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Atlantic 252
Paul from FF
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A new station using the name "Atlantic 252" has just been awarded a DSP licence by Ofcom, enabling it to launch on DAB (presumably SSDAB)
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/manage-your-licence/radio-broadcast-licensing/monthly-updates/radio-broadcast-update-april-2024
It's owned by a bloke in Manchester who was a teenager in the 1990s.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15462223
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/manage-your-licence/radio-broadcast-licensing/monthly-updates/radio-broadcast-update-april-2024
It's owned by a bloke in Manchester who was a teenager in the 1990s.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15462223
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https://uk.linkedin.com/in/philipwhitemediaexpert
There was some chat on the Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252 Facebook group the other day, personally it doesn't bother me if it was done right, similar to how the Laser558 station is being done, and let's face, the current tribute stations are pretty honking (and The Giant changes it's name every couple of weeks!)
But how can it be done right? Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252 of the 90s had a tight playlist of current chart pop repeated every 3 hours, with a sprinkling of recent-ish songs, but almost nothing over 3 years old — at a time when the charts were fast-moving, with many high new entries each week, and there were no national commercial stations playing pop music (or indeed, none at all when it launched).
If a new station tries that now, it'll end up badly imitating Capital or Hits on a much lower budget, providing no particular reason to listen — and will struggle with the music programming because of the nature of the charts these days (few new releases, many of the same tracks hanging around for months), while being of no interest to anybody old enough to remember the original station it's taken the name of.
Or if it plays 90s music, trying to appeal to listeners of its namesake, it it would struggle to sound Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252 did “then” because their playlist updated so frequently. You could programme a day which sounded like 252 did in a specific month of its existence. But you couldn't make it sound like it did “in the 90s”, because there's no such thing: either you're playing All That She Wants, Sweat (a La La La La Long), Informer, and Young at Heart every few hours, or you're playing Don't Speak, Lovefool, Drop Dead Gorgeous, and I Believe I Can Fly — but not a mixture of both.†
I was a big fan of Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252. I still sometimes wear one of their T-shirts. But, fond as I am, I don't see how it's possible to bring it back in any meaningful sense.
† And you probably don't want to be playing the last of those at all, anyway.
Rather a pointless exercise IMO but if it makes them happy...... 252 - is that the target audience number?
https://www.atlantic252classics.com/
It won't be giant radio Atlantic 252 one they posted on Facebook
Poison Skinny Bop, B52’s Love Shack, Amy Grant Baby Baby etc…
Old off air recordings back this up.
Again, hard to replicate in 2024! With streaming and international release dates (or surprise releases without being announced), there isn't really a bunch of American music that hasn't yet been released over here yet. And it's almost an oxymoron to have a nostalgia unreleased music station: “playing tracks which used to be unreleased in the UK and you wouldn't hear anywhere else” doesn't really work — you aren't going to be able to persuade all the other stations that now exist to stop playing those songs and pretend they hadn't heard of them!
The other general issue is that for Long Wave Round Atlantic 252's heyday, its thing was to play 4 or so songs in a row without a DJ talking between them, the presenters only speaking about 4 times an hour — in an era of CDs, and where most other stations had far more talk. Whereas “here's a stream of music without annoying talking between it” is very much not a unique selling point in 2024.
Atlantic 252 made heavy use of jingles and the big American voice overs inbetween songs unlike their British counterparts.
The UK equivalents never sounded quite as good as 252.
Yes, just a few nights ago I stumbled on Now 80s TV channel, - they had a theme for a couple of hours of songs that were big chart hits in the USA, but not so in the UK - they had 1989 and some rarely heard (now) songs were played which reminded me of the early years of A252 - songs such as 'When I see you Smile' by Bad English and 'Forever Your Girl' by Paula Abdul .
Little did I know a few days later I would see a thread about a return (sort of ) of Atlantic 252
You are massively overthinking this. It's highly likely to be a hobbiest 90s nostalgia stream with idents/jingles and, unlikely but possibly, one or two ex DJs wheeled out for a trip down memory lane.
Right for a tribute station, i guess .... it'll NEVER be A252, that's long gone
Plus, i guess we all have our 252 eras, i'd love to hear something like it's early year .... it's latter years? No ta!
Yeah, i've always thought that was the way it would have to be done
I'm pretty sure one of the tribute stations (the one that became the giant) used to do that for a short time, different year every hour