Around 10 years ago, nearly all the FM stations in the north west, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire took this show including some community stations. I lived in one of the highest parts in Northern England and could easily pick up over 50+ fm stations. On a Sunday night, they all more or less took this program, there was hardly an alternative show unless you went onto DAB or AM 😂
Ryan Fitzpatrick - It was the same in for us in South Wales. In Swansea alone we had it on The Wave, Swansea Bay Radio and Heart South Wales (formally Real Radio South Wales) on standard FM. But we could also get Radio Carmarthenshire, Radio Pembrokeshire, Radio Ceridigion, Bridge FM on DAB, or even standard FM depending on the area of Swansea you live in, and all those stations carried The Big Top 40 as well as Hit40UK, and depending on the date of the station's first broadcast, the various commercial radio chart shows before them. So on Sunday afternoons, you could flick through each of them and it'd be the same song seconds ahead or behind the other station. Or the best was having each station on at once when the "Big Top 40" jingles would come on where the station names would be played over a gap. All you could hear was "96.4FM The Wave", "Real Radio"/"This is Heart, Heart", "Swansea Bay Radio", "Radio Carmarthenshire", etc. being said almost simultaneously. Now it's only on Heart South Wales in Swansea. 😂
I forgot about the split jingles! And yes, some stations had more of a delay that others, maybe some stations processing and transmissions were quicker than others. I wonder how the jingles were fired though. Was it each station had a person sat there to fire the jingles, were they timed perfectly in stations automated play out system to fire at the spot where the gap was, or did Global send out a silent signal down the line with the audio that fired the local jingles. Either way, it was clever how one studio got linked to many transmitters via local studios. I know the BBC national radio has one studio linked to many transmitters, but that was their standard and that’s how they were built. But the individual stations that took the big top 40 were all separate stations and were never linked up for anything.
@@fitzyraz - Yeah and not only that. Some stations carried the show to a lower broadcast quality than others. For instance, back when Hit40UK was on, its sound quality was always better on The Wave than on Swansea Bay Radio. It sounded tinier and more "cloned" on there. Similar when it became The Big Top 40 in 2009, but by that time Real Radio South Wales (which, again, is now Heart South Wales) had taken the programme. Same here. On The Wave, the station name would sometimes even be mentioned outside the jingle when on other stations it was in the jingles only. So for example, if a song was ending and there was a musical interlude before it ended, suddenly "96.4FM The Wave" would just randomly be heard. That happened more on Hit40UK than The Big Top 40. So maybe it was done manually. It might also have been done by the actual studio itself because there'd be times where the station name wasn't mentioned at all or when the gap would start, there'd be a slight delay and then you'd hear "96.4FM The Wave" and as the "ave" part of "Wave" is being said, you'd hear the start of "The UK's number one chart" or "The Vodafone Big Top 40" underneath it. If it was automated, it'd have been seamless, or at least almost seamless. I know. It's amazing. I understand that they made The Big Top 40 a Global Radio thing only to make the Sunday afternoon slot across local commercial stations less saturated, but there was something entertaining about the same programme being on multiple stations in one area either purposefully or indirectly.
@@kwesiidun8512 Talk about the split jingles, I have all of them in my jingle archive. Some local stations had 4 different localisers like Bridge FM had 3 different ones, let me know if you're interested to have all the 3 second localisers and I can wetransfer them to you via email or something. I also have the full bt40 package too.
@@fitzyraz Actually, that wasn't the case. I used to work at one of the stations who took the big top 40 and I also took part in an online station who also took it. On the FM station Global sends a command on the IRN network. You have to associate a file in the playout system for it to play otherwise it won't work. So in theory if you wanted to, you could place an WAV of your own local 3 sec ID with your own station VO and not the BT40 one or you could load the one BT40 provided you. On the online radio station you had a clean feed of the chart sent down as an m3u stream and again, remember that file I mentioned?n Yes, you play it manually on the online station. Why? Because the online station don't have the same tech like the FM ones. I still have my localiser "your radio". Remember the arts and culture show with Sarah Gosling? Yes, that oporated in a similar format to BT40, distributed down satelite IRN 3 it went out on I think about 70 commercial and community stations like your radio. In the video they show the 2 mins 1 min thing... For the arts and culture show with sarah gosling the local station like your radio connects up to IRN 3 at 18:57 with the command to turn on the macro at 19:02. Sarah would do her 2 min and 1 min thing before the opening sequence, her sequence fired a station ID unlike bt40. The show ended at 21:59 to allow sky news thing. Good times. Sarah is now at Radio X. Let's not forget the messups at bt40, both July 19 2015 and feb 21 2016 a Capital London localiser played across the UK. Hahahahahahaha especially on the bauer stations who had capital as the rival. Hahahahaha good times. Oh and when sarah hd her mess up you would hear her originating localiser station ID play on top of your localiser for example my localiser your radio would play at the same time as sarah's originating station where she did it from, hahahahaha.
The film would have been better if the person filming had turned the camera so it would have been in landscape. So wouldn’t have had to keep moving around so much as more would have been in the picture. Just saying.
Hi Frederik... this was the last network chart for various groups (not just the Global) which took the programme (show) across the UK... it was syndicated to approx 140 stations in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales.
This went out across the UK to, as Craig said, 140 stations. Capital had been doing a Network Chart show since the 90’s. The name, the presenters and the owners of Capital changed over the decades as did the listening habits of the generations. The Chart is still played on Global stations.
Fredrik Lindblom - Incorrect. This was the last time that the Commercial Radio Chart was put out as a general programme to all the local commercial radio stations which had carried it under its various names since 1984. By this time, 145 stations around the UK carried The Big Top 40. In my home city (Swansea) alone we had it on The Wave, Swansea Bay Radio and Heart South Wales (was Real Radio South Wales). Not to mention the other local commercial radio stations across South and West Wales (Radio Carmarthenshire, Bridge FM, etc). After this, The Big Top 40 continued in the form it is now - i.e. as a programme which is broadcast only on Heart and Capital stations. It was done to allow other media corporations to create their own chart shows and therefore expand the marketplace. In Swansea, The Wave is now owned by Bauer and is part of The Hits Radio, so it now broadcasts The UK Chart Show with Sarah-Jane Crawford on Sunday afternoons. And the only station which has The Big Top 40 on there these days is Heart South Wales.
@@CJT80 - Even earlier than that. The first Commercial Radio Chart was actually The Network Chart Show, which was presented by David Jensen and ran from 1984 to 1993 when Neil Fox took over. Pepsi took sponsorship of the chart and it changed its name to The Pepsi Chart Show.
@@kwesiidun8512 In the early years of The Network Chart Show, it wasn’t even in stereo - the stereo light or indicator, depending on your stereo system, said it was - but it wasn’t - it was broadcast via the same feed that commercial stations that took IRN - fine for news, but hopeless for anything like music!
..and to think...'WILL' (or whoever made the video) all you had to do was to rotate the camera to landscape and you would not need to have been darting back all over the place to capture the screens. Landscape = good. Portrait = horrible.
This was the last time in December 2018 that the Big Top 40 was broadcast across hundreds of commercial stations across the country, before it was just broadcast on Capital and Heart (the Global-owned stations), it is still broadcast from Leicester Square on those two stations.
I remember the original Network Chart being sent in mono via the IRN news feed to the ILR stations.
Oooh is so cool and love seeing a radio studio and how the networking works , just beautiful... Wilf (aka crusingfanatic)
Around 10 years ago, nearly all the FM stations in the north west, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire took this show including some community stations.
I lived in one of the highest parts in Northern England and could easily pick up over 50+ fm stations.
On a Sunday night, they all more or less took this program, there was hardly an alternative show unless you went onto DAB or AM 😂
Ryan Fitzpatrick - It was the same in for us in South Wales. In Swansea alone we had it on The Wave, Swansea Bay Radio and Heart South Wales (formally Real Radio South Wales) on standard FM. But we could also get Radio Carmarthenshire, Radio Pembrokeshire, Radio Ceridigion, Bridge FM on DAB, or even standard FM depending on the area of Swansea you live in, and all those stations carried The Big Top 40 as well as Hit40UK, and depending on the date of the station's first broadcast, the various commercial radio chart shows before them. So on Sunday afternoons, you could flick through each of them and it'd be the same song seconds ahead or behind the other station.
Or the best was having each station on at once when the "Big Top 40" jingles would come on where the station names would be played over a gap. All you could hear was "96.4FM The Wave", "Real Radio"/"This is Heart, Heart", "Swansea Bay Radio", "Radio Carmarthenshire", etc. being said almost simultaneously.
Now it's only on Heart South Wales in Swansea. 😂
I forgot about the split jingles!
And yes, some stations had more of a delay that others, maybe some stations processing and transmissions were quicker than others.
I wonder how the jingles were fired though. Was it each station had a person sat there to fire the jingles, were they timed perfectly in stations automated play out system to fire at the spot where the gap was, or did Global send out a silent signal down the line with the audio that fired the local jingles.
Either way, it was clever how one studio got linked to many transmitters via local studios. I know the BBC national radio has one studio linked to many transmitters, but that was their standard and that’s how they were built.
But the individual stations that took the big top 40 were all separate stations and were never linked up for anything.
@@fitzyraz - Yeah and not only that. Some stations carried the show to a lower broadcast quality than others. For instance, back when Hit40UK was on, its sound quality was always better on The Wave than on Swansea Bay Radio. It sounded tinier and more "cloned" on there. Similar when it became The Big Top 40 in 2009, but by that time Real Radio South Wales (which, again, is now Heart South Wales) had taken the programme.
Same here. On The Wave, the station name would sometimes even be mentioned outside the jingle when on other stations it was in the jingles only. So for example, if a song was ending and there was a musical interlude before it ended, suddenly "96.4FM The Wave" would just randomly be heard. That happened more on Hit40UK than The Big Top 40. So maybe it was done manually. It might also have been done by the actual studio itself because there'd be times where the station name wasn't mentioned at all or when the gap would start, there'd be a slight delay and then you'd hear "96.4FM The Wave" and as the "ave" part of "Wave" is being said, you'd hear the start of "The UK's number one chart" or "The Vodafone Big Top 40" underneath it. If it was automated, it'd have been seamless, or at least almost seamless.
I know. It's amazing. I understand that they made The Big Top 40 a Global Radio thing only to make the Sunday afternoon slot across local commercial stations less saturated, but there was something entertaining about the same programme being on multiple stations in one area either purposefully or indirectly.
@@kwesiidun8512 Talk about the split jingles, I have all of them in my jingle archive. Some local stations had 4 different localisers like Bridge FM had 3 different ones, let me know if you're interested to have all the 3 second localisers and I can wetransfer them to you via email or something. I also have the full bt40 package too.
@@fitzyraz Actually, that wasn't the case. I used to work at one of the stations who took the big top 40 and I also took part in an online station who also took it. On the FM station Global sends a command on the IRN network. You have to associate a file in the playout system for it to play otherwise it won't work. So in theory if you wanted to, you could place an WAV of your own local 3 sec ID with your own station VO and not the BT40 one or you could load the one BT40 provided you. On the online radio station you had a clean feed of the chart sent down as an m3u stream and again, remember that file I mentioned?n Yes, you play it manually on the online station. Why? Because the online station don't have the same tech like the FM ones. I still have my localiser "your radio". Remember the arts and culture show with Sarah Gosling? Yes, that oporated in a similar format to BT40, distributed down satelite IRN 3 it went out on I think about 70 commercial and community stations like your radio. In the video they show the 2 mins 1 min thing... For the arts and culture show with sarah gosling the local station like your radio connects up to IRN 3 at 18:57 with the command to turn on the macro at 19:02. Sarah would do her 2 min and 1 min thing before the opening sequence, her sequence fired a station ID unlike bt40. The show ended at 21:59 to allow sky news thing. Good times. Sarah is now at Radio X. Let's not forget the messups at bt40, both July 19 2015 and feb 21 2016 a Capital London localiser played across the UK. Hahahahahahaha especially on the bauer stations who had capital as the rival. Hahahahaha good times. Oh and when sarah hd her mess up you would hear her originating localiser station ID play on top of your localiser for example my localiser your radio would play at the same time as sarah's originating station where she did it from, hahahahaha.
Amazing insight into what actually happened behind the scenes! 😎
Glad you enjoyed it Olly, thanks for commenting 👍
Jeez he made the synching look so easy but what an adrenaline buzz
It's great fun Rob, thanks for the nice comments 👍
Ah, Craig...there you are!
The film would have been better if the person filming had turned the camera so it would have been in landscape. So wouldn’t have had to keep moving around so much as more would have been in the picture. Just saying.
Love this
Still running genesys, and the same network control software from early 2000s
I want to work there.
79 charist road Birmingham
Capital FM radio money £10000000
What do you use for metadata?
This video...? Was this like a huge synchronizing together with their other 22 stations across the country to start the show for the last time? 🙂
Hi Frederik... this was the last network chart for various groups (not just the Global) which took the programme (show) across the UK... it was syndicated to approx 140 stations in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales.
This went out across the UK to, as Craig said, 140 stations. Capital had been doing a Network Chart show since the 90’s. The name, the presenters and the owners of Capital changed over the decades as did the listening habits of the generations. The Chart is still played on Global stations.
Fredrik Lindblom - Incorrect. This was the last time that the Commercial Radio Chart was put out as a general programme to all the local commercial radio stations which had carried it under its various names since 1984. By this time, 145 stations around the UK carried The Big Top 40. In my home city (Swansea) alone we had it on The Wave, Swansea Bay Radio and Heart South Wales (was Real Radio South Wales). Not to mention the other local commercial radio stations across South and West Wales (Radio Carmarthenshire, Bridge FM, etc). After this, The Big Top 40 continued in the form it is now - i.e. as a programme which is broadcast only on Heart and Capital stations. It was done to allow other media corporations to create their own chart shows and therefore expand the marketplace. In Swansea, The Wave is now owned by Bauer and is part of The Hits Radio, so it now broadcasts The UK Chart Show with Sarah-Jane Crawford on Sunday afternoons. And the only station which has The Big Top 40 on there these days is Heart South Wales.
@@CJT80 - Even earlier than that. The first Commercial Radio Chart was actually The Network Chart Show, which was presented by David Jensen and ran from 1984 to 1993 when Neil Fox took over. Pepsi took sponsorship of the chart and it changed its name to The Pepsi Chart Show.
@@kwesiidun8512 In the early years of The Network Chart Show, it wasn’t even in stereo - the stereo light or indicator, depending on your stereo system, said it was - but it wasn’t - it was broadcast via the same feed that commercial stations that took IRN - fine for news, but hopeless for anything like music!
Announcement Bible app in
Radio channel studio
Alan Freeman did it better! This is not radio.
..and to think...'WILL' (or whoever made the video) all you had to do was to rotate the camera to landscape and you would not need to have been darting back all over the place to capture the screens. Landscape = good. Portrait = horrible.
Are they moving buildings? If So, where to?
This was the last time in December 2018 that the Big Top 40 was broadcast across hundreds of commercial stations across the country, before it was just broadcast on Capital and Heart (the Global-owned stations), it is still broadcast from Leicester Square on those two stations.
@@joshuakerr5702 it had been broadcast across the UK since the 90’s. It’s now just on Global