This year will see the celebration of the 14th Birthday of the urban radio station, Unity Radio.
The radio station was formed on December 10 2010, but the journey of the station stretches even further back to 2001.
The journey started in 2001, when founder Jon Green set up a pirate radio station with close friends Wesley Milne and Robert Hargreaves.
Jon and Robert had grown up together in south Manchester and bonded through their shared experiences in foster care before being adopted.
However, tragedy would strike as Robert was murdered in that same year.
Through the pain of his friends murder, Jon wanted to continue the legacy they had built together and continued to run the station between 2001 and 2004 with others in the radio community to help young people in care or who had been victims of serious and violent crime.
As Jon said: “In the 90’s Hip-Hop as a movement connected everybody together, we used to hang around in a place called sheep store which was located on Tibbs street.”
However, the journey to creating Unity Radio wasn’t always an easy one.
After being involved in serious incidents and trouble in Manchester, Jon decided that he would move to London in 1998 where he would begin working on pirate radio station.
This choice would show that the stations in London where far more advanced than the ones in the north and that motivated him to bring back his experiences and expertise back with him.
Jon had always been inspired by HipHop Culture, Skateboarding and Graffiti, he was always associated around the music scene and underground pioneers such as, Gerald, DJ Semtex, Sefton Madface and Femi Bukinola.
And using this he was able to relocate back to Manchester and in 2001 he was able to launch 106FM in Moss Side.
The young man was able to have some success before moving the broadcast to Salford New Bank situated right across Strangeways Prison.
And from then on the success of the station continued to grow, with the music community.
It wasn’t long until they were able to become the Manchester Urban Station.
However, despite the growth and development of the station they still had a long way to go, being unsuccessful in gaining their FM License.
But he didn’t have to wait too long – with their application for a license being approved in 2008.
This was a great achievement, and they took it one step further launching Unity Radio on December 10 2010 – 14 years ago.
And the station seemed to go from strength to strength, from humble begins they were able to move into their very own studios in Media City’s Dock 10 in 2018.
The radio station now plays on 92.8FM, and have been able to position themselves around industry giants ITV and the BBC.
And the growth and success of the station does not go unnoticed, and we wish the station all the success in many more years to come.
You can find more information about Unity Radio here.
Recent Comments