Why has Time FM removed the specialist soul DJs?

I’ve had a look at the Time 107.5 schedule and it appears all of the specialist DJ’s have been removed.

Time had an agreement with Centreforce radio to provide off-peak output for the last two years which may have come to an end.

What a shame, Time FM sounded so fresh in the weekends, now it will be just like all the other FM stations who play the same 20 tracks on loop. What’s happend to FM Radio in the UK?, thank goodness for Internet Radio

It’s not like London doesn’t have a legal outlet for underground dance music. Community station Rinse FM has stolen their thunder a bit by providing a broad spectrum of music with coverage that goes into Inner London.

I’ll give Time credit for trying the dual format for nearly three years, yet with Rinse going legal, it was only time before the specialist output would cease.

To be fair, the “utter Crappy DJ;s”(sic) you refer to are essentially the same ones that have been on air at Time for the best part of ten years and won a fair few plaudits in that time, so I’m surprised at your surprise. Don’t forget that when the specialist output was introduced there were a lot of listeners just as upset by that as you are today!

It looks as though there have been a few changes at Time – Peter Stremes, who introduced the Centreforce output, appears to have left the station. Whether that had an influence on Centreforce leaving or not, I don’t know.

Sad to see Peter Stremes go, despite the dubious decision to bring Centreforce to Time, his track record at Jackie and Time speaks for itself with regards to quality small scale mainstream commercial radio.

It’s not like London doesn’t have a legal outlet for underground dance music. Community station Rinse FM has stolen their thunder a bit by providing a broad spectrum of music with coverage that goes into Inner London.

I’ll give Time credit for trying the dual format for nearly three years, yet with Rinse going legal, it was only time before the specialist output would cease.

That’s quite an odd comparison. Rinse FM covers a very different type of music to the soul that the original poster appears to be referring to. They deal in dubstep, grime, drum and bass and other genres popular with young people – Time FM, from what I can tell, had an older target audience and wasn’t playing that type of specialist music.

Older genres have been appearing on Rinse FM. One of them is Run Come Follow Fridays which looks at rave culture from 1988-1996, which features House, Hardcore and Jungle/DnB with an hours interview with the artists, producers and record company owners of the time.

While it’s fair to say classic soul doesn’t feature to a great extent on Rinse, the crossover with Time’s former specialist output is there, including classic house and garage.

Older genres have been appearing on Rinse FM. One of them is Run Come Follow Fridays which looks at rave culture from 1988-1996, which features House, Hardcore and Jungle/DnB with an hours interview with the artists, producers and record company owners of the time.

While it’s fair to say classic soul doesn’t feature to a great extent on Rinse, the crossover with Time’s former specialist output is there, including classic house and garage.

Ah, alright, that makes a lot more sense.

Specialist soul music seems to be quite popular with certain demographics. Up where I am, it’s been a successful staple of local Sunday programming for many years. I also find it to be a brilliant example of a genre that works on community radio – Soul DJs and aficionados are aplenty and can often create compelling specialist programmes when given the opportunity to do so.

So, while I’m sure there’s good reason for Time FM’s decision to drop it, I would not be surprised if there’s many more people like the original poster that will find it disappointing that it no longer features anywhere on the dial in Time FM’s broadcast area.

Pirate broadcasters which cover Time 107.5’s TSA have also been using in-particular 80s Soul and Rare Groove as filler for the last couple of years, which could also erode Time’s share for the genre.

What happened to real names? What next – Bundyman?