Hold the Front Page....

Trying to keep up with blogging, plus a million other myriad activities, is not easy in Lyme during the Summer Holiday. During Lifeboat Week and Carnival Week, we were out and about non stop, recording events every day of the week, so its quite fitting that we should have a short break to recuperate before we pile into the next stage of Radio Existance. (thats not a bad name for a radio station!) So for the last few weeks, we've been tourists, strolling, looking in shops, had out of town friends and relatives visit, eating out every night, chips on the beach, its been great.

I love the summer in Lyme, if I count up the summers of my life, I've had all the best of them in Lyme Regis. That isn't a joke, a lot of people who visit Lyme, would love to be living here. One of the pleasures of the Summer is meeting friends that you only see once, maybe twice a year, and always in holiday or weekend off mode. Thats the danger of Lyme life, the feeling that you're on a permanent holiday. So I say categorically, from here folks, there aint nowhere else to go.

So this blog is going to be about all the questions/advice/compliments we've had over the last couple of months, and there are some questions that just keep going round and round, questions like, "Whats your FM frequency?", definitely on the wane as a constant question, though still drops in occasionally. Next up might be "Are you going to be on the airwaves?" Answer is no, for so many good reasons that I've lost count. As far as Airwaves is concerned, we're digital people, we even listen to Radio 4 on the internet! Analog radio is so far behind the times that its already obsolete. To get on what some people laughingly call 'Real Radio', the best we could get here in Lyme would be a Community Broadcast License. This is something you have to apply for, and funding has to be in place in advance, the cost of the License is £1500, and thats before you spend another at least twice as much as that for an aerial, transmission equipment, then you need a place to broadcast from. Its likely that we might be granted 28 days broadcasting per year, and a radius reception of around 15 miles maximum.
Compared to the value offered by the internet, its trivial. Online, 24 hours daily, all the year round, all programmes available any time you want to listen, and listen again, and a growing diverstiy of programmes too. Our catchment area is the world.
Other question might be 'Do you make any money?' To which the short answer is 'No'.Not a cent. But we don't really care, theres enough spin off in other areas to make it all worthwhile, including free lunches, another of which we had this week, for which all thanks to Ken Whetlor and the Chain Gang! Aside from that, the site itself is a great advert for our web designer skills. We're also going to release some of the back catalogue, both video and audio, on CD's, hopefully in the next month or so, and being aware of how many photographs we have on the site, we can now offer full gloss prints of any pictures on the site, see forthcoming Sales Page which will appear after the site make-over.
'Why don't we feature more music?'. We would if we could get it! Its why we're commencing regular OpenAudio sessions in Lyme and Axminster in the coming weeks. Local musicians, stand-up comics, performance artists please watch this space for further details of when and where.

To quote an old song, right now, there are a lot more questions than answers revolving around Lyme Regis Radio. We've had a brilliant year, and we feel in many ways that we've reached a peak. There've been so many new developments that its diificult to list them all. This time last year we were still recording on 4 track tape recorders, and it already seems a world away. We now have enough digital recorders to lend them out to anyone who wants to make radio programmes, and our studio in Lyme is available to any musicians in town that want to use it. Thanks to Pip, we now have regular Sports and News programmes, and there are still gaps we need to fill. Thanks to Colin Dawes and Richard Winward, among others, we have regular series, and we will be announcing more in the very near future. We're also grateful to Lyme Regis Town Council for allowing us into the Council Chamber to record meetings. If I've been a little outspoken on this question, forgive me, its not that I'm just trying to 'talk things up' for journalistic effect, I genuinely didn't expect that our request to do it would stir up feelings so much.

Great also, having reached seasons end, to find that we've been nominated for an award, its the icing on the cake, and if we actually win a Community Champions Award, it will be the strawberry on top of the icing. Its only a small award, and all thats at stake is a £50 cheque which we have to give to a charity or organisation of our choice, but all the same, its nice to be noticed.

Which is all why its time to ring the changes. We are about to commence a major revamp of the site. We will be staying online while we do it, so if some things look a bit haywire when you tune in, please bear with us. Its going to take about 3/4 weeks to complete it. Have to tell you though, that a lot of our earlier programmes will be disappearing, so take a last listen while you can.