Big City Network is the name given to a network of Independent Local Radio stations across Northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all owned by Bauer Radio. Since EMAP's acquisition of Metropolitan Broadcasting in 1996 there has been gradual brand integration such as a standard logo and websites. Emap's consumer assets were subsequently sold to Bauer Media Group in 2008.

Many of the former Scottish Radio Holdings stations were added to the Big City Network on 28 September 2006, branded as Big City Network Scotland and Northern Ireland, although all stations kept their original logos, with the exception of CFM. West Sound is the only AM station in the network but it does not carry any of the networked programming carried by the FM stations.

Most stations in the network have a charity called "Cash for Kids" helping local disadvantaged children. Hallam FM in Sheffield's charity was formally know as 'Help A Hallam Child' before changing its name to match the other network stations. The news for the stations' websites is provided by ITN.

Bic City's main rival network are Global Radio's Heart Network (serving 32 stations) and The Hit Music Network (serving seven stations) in Wales, the English Midlands and Southern England. Both Global networks play a differing music format to that of Big City and in most cases, incorporate a greater reliance on networked programming.

Current stations

England

All English stations within the Big City Network share the pink splash in their logo as well as the pink and black colour scheme for branding.

Station name	Based in	Transmission area(s)	AM sister station	Original Air-date
Key 103	Manchester	Greater Manchester and North Cheshire	Piccadilly Magic 1152	2 April 1974
Metro Radio	Newcastle upon Tyne	Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and North County Durham	Magic 1152	15 July 1974
Hallam FM	Sheffield	South Yorkshire	Magic AM	1 October 1974
Radio City 96.7	Liverpool	Merseyside, West Lancashire and North East Wales	Magic 1548	21 October 1974
TFM Radio	Thornaby-on-Tees	Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Tees Valley, South County Durham and parts of North Yorkshire	Magic 1170	24 June 1975
96.3 Radio Aire	Leeds	West Yorkshire	Magic 828	1 September 1981
97.4 Rock FM	Preston	Lancashire	Magic 999	5 October 1982
96.9 Viking FM	Kingston upon Hull	East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire	Magic 1161	17 April 1984
CFM Radio	Carlisle	North, North West & Central Cumbria and South East Dumfries & Galloway	N/A	14 April 1993
City Talk 105.9	Liverpool	Merseyside, West Lancashire and North East Wales	Magic 1548	28 January 2008

Scotland

Station name	Based in	Transmission area(s)	Sister station	Original Air-date
102.5 Clyde 1	Clydebank	Greater Glasgow	Clyde 2	31 December 1973
97.3 Forth One	Edinburgh	Edinburgh, the Lothians and Fife	1548 Forth 2	22 January 1975
Tay FM	Dundee	Dundee, Angus, Perth and Kinross and Fife	Tay AM	17 October 1980
Northsound 1	Aberdeen	Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire	Northsound 2	27 July 1981
West Sound	Ayr	Ayrshire	West FM and West Sound FM	16 October 1981
97.4 MFR	Inverness	Moray, Orkney and the Highland	Moray Firth Radio 1107AM	23 February 1982
Radio Borders	Tweedbank	Scottish Borders and North Northumberland	N/A	22 January 1990
West Sound FM	Dumfries	Dumfries & Galloway	West Sound and West FM	21 May 1990
West FM	Ayr	Ayrshire	West Sound and West Sound FM	6 January 1997

Northern Ireland

Station name	Based in	Transmission area	AM sister station	Original Air-date
Cool FM	Newtownards	Northern Ireland	Downtown Radio	16 March 1976

The Hits Radio

Though not directly within the "Big City Network", The Hits Radio broadcasts from Manchester and is built up from many of the shows from Northern England stations, consisting of voicetracked output from various station presenters as well live networked programming such as In:Demand and The Big Top 40 Show. The Hits is available on DAB Digital Radio in London and across the UK via Freeview, Sky Digital and Virgin Media.

Networked Programming

Northern England

The Big City Network in northern England carries networked programming on weekday evenings and overnights.

• In:Demand with Alex and Lucy (Weeknights 7-10pm)
• AfterHours (Overnights, 1-6am on most stations, 2-6am on Radio City 96.7, 2-5am Metro Radio - Monday-Saturday only)
• JK and Joel's Saturday Night Thing (Saturdays 6-10pm, not aired on Radio City)
• The Love Confessional with Becky Hayes (Friday 10pm - 1am, aired on Radio Aire and Hallam FM)

In addition, Late 'n' Live is broadcast from Sunday to Thursday night between 10pm and 1am although Radio City, Metro Radio, Key 103 and TFM Radio continue to air locally produced programming at these times.

In:Demand and AfterHours are produced and broadcast live from Key 103 in Manchester, JK and Joel's Saturday Night Thing is a voicetracked production from Radio Aire in Leeds and Late 'n' Live is produced from London.

With the exception of AfterHours on Sundays, The Hits Radio also airs the same networked programming. "Late 'n Live" and "JK & Joel's Saturday Night Thing" are not simulcast on The Hits and are instead simulcast digitally on Heat Radio.

Scotland

Big City Network stations in Scotland carry networked programming on weekday evenings, originating from the studios of Clyde 1 in Glasgow.

• In Demand with Romeo (Weekdays 7-10pm)
• Late Night with Gina McKie (Sunday - Thursday 10pm-1am)
• Friday Night Floorfillers with Krystle (Friday 10pm-1am)
• Saturday Night with Krystle (Saturday 10pm-1am)
• Overnights with Adrian Coll (Mo-Th) or Kevin Cameron (Fr-Su) (1am-6am)

The two Northern Ireland stations, Cool FM and Downtown Radio, air locally-produced programming during the evening.

The networked chart show, The Big Top 40 Show With Rich and Kat, is also broadcast across all Big City Network stations on Sundays from 4-7pm, produced by Global Radio in London.

External links

• Official website