EBC 3FM

EBC 3FM is a Euroish national radio station owned and operated by EBC Radio. It specialises in modern popular music, current chart hits, pop, dance and rock throughout it's daytime schedule.

Meanwhile, it's evening lineup provides alternative genres, including electronica, rock, metal, indie and alternative, experimental, drum and bass, instrumental, jungle, ambient, dance, live sessions, current affairs and comedy. It's main sister station - 3XM, plays black contemporary music, including rap, R&B and drill.

3FM also runs two full-time online streams, 3FM Dance, dedicated to dance music, and 3FM Happy, dedicated to feel-good music, both available exclusively on EBC Hub.

3FM broadcasts throughout the Euro Republics on FM between 97.1 MHz and 99.7 MHz, digital radio, digital TV and EBC Hub. 3FM started 24-hour broadcasting on 5 January 1992.

Music
Because of it's youth oriented nature, 3FM plays a broad mix of current and potential future hits, including independent/alternative, hip hip, rock, dance/electronica, ambient, drill, grime and pop. This makes the station stand out from other top 40 stations around the world and within the Euro Republics, including it's main rival Play, which notably bans frequent airplay of rock music, and rarely plays black contemporary.

With it's progressive view on new music, EBC 3FM is well known and liked in the worldwide drum and bass, experimental, alternative and chill-out communities.

The station has - throughout the years - recorded many live performances. Studio sesssions also supplement the live performances. 3FM also broadcasts music documentaries and interviews, conducted by station DJ's.

News and current affairs
3FM has a public service broadcasting obligation to provide news and current affairs for 30 minutes on weekdays supplemented by bulletins throughout the day. Newsbeat, broadcast at 13:45 and 17:45, are the main news programmes heard on 3FM, with updates at the half hour (between 6am and 10.30pm) that are shared with 3XM.

Newsbeat in Focus, a half hour investigative journalism slot from the Newsbeat team airs on Sundays at 9pm. 3FM also transmits entertainment news, under the name The Net (Newsbeat Entertainment Transmission), with a daily bulletins at 2.30pm, and updates at every hour from 10am to 4pm.

Comedy
Since the late 1980's, 3FM has established itself as a major source for new comedy talent. The first comedy programme to be transmitted on 3FM (then known as EBC Radio 3) was The Audiowave Reception Sound Experiment in March 1988, which was highly successful, and led to more comedy-based programmes being launched on the station within the next few years. ARSE ended in December 1993.

Experimental comedians and ARSE contributers Simon Groves, Justin Coleman and Neil McCole had evening programmes on 3FM in the early 90's, that blended comedy speech content with a music playlist less mainstream and more experimental than the regular 3FM schedule.

UK radio comedy such as ', ', ' and ' also featured on 3FM during this era.

After Simon Groves and Justin Coleman left 3FM to co-present a show together on sister station EBC Radio 6 in January 1996, they were replaced. In place of Simon Groves's Monday night programme, Claudia Keegan, whilst British comedy duo presented in the Tuesday night slot left vacant by Justin Coleman, and would alternate every three months of the year with Lee Rouch's Sound of Nothing.

Sketch comedy returned to 3FM in October 1997 with Bile, which featured Chris Brown, Ashley McCall, Jocelyn Burell and Sanjeev Dudley.