West Norfolk's Number One (KL.FM 96.7)

Member Name: mreyre

Product:	KL.FM 96.7
Date:	30/11/02 (1064 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Steve Bradley, regular competitions, Travel bulletins

Disadvantages: nothing much exciting happens round here!, Old dears that ring in who haven't a clue, A limited website

I cant believe that I’m the first person to write about West Norfolk’s Number One radio station, KL.FM 96.7. I know that there are many other regular dooyooers out there who, like me, live in rural Norfolk. I therefore feel obliged to speak out for all West Norfolk residents about the merits of listening to our local radio station.

Certainly in the King’s Lynn area, since it’s introduction about 10 years ago, KLFM has become a way of life for many people. Most listen to it on their way to work in the car, whilst stuck on the A10 / A47, and of course on the return journey back home and depend on it for local travel bulletins. Others get their children ready for school to the sounds of the eighties and time the school run to co-incide with regular features. Many just tune in on a Sunday morning for the relaxation session (“Easy Like Sunday morning”), whilst lazing through the Sunday papers. Whatever the reason, KLFM does try to cater for a wide audience level.

Firstly, let’s look at the (usual) presentation schedule, this is also featured on the recently revamped website on: www.klfm967.co.uk:

Monday-Friday

6am Steve Bradley

10am Golden Years

11am The Mid Morning Show

3pm Afternoon Anthems

4pm Simon Rowe

8pm Evening Session

9pm Kelvin Scott

12am Overnight Music

Saturday

7am The Saturday Breakfast Show

10am Golden Years

11am Dave Richardson

3pm Afternoon Anthems

4pm Gary Steele

8pm Evening Session

9pm Non-Stop Saturday Night

Sunday

7am Steve Bradley

10am Golden Years

11am Easy Like Sunday Morning

3pm Afternoon Anthems

4pm The Pepsi Chart with Neil Fox
Neil Fox with the nations favourite countdown

7pm The LP Chart

8pm Evening Session

9pm Darren James

And thus continue
s for another week. I think most of West Norfolk will agree with me that the best, and favourite DJ on the station is Steve Bradley. I have met him on a couple of occasions, and he’s a great bloke, very down to earth and is great with the children. A few years ago, a colleague of mine won the honour of being voted “West Norfolk’s Trendiest Teacher” award, and he came to the school for a presentation, he was very polite and had a lot of time for people.

He has his own website, strangely enough on www.stevebradley.co.uk, which gives a profile of him, and the fact that he nearly made it as a Blue Peter presenter. He also does voiceovers and other presentation work. His actual radio show is (usually) very smoothly put together, and quite professional, for a local radio station.

There are many regular exciting features which grip the whole of West Norfolk, such as the infamous “Mystery Voice” competition. Steve plays a quick excerpt of a famous celebrity talking and listeners have to ring in with a suggested answer. If they are wrong, they get the “Family Fortunes” (uuuuh-uhhhh) noise, if correct, then prizes range from a starting figure of £25, this is increased by £5 as the days go by, until one listener may win £800 or so. Steve is great at dealing with people on the phone, and if there is some old dear phone up with clearly the wrong answer, he tries not to be too patronizing, but by the tone of his voice you can tell he’s thinking “we’ve got a right loony here!” He often speaks to a friend of his, known only as Kevin the Shed Builder, which is also quite a humorous feature.

The travel bulletins always make me chuckle, too, and are a very regular necessity on this station. As West Norfolk only has about two main roads, if they are ever blocked by an overturned combine harvester, or a potato lorry shedding its load, then the travel bulletins are a great way of avoiding
the blockage. However, often days, sometimes weeks go by without any major incident, so the travel update normally sounds rather like this:
“This morning, all is quiet and the A10 and A47 are running smoothly, no major problems to report, and all trains and buses are running to time.”
When you know that the travel reporter is willing for some major road disaster to happen so that they actually have something exciting to report on.

Steve has a great rapport with his co-presenters, too, especially Ewan Monaghan, who reads regular news bulletins. I’m sure they make half of it up as they go along, but it sounds very funny as you are driving to work.

After Steve comes the Golden Hour (not dissimilar to the Radio 1 feature of the same name), where all songs played are from the same year.

Mid-afternoon slacks off a bit, but there is a good competition feature called “West Norfolk’s Top 10”. In “Family Fortunes” style, the presenter has asked a selected audience a question, eg. Name something you hide in the wardrobe, and he gives the bottom 4 answers, listeners have to ring in with what they think is the top answer.

The afternoon session is either presented by Simon Rowe, or Dave King, both have their good points and bad points, but both make the drive home from work a more pleasurable one. It is alleged that Steve Coogan loosely based his Alan Partridge character on Dave King, so I’ll let you make your own conclusions on that one – I’d be interested to know what other listeners think!

I never really listen to the radio much at evenings or weekends, but as you can see from the selection, there is quite a wide range of appeal.
The website is in its infancy at present, but does look quite snazzy, it only has 4 pages to speak of, but I’m sure in time, this could be a website to be truly proud of, for a small local radio station.

Finally, th
e KLFM building itself is just off one of the main car parks in the centre of King’s Lynn, the great thing about it is when you walk past, you can actually see right into the studio that they are presenting from, the DJ’s always wave back if you wave at them!
If you live in the West Norfolk area (Downham Market, King’s Lynn, Swaffham, Terrington, etc.), and you haven’t yet tuned in, then I suggest you give it a try. In the meantime, surf along to the websites and find out more!

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