I've said for years Radio Newcastle should have been called BBC Radio Northeast. I hope this Sunderland one catches on. Good for our area. I remember when "Sun City" gave it a go down church street 20 odd years ago. Now imo, best "fm" station going for a mix of music. 80s,90,00s etc. Metro used to be good, but they back heeled all the older stuff onto Hits Radio on DAB. Now it just sounds like all the other trying to be cool stations with the DJs calling everyone "Guy" and using loose Americanisms asking everyone how they're "doing lockdown three,right".
Anyway Haway the Radio station
Sun City/Sun FM was a good local radio station, the problem was the parent companies were taken over, so they just dropped down to being bog standard commercial stations with no real local content. The same happened to Metro and Centuary. Its why they all dropped the football coverage, a "national" broadcast with chart music is cheaper than local programming or sports coverage, even though that would bring in more listeners. Saying that, the 3 leg ends was always naff. Superdrunk and Brownlee being snidy about Sunderland because Centuary didn't get the SAFC broadcast rights, loaded phonecalls to make it look like Boro were a big club with loads of fans. God that was crap.
Radio Newcastle has always been ****, but now its got no local competition to shame it into trying to be better.