A unique Nottingham radio station set up by a group of friends has gone from strength to strength since it first went on air in 2021. Boom Radio is aimed at the Baby Boomer generation and hosted by an array of well-known DJs and radio personalities from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The idea for the station came as friends Phil Riley and David Lloyd realised there were 14 million baby boomers born between 1946 to 1964 who felt under-represented in radio. Radio presenter and founder David Lloyd is incredibly proud of what the radio has achieved, going out to 443,000 listeners a week broadcasting from the presenter's homes.
"Growing up in West Bridgford, I dreamt of a career in radio and had been doing it all my life. I've been on lots of different radio stations and ran a few but I was aware there was nothing for people in their 60s or 70s. Stations are moving towards the younger generation," he said.
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"I did some research with my co-founder Phil Riley and lots of people were telling us that radio isn't for me anymore. We created this station called Radio Boom for baby boomers which broadcast music from the 60s or 70s. We have presenters that were on the radio when listeners were growing up or in their teens."
The station now boasts sessions from Roger Day, David Hamilton, Graham Dene along with Nottingham presenters, John Peters and Paul Robey. John Peters was one of the first presenters on Radio Trent while Paul Robey joined the station in 1982 before later joining Radio Nottingham and Notts TV.
The station has drawn praise from Sir Cliff Richard who said that Radio Boom covers the 'whole area of the history of what pop rock is.'
“Any radio [station] that plays music that covers the whole area of the history of what pop rock is, is really worthy for me,” said Sir Cliff. “Our generation was filled with fantastic songs and let's hope that some of the young folks that tune in will get the feeling that we got when we used to listen to these records as the originals. Well done, Boom.”
Some of the shows on offer include a vintage chart show, request sessions and also breakfast shows. The music may sometimes pre-date the 1960s, too, which has led to the creation of Boom Light, a sister site that plays records for older generations in their 80s or 90s.
"The early response was so good that we decided to go national very quickly and have been ever since. We were blown away by the scale of the response, the people listening and the enthusiasm of the audience. I've known nothing like it in my whole career in terms of how grateful the audience is for a radio station targeted at them," he said.
Echoing the spirit of true pirate radio stations where a lot of 1960s DJs began their careers, the station doesn't have a big office but rather the presenters go live from their own living rooms. It's been a challenge but thankfully, modern technology has made things much easier.
"Each presenter works on their programme from their own homes. Head office is here, in Nottingham, in our own home where we pull it all together but you can listen anywhere."
When it comes to favourite decades among the listeners, there was a clear preference for the 1960s by some margin. However, the music isn't just geared towards that decade as David highlighted that many of the listeners love a mix of different eras including the 1950s through to modern tracks.
"A lot of our listeners have lived through generations of music. The difference is the depth of the music that we play which is what our audience responds to. We've also managed to get a lot of names like David Hamilton who was on Radio One and Two simultaneously in the 70s and into the 1980s," David said.
"Graham Dene who hosts the breakfast show was in London in the 1970s and 80s. He was Princess Diana's favourite radio presenter. We are very proud of our ages, I'm 61 then we have David Hamilton who is 84. We also have a Christmas special coming up with Pete Murray who is 96. We are giving an opportunity to presenters who thought they may never work again so it's been great."
One of the trickiest parts of getting the station going was finding advertisers to come on board. In the early days, it was difficult to get advertisers to take a chance on a station geared to an older generation.
"It was tricky to get sufficient revenue to fund it as we agree there is a ready audience but it's not the most attractive audience to advertisers. They tend to go for people in their midlife instead of 55. Persuading advertisers to come with us in the early days was a challenge," David admitted.
"We are a commercial station so we need sufficient revenue to continue. Thanks to our success and profile, we have gone from strength to strength and I would not be surprised if we were over half a million listeners by the next set of figures. Our target is to reach a million."
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