U105 FM

I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with me. I quite like this station. I mean, in Belfast we don’t have the most varied or cutting edge radio shows but it does its job I must say. Particularly at the weekend it’s not bad for a bit of local banter. Though that young girl who’s on with Carolyn Stewart, some one shoot her please! Ah, her voice goes through me! The station was launched in November 2005 and since has been broadcasting across the airwaves in 105.8fm from 06:00 — 00:00, Monday to Saturday, and 07:00 — 00:00 on Sundays. The station features presenters/​shows suck as; Ken Bruce — The Wireless Set, Maurice Jay –U105 Breakfast, Maurice Jay’s Sunday Best, David Johnson — Not the Top 40, George Jones — U105 Drive, Frank Mitchell –U105 Mornings and Carolyn Stewart –The Original Saturday Night Fever. T he News team consists of; Peter McVerry, Paul Cromie, Sarah Dobson, Shauna McKeown, Nicola Rice and Francesca Ryan; with regular contributions from UTV Live correspondents and reporters.

I’m not really a fan of the DJ radio host. I prefer a bit of dialogue and in general some solid news.
105FM certainly delivers some of the best news in Belfast, even though radio has never been something I’ve really embraced at all.
I remember the first time I heard it (after meeting one of its best news presenters who I can now call a friend) I thought, this is solid, well versed and scripted news. Solid dialogue without any bizarre interruptions.
I’m not a fan of the daft and wacky DJs on here. The populist music muck is not my forte, but for news it’s hard to go wrong.

In Northern Ireland, ITV is known as UTV and U105 would be the radio station brother of said television station. Still with me? Good.
U105 is something similar as Downtown in that it is a pleasant, daytime, Magic FM-​esque radio station. It is a nice, relaxing, (boring) station with all your favourites from the television plus a handful of voices you won’t recognise.
And that is all of the positives.
The negatives unfortunately could get me done for slander. So instead of bring a lawsuit on, I’ll say this. For people under the age of 35, this is a pretty terrible station. It needs to be livened up somehow. Stick a bunch of students on and get them to play Sex Pistols and drink vodka. Get the old presenters and on the hour, every hour, they have to drink a pint of tequila. Something to inject a bit of interest into this station.
Perhaps it is not aimed at me. In fact it is definitely not aimed at me. And unless there is tequila or Sex Pistols involved, I don’t think I am going to listen again.

This for me is the kind of radio station that Citybeat should aspire to be. The target market of this station is again at the 30+ kind of market, but it provides a much better service to the people of Northern Ireland!
The line-​up of presenters includes Maurice Jay, Frank Mitchell, Carolyn Stewart, George Jones and Jerry Lang who play a wide range of music every day, catering to the needs of different listeneers on this station. There may be genres on the station like country that arent my cup of tea, but the station has a varied playlist which is to be applauded.
The station also has quality talk elements, where current issues are debated well, with specialist night-​time and weekend programming to cater again to more specific markets.
The news content on the station is also of a high quality, and the station has excellent charity and local community events links which is another bonus! The station is only a year or two old, so I hope it grows from strength to strength and continues to improve!