global will retain control of all stations, relaunching the existing Heart North West. Real XS in Paisley will be retained by Global and join the XFM network and it was announced in June 2015 that Darren Singer would be appointed as Globals Chief Financial Officer. In February 2017, Global changed its name from This is Global Limited to Global Media & Entertainment Limited. It also changed all its social media handles from thisisglobal to global, Global also combined the three sub-companies, Global Radio, Global Entertainment and Global Television into just Global. A group of playing chart music. On 3 January 2011, Capital London, The Hit Music Network, known as 95 –106 Capital, The UK’s No.1 Hit Music Station all stations ID locally as Capital. An all-urban station based in London, originally named Choice FM, until Summer 2010 it was sold as part of the Galaxy network for marketing purposes only, but retained its own separate branding and programming. From then on, with Galaxy ultimately absorbed into Capital, Choice sat as its own brand within Globals lineup, on 7 October 2013 Choice FM was rebranded as Capital Xtra and made available nationally via DAB radio. Heart is a network of adult-contemporary pop stations which currently broadcasts in numerous areas of England, Wales, the network began with a single regional station in the West Midlands and subsequently a second station in London
37.
Capital London
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Capital London is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Capital radio network. This was a result of lobbying from groups including the Local Radio Association. The Independent Broadcasting Authority advertised local radio licences in certain locations in the United Kingdom under the term of Independent Local Radio. London was due to receive two ILR licences, one for news and another for general entertainment, Radio Capital, later to become Capital Radio, was formed in early 1970 by David Maule-ffinch with the intent to apply for the general entertainment licence. In late 1970, Maule-ffinchs future father-in-law, Barclay Barclay-White became involved, another application came from a consortium headed by broadcaster Hughie Green, who had openly voiced the need for commercial broadcasting, having previously worked for Radio Luxembourg. The IBA awarded Capital Radio the London General Entertainment service, while London News was awarded to the London Broadcasting Company, the medium-wave frequency and location were temporary sites as the then new high-powered medium-wave station at Saffron Green, Barnet, was incomplete. Capital commenced regular transmissions with the British national anthem God Save the Queen, then a message from director Richard Attenborough, simon & Garfunkels song Bridge over Troubled Water followed the jingle. The first radio commercial came from Birds Eye fish fingers, which was also the first ever legal radio commercial on LBC, immediately after going on air, Capital Radio suffered co-channel interference from Radio Veronica, a pirate radio station off the coast of the Netherlands. Capital finally moved into blocks in Euston Tower in November 1973. Euston Tower was, at the time, Londons tallest office tower, in 1975, the IBA finally opened the transmission facilities at Saffron Green which allowed both LBC and Capital Radio to move up the dial. Capital moved to 1548 kHz mediumwave and LBC to 1152 kHz, previously the Lots Road site gained Capital and LBC the semi-humorous nickname of Radio Clothesline however both stations could be heard as far away as the Midlands. Throughout the 1970s Capital cut its staff, including many journalists – a move that angered the NUJ. The so-called needle-time restrictions on playing music had been lifted, which meant it could play music during the day as well as in the evenings where the eight hours were concentrated. The mid-1970s saw Capital Radio expand with the launch of the Help a London Child charity, the charity appeal went on to become one of the longest-running in broadcasting and the most recognised in British radio. The station has also lent its support to London-based orchestras, choral societies,1976 saw the launch of the Flying Eye, a traffic spotting light aircraft, which could see traffic congestion below on the streets of Central London. LBC also had a service but was forced to suspend operations due to cost. Capitals aircraft was originally a Piper Seneca model, and, later, a new radio jingle package from Standard Sound heralded a new, refined sound for the station. Output was concentrated on its core playlist of contemporary music with the specialist music rescheduled to evenings
38.
Marvin Humes
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After a successful five years, JLS split in December 2013. Between 2014 and 2016, Humes hosted BBCs The Voice UK with Emma Willis, Humes was born on 18 March 1985, in Greenwich, London. He is the son of a Jamaican father and Anglo-Scottish mother and is the child of two brothers, Leon and Jackson. Humes started his career in a band called VS which was created by Blue member Simon Webbe, however shortly after being formed and releasing an album. Humes appeared in Holby City on the BBC for three years from 2000 to 2003 playing Robbie Waring for 14 episodes, at the age of 14, he starred in a childrens programme called K-Club, which helped people with computers and how they work. Oritsé Williams decided to get into the music business mainly, next to join was Aston Merrygold, who was once cast in the ITV childrens programme Fun Song Factory, because of his athletic ability. Last to join the group was JB Gill, for his musical ear and they bonded, became friends and together they were called UFO. They signed to Tracklacers developing a sound they then called Jack the Lad Swing, combining the phrase Jack the lad, king and Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston. Shortly thereafter, they released their single, Slap Ya Elbow. The group give credit to DJ Triz who produced one of UFOs first songs and helped them write it. In 2008, UFO auditioned for the series of The X Factor. In week 7, JLS were in the two along with Rachel Hylton. However, they survived thanks to votes from Walsh, Cheryl Cole, Cowell stated when casting his deciding vote that JLS did not deserve to be in the bottom two. In week 9, JLS performed Umbrella and Im Already There, Cowell then predicted they would win the competition. They made it to the final and performed their own version of the song, Hallelujah. The public voted for the time that night and Burke won the competition. They were the band to make the final. Following their success on The X Factor, Cowells record company, Syco, the Sun later reported on 20 January 2009 that Cowell had revoked this offer, having instead decided to focus on Alexandra Burke
39.
Wes Butters
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Wesley Paul Wes Butters, is a radio broadcaster, formerly of BBC Radio 1, and writer. On joining AA Roadwatch he shortened his name to Wes Butters and he left the station in 2000 to move to Newcastle as head of music and mid-morning presenter for Galaxy North East. In February 2003 Butters took over as host of The Radio 1 Chart Show on BBC Radio 1, a change in the shows format led to greater coverage of top-selling albums and an end to the need for every entry in the Top 40 singles chart to be played. He regularly stood in for Scott Mills – first on early breakfast and he also deputised for Chris Moyles on the Radio 1 breakfast show on bank holidays and at Christmas. Working closely with Top of the Pops, he interviewed hundreds of pop stars including Kylie Minogue, Destinys Child, George Michael, in February 2005 Butters left Radio 1 and the chart show underwent further changes to its format. Butters was regularly heard on the BBC World Service as well and he sat in for Steve Wright on Wright Round the World and was used as their voice for Live 8. Soon after his final chart rundown on 30 January 2005 the press announced the launch of podshows. com and it was the worlds first professional podcasting company, using presenters such as Tony Blackburn, Paul Gambaccini, Gary Davies and Terry Christian to record tailor-made programmes for MP3 players. In May 2007 he was voted North West England Presenter of the Year in the industry magazine X-Trax. It was announced in June 2007 that Wes had had enough of early starts, keen to keep him on the station he agreed with Galaxy to do a short afternoon show but in April 2008 he revealed that he would leave the group completely. At the end of July 2008 Wes enjoyed another stint on breakfast, manager Simon Jordan invited Wes to join BBC Radio 7 in May 2009 as one of the stations continuity announcers. He remained after its revamp to BBC Radio 4 Extra, where he continues to introduce a range of comedy, in October 2011, Butters was announced as BBC Radio Leeds new mid-morning presenter. His programme, which contained phone ins, real-life stories, consumer issues and political interviews, Butters left in October 2014, referring in a statement to Kenny Everett who famously abandoned parties as they were just getting going. In 2016, Butters signed to host a network show for Bauer City 1 broadcasting on Key 103, CFM, Free Radio, Hallam FM, Metro Radio, Radio Aire, Radio City, Rock FM, TFM. As a voice-over, he has heard on An Audience with Take That, An Audience with Lionel Ritchie and The Brit Awards, as well as the Top of the Pops rundown. Butters has written for a number of newspapers, while his debut book, published by HarperCollins, Kenneth Williams Unseen was selected by Roger Lewis as one of the Daily Express Books of the Year. He also wrote the acclaimed two-part documentary The Pain of Laughter – The Last Days of Kenneth Williams for BBC Radio 4, broadcast in April 2008, which is available on his website. On its release in May 2010, his book, Whatshisname, The Life. While presenting Radio 1s early breakfast show in November 2004, Butters played a track he had produced with Daryl Denham that mixed the infamous Crazy Frog ringtone with a dance beat
40.
Radio Aire
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Radio Aire is an Independent Local Radio station serving Leeds and West Yorkshire. It is owned & operated by Bauer Radio and forms part of Bauers City 1 network of stations, the station was launched on 1 September 1981 by presenter Graham Thornton and the first song played was Pilot of the Airwaves by Charlie Dore. Radio Aire originally broadcast on 362 metres medium wave and 94.6 VHF but was moved to 96.3 FM in 1986. Radio Aire is situated on Burley Road next to Yorkshire Televisions studios and was the first Independent Local Radio station to have studios specially built for the purpose of radio transmission. In the late 1980s, the studios were used for The James Whale Radio Show, on 17 July 1990, Radio Aire split frequencies, forming Aire FM and Magic 828. In 1992, the name was changed to Radio Aire FM, a change of format in 1996 saw another station name change to The New 96.3 Aire FM before The New was dropped in 1998. By March 2001, Radio Aire had reverted to its original name, following the acquisition of EMAP Radio, the station is now part of Bauer Radio. The stations FM transmission is radiated at the Tingley site in Morley, close to the A653, the adjacent mast, known as Morley, is former home of the stations FM transmissions. It continues to broadcast sister station Radio Aire 2 on medium wave, and the Leeds DAB multiplex, Local programming is produced and broadcast from Radio Aires Leeds studios from 6am-2pm and 3-7pm on weekdays, 2-6pm on Saturdays and 12-4pm on Sundays. Radio Aire also airs networked programming from sister station Key 103 in Manchester via the Bauer City 1 network, the Vodafone Big Top 40 is syndicated from Global Radio at its Capital studios in London for broadcast on over 130 commercial radio stations across the UK. The stations local presenters include Ant Arthur, Kelly Pegg and Michael Blades, Scott Makin, the stations network presenters include Paddy McGuinness, Darryl Morris, Marvin Humes, and Wes Butters. Radio Aire broadcasts local news bulletins hourly from 6am to 7pm on weekdays, from 7am to 1pm on Saturdays, headlines are broadcast on the half-hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside sport and traffic bulletins. National bulletins from Sky News Radio are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons usually produced in the Leeds newsroom for the rest of the group stations, official website Radio Aire Archive History of local radio in Yorkshire. Tingley transmitter information Morley transmitter information
