Celebrating 10 years on the airwaves
Friday Live is jam-packed full of entertainment and jollities! Tune in for the latest music, classic oldies and topical features.
The show is broadcast live on Radio Lion every Friday between 5 and 7pm from the studios at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford.
The show celebrated its 10th birthday on 14 October 2011 with special guests, bunting, party poopers and the same playlist that featured on the very first show!
Call the studio with requests and dedications on 01483 531057 (external) or 4545 (free internal).
Weekly features include:
Stop the rock
Identify the artist and song title from the backwards clip
Showbiz
A selection of the top entertainment news from the week
Gig guide
Find out what's happening locally in the live music scene
Download chart
Counting down from 10 to 2 and playing the number 1
Big screen
News of the latest movies with our expert Andrew Jupp
Doubles
A serving of two tracks from one outstanding artist
Sporting fixtures
Forthcoming football games including the local teams
Dan's anthems
A couple of feel good songs to start your weekend
Mystery year
Guess the year that the time machine has arrived in
Getting started
I first discovered Radio Lion at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford when I saw an advert asking for volunteers in the local newspaper.
I applied to join but at 14 years old I was too young to become a member. I returned to an open evening at 16 years old and enrolled.
I was teamed up with Gareth Wakefield and fellow trainee Dan Purvis (pictured) on the Sunday evening show called 'Winding Down'.
I started on a three month training course learning how to operate the studio, present a show, conduct a ward visit and find records and compact discs from the library.
At the end of the training, I had to demonstrate I was a competent presenter with an hour test show on 22 June 2001. The show was a success and the examiner Angie Boxall especially enjoyed the feature called 'Chicken' in which three clues were given out to help find the location of the missing chicken. Coincidentally it was Blackpool!
The first edition of 'The Friday Show' was broadcast on 12 October 2001 between 5 and 7pm. The first song played was 'YMCA' by The Village People. A few shows later the name changed to 'Friday Live'.
In the years the show has been broadcasting there have been many guests and trainees passing through the studio door and not to mention the technical issues!
The format of the programme has remained mostly unchanged and continues to offer a varied selection of new music and classic oldies.
Changing times
Technology moves on rapidly at Radio Lion. When I started in 2001 the radio station was still using cart players, two record players and occasionally the reel-to-reel machine. Now the cart players are a distant memory, two record players have become one and the reel-to-reel machine has a new home in the skip. Programmes are now broadcast 24-hours-a-day courtesy of a computer.
There is a new record library database listing the thousands of tracks available to play made easy by automatically detecting what's on the CD by looking it up on Gracenote.
Patients used to listen through tube headphones which were often patchy in coverage. Now the listeners benefit from stereo quality from a state of the art entertainment system. There is even a button that links directly to the web site.
Although somethings never change. Frank Sinatra remains the most requested artist and fundraising is just as important to keep up with the changing times.
