BBC Radio Norfolk

BBC Radio Norfolk is the BBC Local Radio service for the English county of Norfolk, broadcasting since 11 September 1980. It broadcasts from the studios of BBC East in The Forum, Norwich on 95.1 FM (Stoke Holy Cross), 104.4 FM (Great Massingham), 95.6 FM (West Runton, near Cromer), 855 kHz AM/MW (Postwick, east Norwich near the A47), 873 kHz AM/MW (West Lynn, near the A47 and River Great Ouse), DAB and through the internet using BBC iPlayer.

The station has regularly been one of the most listened-to on the BBC Local Radio network, as highest-rated in mainland England in 2003 and 2006. In 1986, the mid-morning programme The Norfolk Airline won the Sony Award for Best Magazine Programme, and the station won its second Radio Academy Award 28 years later in 2014, for Local Radio Journalist of the Year.

The station should not be confused with the fictional Radio Norwich in the television comedy series I'm Alan Partridge, or the commercial station 99.9 Radio Norwich.

History

BBC Radio Norfolk launched at 5:55 pm on 11 September 1980. It was the first BBC local station in East Anglia and the first after a gap of several years in the corporation's local radio development, due to the Government's review of local radio (both BBC and independent services) in the late 1970s. Due to the policy of launching only one local radio service at a time in a particular area, when it came to choosing whether Norfolk or Devon would receive a BBC or commercial station first, there was contention between the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) as to who would get which area. This was settled by the toss of a coin, the BBC winning and choosing Norfolk. The IBA got Devon and appointed DevonAir Radio.

Norfolk

Norfolk /ˈnɔːrfək/ is a county in East Anglia. It borders Lincolnshire to the west and north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea and, to the north-west, The Wash. The county town is Norwich.

With an area of 2,074 square miles and a population of 859,400, Norfolk is a largely rural county with a population density of 401 per square mile. Forty per cent of the county's population live in four major built up areas: Norwich (213,000), Great Yarmouth (63,000), King's Lynn (46,000) and Thetford (25,000).

The Broads is a network of rivers and lakes on the county's east coast, extending south into Suffolk. The area is a National Park and is protected by the Broads Authority.

History

Norfolk was settled in pre-Roman times, with camps along the higher land in the west where flints could be quarried. A Brythonic tribe, the Iceni, inhabited the county from the 1st century BC to the end of the 1st century AD. The Iceni revolted against the Roman invasion in 47 AD, and again in 60 AD led by Boudica. The crushing of the second rebellion opened the county to the Romans. During the Roman era in Norfolk roads and ports were constructed throughout the county and farming took place widely.

Radio

Radio is the use of radio waves is to carry information, such as sound, by systematically modulating some property of electromagnetic energy waves transmitted through space, such as their amplitude, frequency, phase, or pulse width. When radio waves strike an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. The information in the waves can be extracted and transformed back into its original form.

Radio systems need a transmitter to modulate (change) some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it, for example using amplitude modulation or angle modulation (which can be frequency modulation or phase modulation). Radio systems also need an antenna to convert electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. An antenna can be used for both transmitting and receiving. The electrical resonance of tuned circuits in radios allow individual stations to be selected. The electromagnetic wave is intercepted by a tuned receiving antenna. A radio receiver receives its input from an antenna and converts it into a form usable for the consumer, such as sound, pictures, digital data, measurement values, navigational positions, etc. Radio frequencies occupy the range from a 3 kHz to 300 GHz, although commercially important uses of radio use only a small part of this spectrum.

Alan Partridge

Alan Gordon Partridge is a fictional character portrayed by English actor and comedian Steve Coogan. A parody of British television personalities, Partridge is a tactless and inept television and radio presenter who often insults his guests and whose inflated sense of celebrity drives him to treachery and shameless self-promotion. Coogan described Partridge as a Little Englander, with right-wing values and poor taste.

Partridge was created by Coogan and Armando Iannucci for the 1991 BBC Radio 4 comedy programme On The Hour, a spoof of British current affairs broadcasting, as the show's sports presenter. In 1992, Partridge hosted a spin-off Radio 4 spoof chat show, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, which transferred to television in 1994. Coogan starred as Partridge in a two-series BBC sitcom, I'm Alan Partridge, in 1997 and 2002, which earned two BAFTAs. The character returned in 2010 with a web series, Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, followed in 2011 by bestselling spoof autobiography, I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan, and in 2013 a successful feature-length film, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.

Norwich City F.C.

Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries or City) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. Norwich returned to the Premier League in 2015, having first been promoted to the top flight in 1972. Norwich have won the League Cup twice, in 1962 and 1985. The club has never won the top flight, but finished third in 1993.

The club was founded in 1902. Since 1935, Norwich have played their home games at Carrow Road and have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with East Anglian rivals Ipswich Town, with whom they have contested the East Anglian Derby 134 times since 1902.

The fans' song "On the Ball, City" is regarded as being the oldest football song in the world which is still in use. The club plays in characteristic yellow and green kits and are affectionally known as The Canaries as a reference to their colours and club badge.

History

Early years

Norwich City F.C. was formed following a meeting at the Criterion Cafe in Norwich on 17 June 1902 and played their first competitive match against Harwich & Parkeston, at Newmarket Road on 6 September 1902. Following a FA Commission, the club was ousted from the amateur game in 1905, deemed a professional organisation. Later that year Norwich were elected to play in the Southern League and with increasing crowds, they were forced to leave Newmarket Road in 1908, moving to The Nest, a disused chalk pit. The club's original nickname was the Citizens, although this was superseded by 1907 by the more familiar Canaries after the club's chairman (who was a keen breeder of canaries) dubbed his boys 'The Canaries' and changing their strip to yellow and green. During the First World War, with football suspended and facing spiralling debts, City went into voluntary liquidation on 10 December 1917.