Contact 94-Cedar Herald Index

Contact 94 was a radio station that broadcast from Lessay in Northern France to Normandy and the Channel Islands between September 1988 and November 1991. The station broadcast on various frequencies during its time on air, including 94.4 FM, 93.8 FM, 94.6 FM and 97.7 FM.

Launch

Contact 94 launched at 6am GMT on 5 September 1988 by former Radio Caroline disc jockey, Kevin Turner. The first song played was "Good Day Sunshine" by The Beatles.

Contact 94

History

Whilst the station was to broadcast Radio Nova, via satellite, overnight and the equipment had arrived in advance of the launch, the engineer who had been due to install the equipment was stuck in Jersey due to a heavy fog. On the opening night therefore Paul Easton broadcast between 11pm and 3am, with a sustaining music tape filling the remaining hours until resumption of live programming the following morning.

Contact 94

Contact 94 carried the UK sustaining service Supergold overnight from November 1988 until February 1989.

Contact 94

On 3 February 1989 the station went off air on 97.7 MHz. Rumours surfaced that this was an enforced closure by the French police pending an investigation by the authorities regarding whether the station was a 'pirate'. It was decided by regional courts that the station was broadcasting illegally and transmission equipment was confiscated. An appeal was successful in overturning this ruling and the station returned to the air.

The station used a 950 MHz link between the studios at Lessay and its transmitter and one humorous incident in the stations history was when this signal was overcome by the ETACS analogue mobile phone signals on the island operated by Jersey Telecom in collaboration with Cellnet, the result being that some local mobile telephone calls were in fact broadcast on Contact 94's FM frequencies.

Broadcast

The programming schedules of Contact 94 were published in both the CTV Times and the Jersey Evening Post.

Studios

The station had a complex of two studios, based above the La Campagnette restaurant in Lessay, Normandy. The building was owned by station backer Alain Tardiff.

Frequencies

During its time on the air, Contact 94 broadcast on various frequencies. The original frequency was 94.4 MHz, but the station later changed frequencies and was at various points heard on 93.8, 94.6 and 97.7 MHz. The reason for these multiple changes was never given. The 94.6 MHz frequency was the most problematic, being very close to BBC Radio 3's Jersey frequency of 94.8 MHz.

The station broadcast using an 80 kW transmitter.

Output

The station broadcast twenty four hours a day at launch and this was a combination of twenty hours in English, with the remaining four hours broadcast in French. English broadcasts were produced by the station between 6am and 8pm, French transmissions followed this and the overnight hours were provided via satellite by Radio Nova.

News programming

News bulletins were provided hourly from launch and were originally in conjunction with Independent Radio News. From March 1990 news output was provided in conjunction with the short-lived Astra satellite service of ITN Radio News.

Advertising

Local advertising sales for the station were originally handled by a company set up by a former director of the Guernsey-based marketing and advertising agency Wallace Barnaby; Malcolm Corrigan. Corrigan also worked for Contact 94. While national (UK) sales for the station were handled by Independent Radio Sales, a subsidiary of Crown Communications, who also dealt with advertising sales for other 'off-shore' stations; Manx Radio and Radio Gibraltar. IRS even went as far as offering a special rate card for those wishing to advertise on the 'offshore' stations they represented. In August 1991, the station switched its national sales representation to a new company The Satellite and Radio Sales Company which had been set up by Gary Miele, former Sales Director at Kiss FM.