Page 1 Page 2 BBC Southern Counties Radio  The fully merged BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey was in the lucky position of being able to broadcast entirely its own output from dawn to dusk, with no opting into regional programmes.  However, the new station made no attempt at localising the service within its vast coverage area.
1st August 1994, and the station received a new name - BBC Southern Counties Radio. Initially the station 'sound' remained exactly the same, but just one month later fundamental changes were made. All the music was dropped and SCR became the first BBC local station to be 'all-talk all the time'. Several new presenters were recruited, including Gordon Astley (below), Al Clarke and, briefly, Tommy Boyd. The two remaining specialist programmes on Sundays - the youth programme Turn It Up and the award-winning Asian programme Rang Tarang - were axed, and a new streamlined schedule was introduced, with every programme running for four hours from 5am to 1am seven days a week. Right: an SCR promotional leaflet from 1994 - click to view inside (opens in new window - 138KB)  Over the next three years there were frequent presenter and programme changes - new recruits included Eric Dixon and Adrian Love (who sadly died in 1999), while stalwarts like Stewart Macintosh, Julian Clegg and Steve Watts departed. In March 1996 a controversial new jingle package was introduced (hear clips at the bottom of this page). In April 1997 the station had to give up its evening programmes and link up with other BBC stations across the South and South East.
By this time not a single presenter remained from three years earlier; and then on 1st September 1997, Southern Counties underwent another major overhaul. This time the all-talk format was dumped, and the station reverted to a more relaxed music/talk mix. More new presenters arrived, including Chris Ashley, John Radford, Bill Buckley and even Simon Bates. But the best news was that there were to be separate news bulletins and breakfast shows, split three ways between Surrey, Sussex and Brighton. Plus, from this point on, the former Radio Sussex frequencies of 104.0 FM and 1368 AM would now be carrying the Surrey breakfast show as well as 104.6 FM, meaning that, unlike during the Radio Surrey era, local programming would be clearly audible across the whole county.    
Past SCR presenters Adrian Love (1995-99), Eric Dixon (1995-97), Al Clarke (1994-97), Dickie Dodd (1998-2000)
  
Ed Douglas (1995-2006), Dominic Busby (2001-06), Bill Buckley (1997-2006)
Following the 1997 revamp, things stayed largely the same for several years, apart from new jingle packages in 1999 and 2005 (SCR still shunned the 'corporate' BBC Local Radio sound), and a few presenter changes. Dickie Dodd introduced a humorous touch to the Surrey breakfast show from 1998, and he was succeeded two years later by Ed Douglas who brought his own slightly flippant approach to the show. Meanwhile the station's best presenter Dominic Busby moved from the regional mid-evening show in 2001 to present SCR's drivetime and Sunday morning shows; then in 2004 Tommy Boyd controversially returned to the station on Saturday nights. 
After this long period of stability, a major relaunch took place on 3rd April 2006. All of the regular weekday presenters heard across Surrey - Ed Douglas, Bill Buckley and Dominic Busby - were dropped from the station (morning presenter Tony Fisher already having departed). Gordon Astley returned to present the mid-morning show, Tommy Boyd was given the afternoon show, and Fred Marden joined from commercial radio to present the breakfast show. The changes sparked much debate on the BBC messageboards. Meanwhile there was mixed news as far as Surrey listeners are concerned - the station moved its headquarters and newsroom from Guildford to Brighton, which raised the possibility of a more South Coast-biased station. On the other hand, former station manager Neil Pringle insisted that SCR was not going to pull out of Guildford, and indeed introduced more Surrey-focused output, with an hour-long Surrey drivetime show with Mark Carter and a Saturday breakfast show in addition to the weekday programme. But...in an unannounced move, these programmes were now to be only available to listeners in the west of the county. After a decade of relaying the 'Surrey, North East Hampshire and Crawley' flavour of SCR, the 104.0 FM frequency, transmitted from Reigate Hill and covering East Surrey and North Sussex, now carried the Sussex variant, with no coverage aimed at East Surrey. The change was apparently to give listeners in Crawley a more relevant service, but this had the effect of alienating East Surrey listeners who found themselves flung into the Bermuda Triangle of BBC Local Radio.  
The Surrey team - Fred Marden and Mark Carter
Thankfully, common sense prevailed, and on Monday 16th October 2006 the Reigate transmitter reverted to Surrey output. The whole county benefited from the change, as Mark Carter's Drive Show was extended from one to three hours. So, six hours a day of local output - we're almost back to Radio Surrey! Local programmes for Surrey, North-East Hampshire and Crawley can now be heard on 104.0 and 104.6 FM weekdays from 6-9am and 4-7pm, plus 6-9am and 2-6pm on Saturdays. Another welcome move early in 2007 saw the news section of the BBC Southern Counties website split between Surrey and Sussex. Unfortunately there are no plans for a full split between the counties on radio - this has been considered but is apparently not viable under the existing budget and resources. But there is one more crucial reason why there will not be a return to BBC Radio Surrey. In a phone-in in February 2006 discussing the changes, Neil Pringle claimed that Southern Counties is a successful station - but that the majority of the audience still remains in Sussex. This infers that even after a decade-and-a-half, BBC local radio still struggles in Surrey, dragging SCR down to the bottom end of the table of RAJAR listening figures. Keeping a single station for the whole region effectively hides this; the BBC fear that to reintroduce a separate station for Surrey would be as much a failure as the early 90s original was. Thus Surrey was not one of the five areas that the BBC have mentioned in connection with receiving improved local radio coverage (these areas being Cheshire, Dorset, Somerset, Bradford and the Black Country - however as part of the BBC cutbacks announced in October 2007, plans for each of these stations have been cancelled). It seems Surrey's population of one million just isn't interested in local broadcasting, and would rather tune into the wealth of London commercial stations that are audible across the county. So it looks like 'the web's only Radio Surrey page' will be remain as just that for a long time to come...
Audio clips BBC SCR 1996 jingle package 'Love City'  'Trip Hop' News
Get with it! In March 1996 SCR introduced some of the oddest jingles ever heard on BBC Local Radio! Meanwhile the news was introduced by a superb reworking of Simon May's original Radio Surrey theme. Hear more jingles from this package on The Local Network page BBC SCR 1999 jingle
From a new jingle package launched in January 1999, composed by David Arnold BBC SCR 2005 news jingle
An updated version of the David Arnold jingle package was used from February 2005 BBC SCR 2006 travel news
A fab new travel bed introduced for the station's relaunch in April 2006 BBC SCR 2006 jingle package Jingle 1 Jingle 2
Does Surrey fare any better when it comes to regional news on television? Absolutely not - it has been said that you are more likely to hear about Surrey on the national news than on the regional news!   
The county is perpetually stuck in a black hole, falling in between three BBC regions - London, South East and South - all three of which seem to have no interest in even acknowledging the existence of Surrey, other than the occasional placename on a weather map. Strangely, even BBC SCR for Surrey, North East Hampshire and Crawley seems to assume we receive South Today when the majority of viewers in the area actually pick up BBC London television from the two relay transmitters at Reigate and Guildford. For more on BBC regional news in this part of the world, visit our BBC South East section. Page 1 Page 2
LINK: BBC Southern Counties Radio Appreciation Society | 
