User:Leighdj/Sandbox

RWS fm 103.3
Broadcast area	Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and surrounding area
Frequency	103.3 MHz
Programming
Format	Mixture
Ownership
Owner	Radio West Suffolk Limited
History
First air date	13 August 2010
Links
Website	www.rwsfm.co.uk

RWSFM 103.3 is the community radio station for Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk and the surrounding areas offering music and local information. The station was awarded a community radio licence by Ofcom in 2010 and began broadcasting on 14 August 2010.^[1] Community Radio stations in the UK are required to provide a social gain to the community they serve.^[1] RWS FM 103.3 is one of a growing number of such community stations in the UK and currently broadcasts around 70 hours of live programming each week.

History[edit]

The station started out as a hospital radio station, based at the West Suffolk Hospital, in 1974. It was started by the St Edmundsbury Lions Club and broadcast under the name of Lions Radio. It was run by Lions Club members and its youth group, the “Leos”. From inception until the mid 1980’s it was compulsory to be a member of the Lions Club or Leos before being able to work on the radio station. This idea was eventually abandoned and it became possible for anyone interested to join. The Lions Club retained overall control of the station until 1991 when it was decided that in the interests of both the radio station and the Lions Club, ownership and control of the station should be handed over to the team of presenters who had already been running it for some time.

The station had been operating for too long, from a tiny room in what was then the Amenities block. A new purpose built studio complex within the Drummond Centre was commissioned with new equipment, and in June 1992, the then Station Manager, Peter Owen, went on air as the very first Presenter of the brand new hospital radio station, Radio West Suffolk. The station went from strength to strength and early in 1995, studio 2 come on stream, providing essential facilities for training, off-air production work and as a “continuity” studio.

In June 2000 Radio West Suffolk began broadcasting on 1350AM, at that time only the tenth Hospital Radio station to do this in the country. In April 2002 the station moved to even bigger studios in the main hospital “Friends Room”, and the decision was also taken to upgrade the stations broadcast equipment at this point. In January 2003, RWS commenced broadcasting 24 hours a day/seven days a week via the Myriad computer playout system, that was purchased with a grant from the National Lottery. In December 2007 the launch of live streaming on the internet via the RWS website took place taking the station to a new level, worldwide broadcasting.