On March 26th 2020, a few days after the first lockdown was announced in the UK, Adam called me.
He had to end his three-week holiday in Florida after just two days because the US borders were being closed.
After a challenging and turbulent period in his life, this holiday was meant to be his salvation.
He called me as soon as he landed.
I was dreading answering the phone, thinking he would be in a mess, having had his dream vacation terminated.
His first words were, “Remember how we’ve always dreamed of starting our own radio station?”
I hesitantly said, “Yes.”
He continued, “Well, on the 8-hour flight home, I’ve mapped it all out. Now might be the only chance we ever get to do it. Are you in?”
Surprised but relieved by the excitement and passion in his voice, I didn’t hesitate for a single second, “Let’s do it!”
This was something we had talked about doing ever since we were 10 years old, just wild, childish imaginings really, and life and other stuff had always got in the way before.
But at that point, nobody knew how long the lockdowns would last for.
The world had come to an abrupt halt.
This was a rare moment to do crazy stuff without any real consequences.
And so, the very next day, we drew up our plans for what we would create and devised a manifesto for our mission.
Create the radio station we wanted to listen to - predominantly focused on the 80s, 90s and early 00s.
Get rid of the stuff we knew everyone hated about commercial radio - the adverts, news, weather, travel, and presenters talking nonsense.
We would have a playlist so extensive and eclectic that you would never know what was coming next and you would rarely hear the same song again for days, if not weeks.
It had to be fun and not take itself too seriously.
It had to have a strong sense of community and bring back that sense of belonging that the radio stations of our youth had.
Adam went off and started putting the technology together, and I created the brand and started to build a following, so that people would know we existed, even if we weren’t going to broadcast anything for a while.
One of the first things we did was create this newsletter, The Buzz Files.
The response was amazing.
And we haven’t stopped sending it out since then.
In fact, last week marked the fourth anniversary of the very first edition of The Buzz Files.
It started with this quote,
"Manchester kids have the best record collections." - Tony Wilson
And then continued with this message,
“Thank you for wanting to be a part of this journey with us. The response has been overwhelming and that proves to us that the people of Manchester want to get back to having a radio station that means something to them.
We are living through very strange times indeed right now, but it seems that people are generally appreciating going back to basics more, and the simpler things in life. That's our philosophy too. We want to put more value on the things that make us feel good.”
It’s incredible to think that four years have passed since that very first post.
So much has happened since then.
And we’re still going strong, four years on!
In fact, we’re about to go from strength to strength, and we’ve got some incredible news to share with you in the coming weeks.
So, thank you, truly, for your unwavering support over these last four years.
But do stay tuned, things are just about to get really interesting.
And don’t forget that you can listen to The Buzz live HERE.
Download The Buzz Radio app on iPhone HERE.
Download The Buzz Radio app on Android HERE.
We are also now on DAB in the Manchester and Salford region - search your DAB radio for BUZZ MCR.
Thanks for reading the newsletter on Substack, if you would like to find out more about us then click the button below.
Thank you once again for your time, we value it dearly.
Please spread the word about us, tell all your people.
We need to keep growing to keep going.
The share links are below.
With Love
Rik & Adam
xx