North Wales Links

A round up of the local media from TV to Newspapers gathered with a little help from Wikipedia and re-written with personal comment by Roy Norry, former local radio broadcaster in North East Wales of 23 years.

North Wales News 

My favourite memory of local news services where I live is getting a weekly copy of the Deeside Advertiser, and yes, I was a member of The league of Chums. The newspaper used to send me a birthday card from the League of Chums every year as a child.

News in north Wales today is a very different animal than it was 40 years ago of course, and is generally split into four genres. Newspapers, television, radio stations and on line web sites.

NEWSPAPERS:

EVENING LEADER
One of the main newspaper publishers in north Wales is Johnston Press,  their aquisitions  formerly produced by  ”North Wales Newspapers”, who’s titles included the North Wales Chronicle, North Wales Pioneer, and the Evening Leader, with four editions serving Wrexham, Chester, Flintshire and Rhyl.  The Evening Leader (now known as ‘the Big Leader’ and no longer an evening paper)  also supported free newspapers and they are the Wrexham Leader, Rhyl Journal, Flintshire Standard, Chester Standard and Ellesmere Port Standard. They also produce the Denbighshire Free Press. 

NORTH WALES NEWS MEDIA
“NWN”, formerly known as North Wales Newspapers, has recently teamed up with UTV to produce a model proposal for the future of local news delivery. See the video below for a vision of the future of local news in North Wales, if the regulator Ofcom approves it.

DAILY POST
Another big player in north Wales is the Daily Post (north Wales edition of course). The Daily Post is a trade mark of Trinity Mirror, North West & North Wales Limited, who also produce the Chester Chronicle and the Flintshire Chronicle. There is more about local newspapers below under the “On Line” heading, since the local newspaper publishers also run most of the on line news websites for north Wales.

RADIO NEWS:
The local radio stations in north Wales carry local news bulletins through the daytime, usually on the hour, and some carry headlines on the half hour at peak times of the morning and early evening.  BBC BBC Radio Wales in particular offers regular news and current events audio from Cardiff. BBC Radio Merseyside does topical phone-in’s and hourly bulletins through the day popular with folks in the north east of Wales. At night, some of the local radio stations in the ‘commercial’ radio bracket carry news on the hour from Sky News or some other national sustaining news service.

For the record, here are some of the radio stations:

Independent local radio stations:
Wrexham and Chester -  Heart FM 103.4, 
north Wales coast – Heart FM 96.3,
Gwynedd and Anglesey – Heart FM  103, 
Wirral – Heart FM Heart FM  97.1,
Radio City – Liverpool 96.7,
BBC Radio Merseyside – 95.8FM, 1485AM (202 metres medium wave) & DAB
Dee 106.3 – Chester.

Signal One, Radio Maldwyn, Beacon Radio,  and other stations are very much accessible in the north-east of Wales.

No local BBC radio stations exist for north Wales, but the national services BBC Radio Wales in Cardiff and BBC Radio Cymru serve much of the area. BBC Radio Merseyside, BBC Manchester and BBC Lancashire are strong in north eastern areas, with reception of BBC Radio Cumbria being very strong in some coastal areas.

Community Radio in this area includes: Calon FM 105.0 (in Wrexham), Tudno FM 107.8 (in Llandudno) and Wrexham FM (on line only station at http://www.wrexhamfm.com).

Local radio is going through many changes of both style and ownership as large conglomerates swallow up local owners and fight between each other for control of the stations, particularly  in the old ‘Marcher’ group, currently owned by Heart FM. These stations have been constantly changing ownership since the year 2000.

There is currently talk from the Government that analogue stations (FM and AM) throughout the UK will be switched off by 2015, the emphasis now turning towards online radio and other digital means of receiving radio instead, however many believe that the government is trying to kill off analogue services too quickly, and the major car manufacturers have not yet prepared to convert to digital receivers in cars. Car radios represent a fairly large proportion of all radio listeners and until this side of things firms up more and with the reluctance of broadcasters to adopt DAB as reported recently, then exclusively ‘digital’ radio may still be a while away yet.

In any case, with all the comings and goings, takeovers and buyouts and format changes currently going on, it is highly likely that my above  information, if not already, will soon be out of date again.

ON LINE:
There are a number of online news services for north Wales which by and large reflect the ownerships of the local newspapers, they being Johnston Press and the Trinity Mirror. The NWN Media web site, from which you can view any of their online news services, is available by clicking this NWN Media link. From their home page you can navigate easily to any of their on line services or newspapers.

For the Trinity Mirror publications online such as the Daily Post (north Wales edition), there is an umbrella organisation called IcNorthWales and the IcNetwork for access to the Daily Post, North Wales Weekly News, the Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald, the Flintshire Chronicle, the Denbighshire Visitor, and in the Welsh language, the Daily Post Cymraeg and Yr Herald.

There is also News Wales, an online news service owned by GoHolidays.net and based in Builth Wells, Powys. It’s a nifty news service that seems well informed and uncluttered, and publishes a fair share of stories for north Wales, in addition to the rest of Wales.

As with radio, the ‘local’ newspaper industry is being snapped up by out of town conglomerate owners and some titles have changed, but, having said that, the local papers seem to have held on to their previously strong identity, much more so than the local radio services have.

BBC WALES:
The “daddy of them all” though is probably the on line news and features service by the BBC for north east Wales, north west Wales and the whole of Wales. These are non commercial sites packed full of information, reviews and news, and your surfing won’t be distracted by adverts, banners or sales hype.

Personally I was annoyed when the BBC closed down our local radio station BBC Radio Clwyd some years ago, but I have to say that the web site that replaced it is good, with its interactive nature and the desire of the web site producers to ‘reach out’ to the communities that make up north Wales. The web site offers more than the radio station could hope to offer, in that one can browse at leisure and tap into the wider resources of the BBC 24/7, but it’s not the ‘wireless’ at the end of the day is it

AND FINALY:

I’m a bit sketchy as to what radio is listened to in parts of Gwynedd, Llangollen, Blaenau, Anglesey, Llanrwst, Llandudno and even to some degree around here these days. With the advent of Internet radio and other diverse digital listening initiatives growing ever popular, the times they are a changing. So if anyone has any comments,  please let me know or better still, why not re-write this entire page for me and email a copy over.  I like my own work, but I’m happy to replace it with something better.