The Sound of Sunday on HRB

We return this Sunday at 1.30 for our new series.  All the regular features are there, some in a slightly different order, and we’re a little shorter this week as at 3pm, HRB has a live show from St Lucia.

We like pushing the boundaries of technology at HRB and the list of different countries we have broadcast live from continues to grow.  President of the Hospital Broadcasting Association June Snowden will be presenting the programme,  and explaining exactly why she’s there.

Joing us from 1.30 this Sunday.

It was agreat show to end the series on – 5 hours of the Jubilee Thames Pageant as part of a very memorable Diamond Jubilee weekend,

It was a show that we knew something about how it would work before it started but as with all live events, you can never predict exactly what will happen.

We included lots of the atmosphere of the day with the help of reporters along the route and on the actual boats.  I hope it got across what was going on to our listeners.

That show was number 47 of the series.  We’re back on Sunday June 24th at 1.30pm with show 1 of the new season.

For one afternoon each year, HRB goes a little football crazy.  It’s the only time when all ten Premier League games kick off at the same time and invariably there is much nail biting going on for the fans of those teams facing relegation.  Last year the teams in those relegation places changed something like 14 times during the afternoon.

This year two of the three teams who will be playing in the Championship next season are known, but avoiding the third place will be the target for QPR and Bolton.  QPR could play a part in who wins the title, they have to get a result against Manchester City, but should they do so, they could send the title Manchester United’s way.

This year, the last day games will form part of an extended Sound of Sunday (we normally do it as a separate show).  We’ll have reporters at all the games and we’ll try and convey the excitement of the occasion and tell the story of the afternoon even for those who aren’t huge football fans.

In the 90 minutes before kick off, there’ll be a sprinkling of the usuaul SOS features and of course requests throughout in Music on Demand.

Join us on Sunday 1.30 – 5.30pm by your beds on channel 6 or online at www.hrbasingstoke.co.uk.

The Sound of Sunday started on 24 March 1991 – when John Major was Prime Minister and we were at the start of the first Gulf War.  Going Live was entertaining a couple of million viewers on Saturday morning TV, Edd The Duck and Andi Peters were in th Broom Cupboard on Children’s BBC, and it was the year that the Mitchell Brothers arrived in Albert Square. 

Every year on the anniversary show, we play again one of our special guest interviews.  So it’s up to you who will be heard again on the show on 25 March.  Choose from the list below.  Votes will be counted up to 10pm on Saturday March 24th.

It’s actually nearly a month since we did a “normal” edition of the show – normal times and features that is.  Christmas took over in December and the last 2 Sundays have been our most requested chart.

2012 is going to be a big year – Euro 2012, Olympics, Paralympics, Diamond Jubilee and closer to home HRB will be celebrating 40 years since hospital radio started in Basingstoke.  We’ll be reflecting all of that during the show this year (and celebrating 21 years of the show itself in March).  To start off the year, it’s Memory Makers – The Olympic Years, remembering previous Olympic Games and the biggest selling songs during those times.  This week, Barcelona 1992.

Pkus, at HRB, we often get reqtests for people who you just would not think about or hear on any other radio station.  Take Laurel and Hardy for example.  Not known for being singers, but in fact they coul;d – and they released records back in the 1940s.  We’ve had a request for them in the last couple of weeks – and not for the first time!  It just demonstrates the diversity of the musical taste of our audience.

All of that plus all the regular fatures, live this Sunday from 1.30pm

Christmas is a great time to be on the radio and a traditional part of HRB’s Christmas is The Sound of Sunday’s Big Christmas Show.

It’s a show that is unlike every other show during the rest of the year, with the same format and running order year- on-year – but it works!

We go round the wards for the Great Christmas Cracker Dash, we give away family tickets to the local pantos and we interview the stars of those pantos.  It was the same back in the mid-90s when the show started, although in those days it wasn’t quite the 5 hours it is today.

So it is that time again when Tony Robinson and the Angel Voices will once again play at the start of the biggest Sound of Sunday of the Year!

It’s been a while since this blog of any of this website were updated – too long!  However, this weekend marks the 800th edition of the show, so we’ve taken the opportunity to refresh the site, give it a new look and post a new entry on the blog.

You will also find on these blog pages a range of music and other products that we hope you will be interested in and of coursem you can still buy your tickets to big events via the banner on the left.  We hope you like the changes and with a bit of luck, we’ll be able to add to them in the coming weeks.

So it’s 800 shows and counting this weekend, coming just before the busy Christmas season.  Next week, we look back at our Christmas shows from the past before our live big Christmas show for 2011 – 5 hours of fast moving festive fun in a show that takes several months of planning.

And in a month;s time, we’ll be live on Christmas morning in a one-hour show that will be linking up with other stations around the UK as well as playing requests collected earlier in the morning.

So there’s lots to come on the show and hopefully on our refreshed website in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, if you were in any doubt that Christmas is on the way, the launch of the BBC One Christmas trailer has surely changed all that!

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a352984/bbc-one-unveils-christmas-trailer-watch.html

Image via Wikipedia

So spring has come and just about gone, the football season’s over and the show has taken its usual 3 week summer break, to return for its new series.  We always take the opportunity to refresh the running order, add a new jingle or two and one or two new features, and also give the web site a bit of a refresh aswell.

That’s always the plan anyway.  The website hasn’t looked good for a while now and this time, it will be revamped for the better with a new look that will stay the course. 

Any new running order takes a little time to settle in and although we started moving things around slightly towards the end of the last series, it will take a little time before things flow nicely again.  It’s not the same every week of course, we have special guests in from time to time and on Sunday 3 July, we’ll welcome Cheryl Baker from Bucks Fizz to the show.  She’ll be talking about winning Eurovision and celebrating the 30th anniversary with a special evening in July.  I’ll also be asking her about her TV presenting alongside Roy Castle on Record Breakers.  I was lucky enough to meet Roy when he came many years ago to open the Basingstoke Carnival and he must have been one of the nicest guys in show biz.  On holiday earlier this month, I happened to find a copy of his autobiography and it’s a book that’s well worth a read.  As well as his battle against cancer which he sadly finally lost, there’s lots of other stories and anecdotes about his busy life performing. 

My new yeasr’s resolution was to update this blog at least every couple of weeks.  So that’s not really worked then!  It’s taken me until now to write for the first time in 2011!

We’re two weeks away from the show’s 20th anniversary and we’ll be celebrating with a Best of the Guests Special, to be broadcast on 27 March.  So who shall we repeat?  The choice is from:

Maggie Philbin

Keith Chegwin

Trev and Simon

Ortis Deley

Peter Duncan

Mitch Johnson

Noel Edmonds

We’ll repeat 3 of them on that show in a couple of weeks time. Leave a comment with your vote below.  So far Trev and Simon are in the lead!