EBC 3FM

EBC 3FM is a Euroish national radio station owned and operated by EBC Radio, originally launched on 12 October 1970.

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 and urban contemporary music, including rap, grime, R&B and drill, and simulcasts with 3FM for The Rap Show on Saturday nights. 3FM also runs 3 Pride which focuses exclusively on LGBTQ+ artists and presenters, 3FM Dance, dedicated to dance music, and 3FM Happy, dedicated to feel-good music, both available exclusively on EBC Hub and Sky Satellite Radio.

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.

1970-1978: Launch
EBC Radio 3 launched on 12th October 1970, to rival and provide a legal alternative to pirate radio stations that were attracting younger audiences with their mix of modern popular music and light-hearted chat. Charles Falk was the first voice on the station when it came on air at 7am.

1978-1990: Most listened to radio station
By 1978, EBC Radio 3 was the biggest station in the Euro Republics, with DJ's such as Tony Fisher, Phil Osman and Charles Falk becoming household names in the country.

1990-2000: Revamping
By the late 1980's, EBC Radio 3 began to fall out of favour of younger demographics, with the blame put majorly on the DJ's on the station. Whilst Radio 3 was originally launched as a youth station, many of it's listeners and DJ's had aged throughout it's 20 year history, with most presenters being in their 40's, 50's and even 60's and a preference towards artists who had an older skew, with The Bottle Boys being a favourite of 3FM for many years. The likes of Cyndi Lauper and Midge Ure were also heard frequently.

Younger voices, such as Daniel Rogers and the team of The Audiowave Reception Sound Experiment were shunted towards late night hours with little promotion or respect from the station. John Evans also presented on the station through this era with The Tank.

This was not helped by the legalisation of commercial radio in the Euro Republics in 1976, with trendier stations for young audiences launching throughout the country from late 1977. Despite this, Radio 3 remained the country's most popular radio station, although by this time the age of the average R3 listener was 47 years old, 13 years ahead of the 16-34 demographic.

August 1990 saw EBC Radio 3 undergo a major rebranding as EBC Radio 3FM, in an attempt to target the younger audience that were moving towards independent radio stations.

The EBC ordered a revamp of Radio 3FM to take place throughout 1991, involving a reset of the music playlist, to only allow music from 1982 onwards. Charles Falk - who by this time was age 59, quit the station in frustration about this new music policy, leaving Michael Tarbuck to take over the drivetime show from October 1991.

This did not improve the relationship between Radio 3FM and the country's youth. An experimental "more music week" in which speech output was cut down to be less than a minute long, with the exception of Newsbeat. DJ's also favoured early 80's music over the more recent tracks.

Ultimately, the blame was put on the personalites themselves. A public consultation was done with people aged 15-32 between September 1992 and April 1993, in which the results criticised the DJ's as being "too old" and "stuffy", although praising the station's comedy output and late night dance music that was presented by Daniel Rogers. The report also damned the station's playlist being too far oriented towards middle of the road rock.

The EBC dismissed Neal Brookes, who had been Radio 3FM's controller since 1978, in September 1993, where he was replaced by Justin Haughley, an ex-3FM Newsbeat newsreader and Talkaround presenter from 1983 to 1986, before becoming a producer for Gary Woolacombe's breakfast show show from 1986 to 1988 (an experience he has admitted to hating) before beginning a managerial career upon relaunching local Euro City station City Radio as Play in late 1988, turning the station into a launching pad for new local talent, before leaving the station in 1990, joining ERTV as the producer for music chart show The Chartdown and alternative live music session show Beat Box.

Justin was hired to give the station a younger, fresher, varied, multicultural and modern sound, hiring new presenters, and revamping the music playlist to appeal to an audience under 30.

Long-standing DJ's including Gary Woolacombe, David Churchill, Joseph Pearce, Simon Johnston, Roger Price, Donald Ghey, Jackie Harris, Michael Tarbuck and later Nicholas Parke left the station or were dismissed, and replaced with newer faces. There was also to be more diversity, particularly with black, Asian, female and gay personalities, as the station had been dominated by white straight male DJ's for a long time.

Many behind the scenes staff were also given the boot, notably the producers and directors of 3FM's programming, replaced with younger production teams with a better sense of how to target a youthful audience,

Many listeners over the age of 40 boycotted the station as the first all new DJ's who joined the station from January 1994 represented crossover from Play.

Mike Lowe - the first voice of Play after rebranding from City Radio, took over from Joseph Pearce as the host of the weekend mid morning show beginning on Saturday 1 January, Steven Buxton - presenter of a Saturday morning show on Play from 1988 to 1993, who went to air on weekday afternoons from Monday 3 January, and Dave Cooper - who replaced Mike Lowe on Play's breakfast show in 1991 when Lowe moved to drivetime, replaced Donald Ghey in the early morning slot on Tuesday 4 January after a farewell show for Ghey (his only 3FM show of 1994) the previous day.

Nicholas Parke was promoted from the 2pm-5pm slot to the breakfast show replacing David Churchill, as Justin Haughley believed his zoo format that had been the focus of his show since it's 1985 debut, was innovative, fun and still modern enough. Steven Buxton took over 3FM in his former afternoon slot.

The name of the station was also shortened again to 3FM on 1 January 1994, to co-incide with the new year and first edition of The Mike Lowe Show. The sound of the jingles were also refreshed, with the 1990 JAM jingles ditched in favour of a jingle package produced in co-operation with JAM and the in house audio imaging unit at the EBC, which remixed the earlier jingles (from 1990) and distorted them with a sound more akin to dance music. The sung "3FM" was replaced with a 3 note mnemonic, with 3FM now said rather than sung in jingles.

Simon Johnston - presenter of the lunchtime show from 12pm to 2pm, was dismissed in August, and replaced by Joanne Mbappe, the first ever black female presenter on 3FM and former presenter on Choice FM. Roger Price quit the mid-morning show in December 1994 and replaced at the start of 1995 by Daniel Rogers, given a promotion from the 11pm-1am late show, which Steve Galloway took over with a new format known as Late & Live, which mixed offbeat phone in discussion with new music from emerging artists - and soon became a cult hit.

Michael Tarbuck ended his run as the evening presenter from 7pm to 9pm on 9 June 1995, replaced on Monday 12 June by Chris Nightingale - joining from Belton's Rythym Radio, and 21-year-old Lisa Goodman, who had previously been a music critic for various music magazines. Jackie Harris also left weekend breakfast in the same week, with Kirsty Davies- a former Newsbeat presenter, taking over the following week.

Nightingale and Goodman's new evening show, entitled The Evening Social, was primarily an alternative music programme, shunning chart music in favour of breakthrough artists and innovative, experimental styles of music. It also heavily involved music interviews, profiles, reports and features.

Friday nights became focused around dance music, with club DJ Jim Sachsen presenting a new dance music show. Saturday nights were focused on urban music with Chris Curtis presenting Curtis: The Urban Show and Frank Sherry presented The Rock Show on Sundays. The latter programme also regularly covered heavy metal, punk, indie and alternative music in addition to rock.

Overnight hours included The Breezeblock - a wide ranging experimental music show presented by Jason Carter, ambient chill-out show Milkshake FM presented by Keira Jones and Asian-themed music show The Beat of Asia presented by David Ahmed.

The reinvention of the station came at a lucky time for 3FM, with the rise of britpop, rave culture, jungle and rap, the specialist shows began to pick up a loyal audience. Whilst the station slipped to 2nd place in ratings behind older skewing sister station EBC Radio 2 - which within a few years picked up a lot of the ex-3FM voices, it did succeed in bringing a younger audience back to the station.

Speaking in 2012, Haughley said "everyone at 3FM, both on and off-air, were happier with being number 2 overall but the top station with under-30's than being overall number 1 but with a bunch of over-40's as our audience."

In another effort to appeal further to a youth demographic, when The Bottle Boys released Paper Rounds in 1995, 3FM refused to play any songs from the album, even on The Rock Show. When they attempted to sue 3FM for this, the station barred other artists that were previously overplayed, such as Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper, The Police, Bros, Midge Ure and Dire Straits.

Heavily critical of 3FM's refusal to play The Bottle Boys, Nicholas Parke and Roger Price (presenter of the Euroish Top 40 on Sunday afternoons) left the station in October and November 1995 respectively, with both of their programmes going out for the final time in December 1995.

Ray Cokes was chosen by Justin Haughley to take over the 3FM breakfast show from 2 January 1996 after he became a popular face with cult figure among teens and young adults as the host of , a mix of comedy, chat and music that aired on MTV Europe from 1992-95, and had ended the previous month. The producer of Most Wanted, Will Macdonald, also jumped to 3FM.

The breakfast show under Ray Cokes kept the irreverent, unpredictable zoo radio format of Most Wanted and the former Nicholas Parke show, with producer Will Macdonald, director Sarah Lang and newsreader Lucy Hastings. There was also a "more music half hour" initally between 8.30am and 9.00am in which Ray and the team were never on air for more than two minutes at a time, in order to stop listeners who disliked chat switching over to the less speech-based commercial stations. The first 30 minutes of each show between 7.00am and 7.30am also included less music and more chat, usually about aspects of pop culture such as music, film and TV shows.

Ray Cokes was - at the time - the most popular breakfast radio host in the Euro Republics with audiences of up to 13 million, although the station itself remained in second place.

Paul Mellor - who had previously presented a show on Play called The Big Gay Parade, aimed at an LGBT audience, being homosexual himself - replaced Roger Price on the Euroish Top 40.

Jeremy Kyle, who for 10 years had been a salesman for life insurance, recruitment and radio advertising from the UK before moving to the Euro Republics in 1994, was trialled as a DJ for two weeks throughout May 1996 becoming the main cover presenter for Steve Galloway on Late & Live, under the nickname 'Jezza' which he would be known as throughout his time at 3FM.

3FM recieved another audio imaging relaunch in September 1996. The revamp, which was heavily influenced by dance and jungle music of the period, alongside heavy distortion of voices and random soundbites, was designed to revolutionise the sound of 3FM, and be different from the previous jingle packages, abandoning JAM for the first time since the 70's.

Dave Cooper departed 3FM in January 1997 to join sister station EBC Radio 6 as presenter of the breakfast show on the station, which took place on 31 March 1997 alongside a new schedule for 3FM. Steve Galloway took over the 4am-7am early breakfast slot and Jeremy Kyle went permanent with Jezza's Confessions replacing Late & Live. Jezza's Confessions was more based around intimate real-life stories than Late & Live gave advice on serious problems being faced by callers.

Jezza's Confessions ran between Sunday and Wednesday nights whilst Thursday late nights became a comedy slot with the likes of Bile, Grevious Bodily Radio, Dog's Dinner, Coward FM, Blue Jam and Harry Hill's Fruit Corner. There was also Cokes Condensed, a series featuring the highlights of the already very comedy-orientated breakfast show in an hour long slot.

In May 1997 as the EBC announced as part of it's plans for digital radio that it planned to launch an urban contemporary radio station on digital radio, digital TV, the internet and on FM in some areas as a sibling station to 3FM in 1998. Chris Curtis was named immediately as the station's new breakfast DJ, meaning that The Urban Show would have to find a new presenter.

Vipin Jones was announced as the new presenter in September 1997, when it was announced that the programme would be renamed as The Rap Show from January 1998 and be broadcast in a simultaneous transmission on 3FM and 3XM, which was to be the name of the new station.

The final edition of Curtis: The Urban Show was transmitted on 27 December 1997 with The Rap Show with Vipin launched as it's replacement on 3 January 1998. 3XM was launched in full two days later by Chris Curtis live outside EBC Radio Centre, the home of EBC radio stations.

Steven Buxton left 3FM to return to Play in February 1998 where he presented a short-lived Saturday morning show before returning to the EBC on Radio 6 in 2000. At the time, The Mike Lowe Show moved from weekend mornings on 3FM to weekday afternoons in his former slot.

Paul Mellor moved to his former Saturday show whilst Steve Galloway presented his former Sunday show. Paul Mellor used his new Saturday show as a chance to exploit his more talkative side, with more games, banter and competitions than the Euroish Top 40.

As a result, Steve Galloway now took Mondays off from his early breakfast show, which was given over to Chris Hewson, a new talent who beat hundreds of applicants to the job, having had previous broadcasting experience in local radio on Faulkshire's Corazon FM.

Daniel Rogers also started to make appearances throughout the summer of 1998 on Radio 6, as holiday cover for Dave Cooper and Hugh Callister, potentially with an eye to moving over on a permanent basis to Radio 6 within a few years.

Ray Cokes departed 3FM in November 1999 and presented his final show on Friday 31 December, to "avoid the show going stale". He also joked about his age and the previous era of 3FM (41 at the time) by stating "3FM shouldn't be thriving on people who should have left years ago."

Daniel Rogers also resigned from the station live to his listeners on Friday 12 November 1999, with his final show taking place on Thursday 30 December 1999. After a year of covering on the station, he joined Radio 6 on a permanent basis to take over the drivetime slot that had been left open by Hugh Callister's move to breakfast when Dave Cooper moved to Virgin Radio.

Chris Nightingale also announced he was to step down from the evening show but remain on 3FM with a new show.

2000-2009: Return to number one
As 3FM moved into the new millennium, it had been left with a dilemma as both Ray Cokes and Daniel Rogers left, leaving the station's schedule between 7am and 12pm vacant.

Paul Mellor moved to breakfast, Steve Galloway moved to mid-mornings and Chris Hewson took over Saturday mornings and the Euroish Top 40 with Chris Nightingale taking the Sunday morning show. Paul Hall, a completely new voice to radio, began the weekend breakfast show with Kirsty Davies moving to weekday early breakfast.

At nine years and eight months, The Paul Mellor Show remains the longest running running breakfast show on 3FM. More based around comedy chat than music with a zoo radio format, the show demonstrated Paul Hewson's laddish sense of humour and knowledge of pop culture with his on air team which consisted of sidekick Lee Sharp, producer Nicky Robbins, Newsbeat breakfast newsreader Derek Bruce, sportsreader Jasmine Blackman, Steve Galloway and later Mollie Hedges - the latter two of which who followed his show and appeared to plug their programmes in the last half hour.

Jezza's Confessions moved from 11pm-1am to the 9pm-11pm slot from Sunday to Thursday, with The Midnight Surgery with Elinor Brown in the slot left vacant.

Jeremy Kyle left the station in March 2002 to move back to the UK and join Virgin Radio. Lisa Goodman took over his slot.

3FM launched a major reshuffle in it's imaging and format on Monday 3rd February 2003. A new logo was introduced and there was a greater focus on indie and alternative music from new Euroish artists during the daytime.

CD:Live presenter Mollie Hedges announced she was to join 3FM in October 2005. She made her official debut on the station on Monday 9th January 2006.

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 ambient music 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 5.30pm. 3FM also transmits entertainment news, under the name The Net (Newsbeat Entertainment Transmission), with a daily bulletin 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. This 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.

3FM invested heavily into new comedy during 1997 to run in the free late night time slot of Thursdays from 11pm-1am following the debut of Jezza's Confessions bringing a new look to 3FM's late schedule.

Coward FM was a sitcom featuring Stan Haggard as an incompetent breakfast DJ for a tiny, understaffed and troublesome local radio station of which the series is named after. Dog's Dinner meanwhile featured stand up from fresh new comedians around the Euro Republics.

Sketch comedy returned to 3FM in October 1997 with two new series. Bile, which featured Chris Brown, Ashley McCall, Jocelyn Burell and Sanjeev Dudley, and Grevious Bodily Radio with Jon Holmes and Andy Hurst.

Obituary playlist
The idea of an "obituary tape" was originally assembled in 1994 following the attempted suicide of prime minister Fiona Herriman, which would have played had she died. Although she survived, 3FM drew up a playlist of downbeat ambient music and reflective music to play in any tragic situation.

Justin Haughley was known for being a particular fan of the musical works of Brian Eno, who Haughley has stated brings a "whole different and deeper definition of emotion, power, spirit and reflection to the ambient music genre." Two of his works, An Ending (Ascent) and Deep Blue Day feature on the obit playlist.

The playlist received it's first play on 13th March 1996 on the day of the, April 20th 1999 as well as 11th October 1996 (Parkdale school massacre), 31st August 1997 (death of Princess Diana), 11th September 2001, 30th November 2009 (assassination of James Heritage), June 8th 2015 (Westborough High School massacre), 1st October 2017 , May 24th 2022  and 8th September 2022 (death of Queen Elizabeth II.) The playlist has been updated over the years to add new tracks, but EBC guidelines mean that none have ever been removed. Older legacy tracks from the playlist have also played in the obituary playlists for Radio 2 & Radio 6.

Schedules
See also: EBC 3FM/Schedules

Weekday daytime

 * 5:00am: Andy Kavanagh
 * 7:00am: Christopher Beckett
 * 10:00am: Will Manning
 * 12:45pm: Newsbeat
 * 1:00pm: Stephanie Hirst
 * 4:00pm: Olivia Warbuton
 * 5:45pm: Newsbeat
 * 6:00pm: Olivia Warbuton (continued)

Weekday evenings

 * 7:00pm -
 * Monday-Thursday: The Evening Social with Zak Collins
 * Friday: 3FM's Dance Party with Sarah Howard


 * 9:00pm -
 * Monday: Graveyard Radio with Ian Knetter
 * Tuesday: The Rock Show with Jack Miller
 * Wednesday: The New Show with Tara Kumar
 * Thursday: Olivia Warbuton's Comfort Blanket
 * Friday: Craig Sachsen
 * 11:00pm -
 * Monday-Wednesday: The Midnight Surgery with Tiffany Hope
 * Thursday: The Midnight Surgery with Josie Hammond
 * Friday: Rage
 * 1:00am -
 * Monday: The Experimental Show with Laurel Mortimer
 * Tuesday: Who's Up At This Bloody Time
 * Wednesday: Artist in Control
 * Thursday: Faraway with Jacob Radcliffe
 * Friday: Rage
 * 3:00am -
 * Monday-Tuesday: Kay Sturgess
 * Wednesday: Airwave (3:00am)/The Relax Hour (4:00am)
 * Thursday: Kay Sturgess
 * Friday: Jim Sachsen's Classics

Saturday

 * 5:00am: Julian McCarthy
 * 7:30am: Weekend Breakfast with Lauren Gallagher
 * 9:00am: Lauren Gallager's Happy Hour
 * 10:00am: Saturday Live with Danny Jones
 * 1:00pm: Remi Myska
 * 4:00pm: Eddie Cole
 * 5:45pm: Newsbeat
 * 6:00pm: Eddie Cole
 * 7:00pm: Saturday Showstoppers with Nick Hutchings
 * 9:00pm: 3XM's Rap Show with Shania Chakrabarti
 * 11:00pm: Rage

Sunday

 * 5:00am: Rage
 * 7:30am: Weekend Breakfast with Lauren Gallagher
 * 9:00am: Lauren Gallagher's Happy Hour
 * 10:00am: Mo Burrell's Sunday Session
 * 1:00pm: Remi Myska
 * 4:00pm: John Shaw's Sensible Sunday Show
 * 5:30pm: Newsbeat in Focus
 * 6:00pm: The Hospital with Claudia Price & Dr. Kevin Sykes
 * 9:00pm: Olivia Warbuton's Comfort Blanket
 * 11:00pm: The Midnight Surgery with Josie Hammond
 * 1:00am: Back to The 00's with Chris Hewson
 * 3:00am: Kay Sturgess