 Jun 6th, 2005
Advantages:
Plenty of Different DJ's so The Music Isn't All The Same Stuff, Good Comps and Interactivity
Disadvantages:
Adverts Can Be Too Much During The Day
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Quality of reception
Quality of programming
Range of programming
How good are the presenters?
Quality of information
  JulyBunny
About me:
"I've Been To Spain, We Always Go, We Go At Weekends." "You Can't Go To Spain For We...
Member since:09.02.2005
Reviews:36
Members who trust:50
Review rated by 57 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
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97.4 Rock FM is my City, Preston Lancashire's local radio station. (I mean that as in it's aired from Preston, but is available all over the North West of England). It's one of the main stations I listen to. I'm always switching from this to BBC's Radio 1 to Smooth FM! I don't know why it's called Rock FM, because it isn't a total Rock station. It plays R'n'B, Pop, Hip-Hop, Rap, Dance etc, all the music that's in now, plus some classic tunes on certain shows, so don't be mislead by it's name.
●DJ's● There's quite a few different DJ's on Rock FM, here are the DJ's and the shows that they present.
DIXIE - DIXIE AT BREAKFAST
I like Dixie. He's on from 6am till 10am. It's good to wake up to him, because he plays some good music to get up and in the mood. You either wake up listening to a song out recently or you could wake up to a classic 80's song. When I was at school and had to get up early in the morning, there'd always be a good song on to make me sing along to once I'd woken up properly.
He has some good morning topics to chat about, and quite a few discussions. A lot of the time, he has something bugging him, so he's always asking you to phone or text your opinion on something, and usually fills you in on some good gossip.
This morning, he told us a story about some people designing clothes for chickens. The thing that's been bugging him this past week is who Sam from Big Brother looks like, as he thinks she looks like somebody, but cannot think who, so he asked us to phone in to give our opinions on who she looks like. CRAIG BECK
Craig used to be a hypnotist and so his topics he speaks about can be interesting. He does the 10am till 1pm slot during the week. Craig plays a lot of requested music, but usually, his show is full of discussions, usually the things, like Dixie, are bugging him at the moment. He's a funny guy who usually tells us jokes and funny things that he has since he was last on the show.
The last time he was on was last week, and I briefly remember he was talking about stupid names that people call their kids nowadays, and that he told us that he told a new member of staff that his son was called Zeus or something like that, and she still doesn't know that he's joking about it.
DARREN SPENCE
I like Darren Spence, this is because he is one of the DJ's I listen to most as his slot is 12pm till 4pm on Sundays, which is when I'm usually in my room doing my own thing on a Sunday during those hours. He's a very funny guy. Darren is one of the DJ's who usually go out of the Rock FM studio in Preston and goes to schools and other places around Preston to air the show.
He plays a lot of old and new music like Dixie, and again, always has a lot of gossip for us and a lot of topics to chat about. On his Sunday show, he does the Happy Hour Tracklisting, which has a mix of songs. Yesterday when he did the tracklisting he played Alicia Keys, and then Ant and Dec! So you get a lot of different kinds of music from him, so he doesn't get boring. MARK KAYE - ON DEMAND
Mark does the weekday slot after Darren, which is from 4pm. Again, he plays allsorts of music and has his daily topics for us to phone/text/e-mail our opinions about. As he does the slot which is when schools and workplaces are ready for finishing, every half an hour, Gemma Dee will come on and fill us in on the latest traffic info, if the motorways are clear and lets you know if you need to avoid a certain road if there's a crash or whatever.
Mark is another of the DJ's I listen to more often. He plays different kinds of music like all the other DJ's. He has the On Demand show from 6pm, which is full of request music, so he doesn't choose any songs to play; it's all up to us. On Demend have a lot of call-ins to say hello to somebody, happy birthday to somebody or just tell him what's bugging you at the moment. On Demand is a good show.
He also does a lot of competitions. This weeks competition is to win tickets to see
Nelly in concert. Not a bad prize if you ask me.
MARTIN GREENWOOD
Martin comes on around 9pm, and has a lot of mini topics in his slot. The main one is Doin' The Do, Do You Do The Do? Which is all about stuff that you are not supposed to do, but we do it. So he think's of a 'do' and we call in and tell him if we've done that do, and what/how we did it or whatever! He comes up with some good topics in the 'Do' slot. It could be anything like cheating with your mother in law or something.
Martin does a film review on Thursdays, and lets us know about all the movies currently on in VUE Preston, and whether they are good enough to see and what they are like. He doesn't give a lot away about the plot of the films, so he's good. He then chooses his favourite film from all that are showing. Good show. GEMMA DEE
Gemma does one of the late night slots on a Saturday from 11pm to 2am. I usually listen to this show if I have the radio whilst going to sleep. She also has a lot of topics including What Women Want, which is taken from Lancashire Evening Post, she tells us her views on it. She plays a lot of old and new music so she's another different music DJ. She also asks 3 questions and you have to ring in with the answers, but the first letter of the answers will spell a 3 letter word, which is the word you need to ring up with: so if the 3 answers to the 3 questions where Cruise, Orange and Turkey, then the answer would be COT. I usually get 2 right and there's always 1 answer that I never know! She also does a lot of airings from clubs in Preston Town Centre, usually Tokyo Jo's.
BAZ TODD - OLD SKOOL
Baz is only on air on Sundays from 9pm till 11pm. He does the Old Skool House show which is where he plays only old skool stuff and originals. I never listen to this show, as it isn't my kind of music. Mostly Hardcore/Wigan Pier stuff. He DJ's at a few clubs in and out of Preston. MARK FREEJACK - FLOORFILLERS
Mark does a Saturday night slot from 9pm till 11pm. His show is called Floorfillers, which you can probably tell is dance music. He does a mini show called Freejack where he does requests. In Freejack you can call up with 3 of your favourite dance tunes and he will mix them for you and play it on air for you. He also has a competition where he plays some old dance tunes and you call in and name them. You can win loads of different stuff which usually are CD's and free club entries. I don't really listen to this show as I hate dance music.
ADELE ROBERTS
Adele (from Big Brother), is new to Rock FM. She does a Friday night slot, but I haven't listened to it yet, so I can't tell you much about her show. DAVE ASHER
Dave does Saturdays from 2pm till 6pm. I don't really listen to this show. The times that I have listened to it, he played a lot of different music, and he also did Quiz Of The Week which I know he still does. He also does Drunken Karaoke and Ramblings. I remember the Ramblings were where he told moaned about stuff and again, we call in with our opinions. I'm sorry, I don't know much more about his slot.
EL GREGGO - CLUB ROCK
Greggo is one of the few DJ's that actually live in Preston. He does Saturdays from 6pm till 9pm. As you can tell from the name of his show, he plays mainly Dance/Rock tunes. He usually plays a lot of 'now' Dance and Rock songs, but often has some classic Dance/Rock tunes on. He also fills us in on the newest Dance artists, who are out, and the newest Dance albums and what he thinks of them. All the way through the show, we ring up and tell him about our weekend, what we've done, where we've been or are going. Another show that I don't really listen to as he plays Dance, which is the least favourite music genre on my list. ADAM CATTERALL
Adam is another of the DJ's which I listen to the most often. He's a funny guy, as he has a lot of good chats and a few jokes.
BAM BAM - FRIDAY NIGHT KISS
Bam Bam does the Friday Night Kiss on, obviously, Friday's from 7pm till 10pm. He plays Dance and R'n'B music, and does some good mixes on some slow R'n'B tunes. I can just about stand this show as it has some R'n'B on it and isn't totally dance music. He does Kisstory Classic, where he plays a classic Kiss tune. He also has a few interviews with singers and a few competitions. LUCIO - KERRANG
Lucio is the newest DJ on Rock FM, and does the Kerrang Radio on a Sunday. I don't know the time he's on or what his show is like as I haven't listened to it yet.
MARK GOODIER - SMASH HITS TOP 40, OFFICIAL CHART
Mark is another of my favourite Rock FM DJ's. He's a funny guy. He does the Official Chart Show on Sundays from 4pm till 7pm. He also has a few topics thrown in between songs, and sometimes manages to play an old tune between songs once he gets down to the top 10. DAVE MILLER/LIZ ELLIS - LATE SHOW
Dave is the DJ I usually listen to the most often, as he does the 12am to 6am slot. Liz will do 12am to 2am or something, but Dave is always chatting in the background or trying to interrupt or put her off when she's trying to tell the audience something. I usually tune in just as Liz is leaving which is usually about 2am. I'm usually awake till 3, and I listen to the radio whilst I'm trying to get to sleep sometimes. He has a few topics, and he's one of the DJ's who gets the most requests and calls to say hi. He has a few topics and he's always reading out texts and emails. He's really funny. He does a riddle in his slot, which is sometimes hard, and sometimes easy and obvious. He also asks us to call him at 3am to tell him why we are awake at 3 in the morning. He gets loads of requests, so his main music genre is Hip-Hop/Rap/R'n'B, and sometimes some 60's or 80's music. He also gets a lot of American as a lot of them listen online and email in to say what they think of the show. One of the best shows on the station.
●ADVERTS● There can be a lot of adverts, depending on the time of day. Night time shows usually have very little adverts, like they'll put on 3 or 4 then not have anymore for at least half an hour. But, during the day, there's more adverts aired, which can be annoying, especially when you know they're putting a song that you love on next! It's just like watching TV really, you sort of get used to it. It's usually mobile phones, mobile networks, cars, albums and ringtone adverts, but don't worry, the ringtone adverts come on about 5 times a day or something, and not 10,000 times a day like the stupid crazy frog does on TV!
●COMPETITIONS● Rock FM are always having competitions. Some of them are small ones where you win CD's or DVD's, and then there are big ones where you can win tickets to a gig/live event, a holiday and loads more.
Each DJ has a different competition each day/week, where you call/text/e-mail your answer. These competitions are only on air competitions. There are other competitions which you can enter via the website. A DJ may announce a competition and tell you that you can only enter via the Rock FM website, these are the ones that aren't live aired competitions. This is because there aren't usually questions to answer for these comps, you simply fill in a form and click 'submit' and the winner is drawn at random. The live comps on the radio are won by getting a question right.
I'll tell you some of the competition prizes (the website entry comps) up for grabs from Rock FM this month. Hollywood Legends DVD Collection Pack
Elektra on DVD
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (for PS2 I think!)
Ibiza Cream Classics 3 CD Set
Pepperami Noodles (why?)
Glastonbury 2005 Last Tickets
Bad Girls Series 6 Box Set
Tru Calling Season 1 Box Set
And a few more CD's.
So as you can see, Glastonbury Tickets, Hollywood Legends DVD Collection Pack and
Pictures of 97.4 - Preston
some other prizes are great, but then you get the usual CD's and DVD's, but why have a Pepperami Noodles comp, and will anybody enter that? There's a mix of different prizes, but remember, these are entered via Rock FM website.A small thing that is on now, which isn't a comp, but more like a mini game, which is aired at a different time every day, is Guess The Year. What they do is play 5 songs from a certain year, and you call/text/e-mail the year you think it is. I don't think you win anything for this, but it is quite fun trying to guess the year.
They currently have a mini comp which is 4 celebs saying "97.4 Rock FM". One celeb will say '97', and then the second celeb will say 'point 4' and so on. You have to guess who the celebs are. This is hard as they play it about 3 or 4 times, but the words are so short, I don't know how people guess whose voices they are. The person who guesses all 4 celebs wins some money. I don't know the exact amount, but it's usually a decent amount won when the prize is money. ●NEWS/WEATHER●
News/Weather comes on plenty of times a day. It isn't the same stuff each time it comes on, as things happen during the day, so we get filled in on them. The news doesn't last long. I'd say the longest is 15 minutes to give you a brief description of the latest news in the UK and the rest of the World. The weather, which is supported by Preston College, lasts 1 or 2 minutes, as we all know weather isn't usually a big time user anyway. They do a good job with the news and weather, as it is updated every 2 hours or something like that. ●OTHER THINGS THAT ROCK FM DO●
Rock FM are quarter of the time out of the Rock FM studio. They go live from nightclubs, the odd school, workplaces and even shopping centres. For the last 2 week, they have been airing from St Georges Shopping Centre in Preston town centre. I went into town at the weekend and BOOM BOOM BOOM, they're LOUD!!!!! Right in the middle of the centre. They do small interviews whilst airing from out of the studio, like asking customers/staff etc, what they think of Rock FM and so on. They sometimes have some famous people with them on the show. Either a well known DJ to mix up some tunes, or a singer to answer some questions or promote their single or album.
A lot of the DJ's go and visit schools. I have met nearly all of the Rock FM male DJ's, as these are the ones who go and visit schools. They came to my school quite a few times. They just pay visits and have like a show for you or something, or just some interviews, then they'll write down all your names and give you personal shout outs later that day or night. Rock FM always do a lot of fundraising for different charities, and sometimes have a celeb on the show as their sponsor. The recent one is for Cancer Awareness with the white bands. I think Rock FM is selling some white bands to raise money for the Charity, and Rachel Stevens is the sponsor for this fundraiser.
Rock FM also has the Top 10 at 10, which is at 10am. This is a good thing as it isn't top 10 songs from the charts now; it's just 10 random songs from over the years. 60's, 70's, 80's, 90' and now, so it isn't the same style/range/ ●OTHER THINGS TO KNOW●
Station: Duh! 97.4! They air from Red Rose Radio, which is in St. Paul's Square near the Preston Bus Station.
If you can't get 97.4 Rock FM where you are, then you can just visit www.rockfm.co.uk and click on 'Listen Live'. You can then listen live on your computer. It's free to listen live. It's free to enter the competitions on the website. The competitions on air are call ins, and cost about 30p if they carry on asking you how the weather is and what you have done today, which is what they usually do.
They cut out swear words, or play single version songs from Rap/Hip-Hop stars, so your kids can listen to it. The only times that swear words are on the show is one or two songs at about 3am, but Dave usually puts a silly noise over them, or says his own word over the music! Reception is good enough in Preston, but older radios do have trouble picking it up. I don't know what the reception is like outside of Preston though.
●MY OPINION● As I said earlier in the review, this is one of the 3 main stations I listen to. I mainly listen to the Top 40 on Sundays and Dave Miller at midnights, which are both good shows with funny guys who have a lot of topics and opinions on things! It's an entertaining station to listen to. It isn't just music and stupid jokes, you can have your rants and raves put on air, you can air your opinions on things, and find out loads of gossip on celebs or normal everyday people.
It's suitable for kids, as they don't talk about anything too much for adults, just everyday things. The only time they speak about or have their opinions about drugs, sex etc, is on the night shows. But it is never anything too disturbing, dirty or horrible. Why I listen to it is because I live in Preston, and everybody in Preston has heard of it, so when you are a kid, you hear 97.4 Rock FM, and see it on peoples cars with them bumper stickers, so you think you'll tune it into your radio. You just stick with it. I also listen to it for music! During the day and the late show play great tunes, now and then tunes and great number ones. The only downside is that most night shows, except from the Late Show after midnight, are all Dance and Old Skool, but some people like that music so it's okay if you like it.
All in all, I give the DJ's 8/10 (Gemma is annoying and gives away stuff like who won American Idol on the Wednesday, and I hadn't watched it yet. She tells you what happens in all the soaps and spoils stuff for you). I give the music 7/10 because nighttimes are Dance, which I just hate.
I give the amount of competitions 10/10 as there are about 4 aired weekly. I give the humour/funniness 8/10, depending who you are listening to.
I give the amount of interactivity with the audience 10/10 as you can just ring/text/email any time you want. You don't need to wait for them to say 'call me' or 'text me to tell me what you are doing today' and so on. You can just call any time of day to any DJ with a request or just to say hello to them. I give the amount of adverts 5/10, as during the day there can be quite a few.
I give the amount of fundraising for Charities 10/10, as they raise a lot of money every year for a number of different Charities. I give the News and Weather 7/10, because it is on plenty of times during the day and doesn't take up too much air time.
65/80 Good station!
Thanks 4 reading my review on 97.4 Rock FM.
xx Staz xx
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04.01.2006 17:11
congratulations on your diamond that was excellent stephaniexx
07.08.2005 22:46
My parents in law stay in Lancashire so I hear this when we visit....Jane
07.08.2005 19:28
Excellent review sounds like a good radio station well worth a diamond xx