Shout Radio was born in April 2013, although we didn’t start broadcasting properly until July of the same year. Jim Douglas, Aaron Bennett, his late Mum Rachel and a couple of other people, decided to start a Community Radio Station for the people of Blackpool, that would be like no other .
So Shout Radio was born and it was June 2013, that we began test broadcasting and launched with a marathon broadcast, on the 13th July. Broadcasting from Aaron’s Parent’s leaky Conservertatory, was not the best start for the station. As mentioned, the roof leaked and the noise was awful, when it poured down with rain! Sadly, Rachel passed away, after suffering with a Cardiac Arrest, second to Sepsis, in Febuary 2014, but Aaron and the Team, vowed to keep the station running in her honour. Mollie died several years later, at age 13 after suffering a Stroke.
We then moved to South Shore, to a very short lived studio, which was gutted by fire, after a inferno broke out elsewhere in the building. The fire spread throughout the building and this completely destroyed the original studio. This is when we did a hop across the border to Cheshire and were based at Winnington Hall for some time. We loved it at Winnington Hall, being a Grade II listed building. It had tennis courts and even a canteen. Shout Radio took up 2 large rooms on the very top floor and had a separate office and studio, which were right next door to each other.
After 3 years, Aaron needed to come back to Blackpool for one reason or another, and so we moved back to Blackpool and were based at Whitegate Drive. Our Accommodation at Whitegate Drive was very poor. There was damp, no access for our disabled volunteers and there was no toilet for the Disabled. So we moved to Plymouth House, just after our 10th Anniversary.
Plymouth House would act as our Temporary Base, while we looked into more permanent accommodation. (Plymouth House was far too posh for us anyway!) It meant that we could start to get a proper Community Base and allowed some of our teams to work from our new HQ. We enjoyed a very long Summer here at Plymouth House and celebrated Christmas from here.
Shout Radio ceased broadcasting from our old HQ in February 2024, as we moved to our new HQ at Blackpool Technology Centre. The last ever show to be broadcast live, was Nice n’ Easy with Aaron Bennett. Our new HQ opened in March 2024.