Media UK

Classic Gold - YRN

Run by Yorkshire Radio Network, Classic Gold was three oldies stations broadcast on AM in Bradford, Hull and Sheffield (Pennine FM, Viking FM and Hallam FM's AM franchises).

It was formed from Viking Gold, the group's experiment in split transmission. Viking Gold's presenters formed a major part of the station's new programming.

Programming

Each station had its own, familiar breakfast show presenter - in Bradford it was Roger Kirk ,with Gerry Kersey in Sheffield and Chris Bell in Hull - three well-known local presenters from the former Pennine Radio, Radio Hallam and Viking Radio respectively.

Network programming began at 9.00am, with Alan Ross on mornings, and Keith Skues on lunchtimes. Peter Fairhead was also a regular presenter.

Local programmes took over after Drivetime at 7.00pm, with sports programmes and specialist music. In Bradford in 1989 there were brass band programmes, old dance music, and 'music from the hippy era' presented by Nigel Schofield.

Weekends included a large amount of local programming, including religious programming on Sundays with local clergy (Bradford had Martin Short as one of their presenters), and sports programming, including Rugby with Iain Williamson and football with Chris Cooper.

Technically

For most of its life, Classic Gold was produced with a presenter in Hull, and local 'tech-ops' in Bradford and Sheffield.

The tech-op in Bradford would play two sets of commercials - one for Bradford and one for the Halifax/Huddersfield transmitter. Tech-ops included Paul Bromley, Rol Hirst, Melanie Robinson, Richard Hizzard and James Cridland. Part of the tech-op's duties would also be to drive the desk for the news readers - the first three minutes of which were taken by the FM station, while Classic Gold listeners got a full five minutes of news.

Tech-ops in Sheffield would be able to play three sets of commercials - for Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster. Tech-ops included Andrew Dupres.

The presenter in Hull only had to play one set of commercials, but had to battle with two sets of faders for the cart machines used to play the commercials. One set would send audio to the local (Goxhill) transmitter as well as to the Sheffield and Bradford studios, the other would send audio directly to the Goxhill transmitter only during breaks. If both sets of faders were left open, listeners to Goxhill would be subjected to the audio slightly out of phase with itslef as it reached the transmitter by two different paths.

Tech-ops were instructed by talk-back from the presenter studio in Hull what the 'out-cue' was going to be. Breaks were balanced by the tech-op, not by the scheduling department. A tale about Keith Skues was that he would give an out-cue of "timecheck", and would then announce "the time is three little ducks". This was followed by a long pause, causing the local tech-ops to fire off the ad-break once they'd realised it was 2.22pm. The talkback was some kind of radio link, affectionately known in the Hull studio as the "Bat Phone", and occasionally was interfered with by Hull taxis. Presenters in Hull were able to eavesdrop on the output from the remote transmitters in West and South Yorkshire, however these two feeds provided a 10 second rotation of audio from each of the Hallam FM and Classic Gold transmitters in South Yorkshire and each of the Pennine FM and Classic Gold transmitters in West Yorkshire.

A stand-by CD was in satellite studios in case of line failure; in Bradford, the dulcet tones of Nina Simone's "My baby just cares for me" meant the line had gone dead!

Classic Gold produced some overnight programming for GWR Group's Classic Gold stations in Bristol, and pre-dated the GWR version by a year. A bizarre rule came into force during this period dictating that overnight programmes could not be presented by anybody with a norther accent!

On the takeover of Yorkshire Radio Network by Metro Radio Group, Classic Gold was relaunched as Great Yorkshire Radio,later Great Yorkshire Gold.