Southern Death Syndrome
This morning listeners across Sussex woke up to a new name on the radio dial. After almost 26 years on the Sussex airwaves, Southern FM joined 32 other stations under Global Radio’s ubiquitous Heart brand and in the process, a significant piece of my own broadcast history has disappeared into thin air.
Back in 1983, I was lucky enough to be a part of the launch team at Southern Sound Radio (as it was then known) and although the hours were long and the money was truly lousy, I wouldn’t have missed those years in Franklin Road, Portslade for the world.
The brains behind the station, Keith Belcher and Rory McLeod, had assembled a motley crew of journalists, presenters and enthusiastic beginners (myself included) and together we set out on a journey to create a station was all about life in Sussex. It may sound like a cliché today but it really was local radio for local people, cobbled together by a small but dedicated team from an old cinema in one of the less glamorous districts of what is now called the city of Brighton & Hove.
In the weeks, months and years that followed, records jumped, egos clashed and more than a couple of outside broadcast aerials got stuck in trees as I went about learning my trade from the bottom up. It was all a great adventure for the ambitious and rather cocksure teenager that I was but more importantly, it provided me with all the basic skills I would carry with me through more than a quarter of a century in the media profession.
But times change and although today’s Heart transplant marks the loss of another much-loved radio brand, in a way, I can’t help feeling that it’s something of a merciful release. In recent years the station had become a ghost of its former self and ultimately, the once Sunny Sound of Sussex was condemned to death by a thousand cuts at the hands of its subsequent owners.
With only a couple of local shows a day, Global promises more music variety delivered both locally and nationally, blah, blah - and while the region may well come to love its shiny new Heart, I fear the Sussex ether has just lost a bit of its soul.
Tags: Commercial Radio, Global, Local Radio, Radio, Southern Sound
June 24th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I grew up with Southern. I even worked there from 1995 to 1997 on-air. Great days. Bloody big building though. Given how little of it must be used these days I could see the weak Heart move into a couple of rooms in some souless industry estate within the next 18 months.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I remember the good old days as well. Even thou we were outside the catchment area (in Eastbourne) for some years it was a fun station to listen to. Always remember the Sunday Crew at 10pm. Now we are left with celebrity based network radio. I think I’ll stick to Hospital Broadcasting lol
RIP Southern Sound
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
It was never the same after Sean on Saturday finished.
Is Heart the sweet sound of success? I don’t think so!
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:06 am
I listened from day 1 to Southern Sound, to me it was a breath of fresh air from the dreary BBC Radio Brighton. Having moved from London in 1978 to Brighton I missed Capital radio as it was then, sadly Capital grew into an ugly sore and it took over our Southern Sound, it’s never been the same since. By the way Sean you went to the same school as my cousin… St Gregory’s in Ealing!