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List of radio stations in the United Kingdom

Wikimedia list article

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ6635939 ↗
Source-derived summary

This is a list of radio stations in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

For stations on small-scale digital multiplexes, these are maintained at List of DAB multiplexes in the United Kingdom.

National analogue and digital stations

This list does not include stations which broadcast on numerous local digital multiplexes to achieve near-national coverage.

DAB frequencies:

11A – radio stations operated under the Sound Digital multiplex

11D / 12A – radio stations operated under the Digital One multiplex (12A in Scotland and 11D in England, Wales and Northern Ireland)

12B – radio stations operated under the BBC National DAB multiplex

DAB

DAB+

Semi-national digital stations

Stations which are available nationally on satellite, or broadcast on more than one local digital multiplex to achieve near-national coverage:

Local and regional analogue and digital stations

BBC Local Radio

Local radio stations from the BBC in England and the Channel Islands:

BBC Nations Radio

BBC radio stations from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, broadcast in their respective areas via analogue and digital radio, Freeview and across the UK on satellite and cable television and BBC Sounds:

Commercial radio

England

England's radio stations adhere to the statistical regions of East Midlands, East, Greater London, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber.

Former English stations

This list details radio stations which have lost their licence to broadcast or have closed down due to financial issues.

Scotland

Former Scottish stations

Wales

Former Welsh stations

Northern Ireland

Former Northern Irish stations

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man

Although the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not part of the UK, they are served by the UK's national radio stations. Additionally services in the Channel Islands are licensed by the UK's regulator, Ofcom. Services in the Isle of Man are not licensed by a UK regulator but rather by the Broadcasting Act 1990 of Tynwald.

Community radio stations

Former community radio stations

The following stations have closed down and returned their licences to Ofcom:

Restricted service licence stations

Temporary restricted service licence (RSL) stations are licensed by Ofcom and broadcast for up to 28 days. RSLs are used for a number of purposes including coverage of events and festivals, trial broadcasts by groups aiming to launch a full-time service, student radio and training projects and religious festivals including the Sikh festival Vaisakhi, the Muslim month of Ramadan, Jehovah's Witness conventions and Christian events such as Easter and Christmas.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “List of radio stations in the United Kingdom” is wikimedia list article. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through List, radio and stations, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1990—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, List, radio and stations is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “wikimedia list article” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6635939. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1990.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
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  • Search vocabulary
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “List of radio stations in the United Kingdom”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow List of radio stations in the United Kingdom primary sources, List of radio stations in the United Kingdom archive and List research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “List of radio stations in the United Kingdom”?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “List of radio stations in the United Kingdom” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.