News Briefs – 08/08/2019

I always see lots of r/K related stories I think might interest the readers here, but I only have time to blog about a few, so here are some additional news stories that might be of interest. You can skim the titles and summaries, and click the links if they are of interest. Keep in mind, many of these reports are products of the Fake News, so although they will be what people are hearing and talking about, there is no guarantee any one of them is necessarily correct, and we have had cases of outright lies make it onto these pages, especially about President Trump.  Still no Q. You can see Q’s posts aggregated live, and new ones which may have gone live after our print deadline at http://www.qanon.pub  Great video for the archives and commercials of Joe Biden, asked by Anderson Cooper, “To gunowners out there who say, well, a Biden Administration, they are going to come for my guns…” Joe immediately and enthusiastically responds, “Bingo! You’re right. If you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is, they should be illegal. Period!” Again, Trump jumping on Red Flag laws and background checks first was key, and forced Biden and the rest of the Democrats to prove that they are not Trump by trying to outdo each other like this. If Trump now dodges Red Flag Laws and Background checks through Congress (with our help calling in), this will be the most brilliant counter-move in political history. And we get that video which will kill Biden in 2020. Interestingly, if you go deeper, you will see Joe’s mind is going, and not just a tiny bit. In the beginning he says he is coming for them and will take them, then later he says he can’t take them if they were purchased legally, so ones that are out there will be allowed to be kept, but then he says he will make them illegal to get them off the streets. I hope he is the one.  4Chan anons are recapping what they have found so far, including that some believe Epstein may have been given a win of a Powerball jackpot as a payoff, probably for keepinghis mouth shut in his 2008 criminal case:  More on the $85 million Oklahoma Powerball lottery that went to the Zorro Trust, which some think is Epstein’s:  It is still not 100% clear it is his, but Epstein does have a Zorro Trust which he used to dole out campaign cash. And there is a deposition document (I have not sourced myself yet, but should be easy if real) floating around twitter, which talks about the win. There is a good thread here which seems to say there was a glitch that night which prevented the live telecast of the lottery, though they did it later in private, under the eyes of an independent auditor. If you were Cabal, and auditors would literally be death, would you compromise the field?  “Victoria’s Secret billionaire Leslie Wexner accuses Epstein of misappropriating ‘vast sums of money’ from him.”  Zero of 1.2K migrants eligible for U.S. asylum since ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.  Mayor calls on churches to protect illegal aliens after massive ICE raids net 680 illegals.  Liberals say after the El Paso shooting, nobody should be able to use the term “illegal immigrant.” In a way, them pushing it this far is good because it makes it clear just how much these shooters help the left, hurt the cause, and set us back. Now the next one will obviously be a plant even to the most blinded mass-media-hypnotized zombie.  4 dead 2 injured after Garden Grove stabbing spree. Perp and all victims were Latino, it appears a simple crime spree accelerated amygdala, producing progressively worse crimes until the guy got to stabbings and went nuts.  Former Tallahassee mayor and his aide plead guilty to all sorts of pay-to-play corruption including Uber ordinances and developer payments.  Roger Stone’s judge knocks out one of two charges against Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig.  Trailers for Universal’s upcoming gore movie “The Hunt,” shows liberal elites hunting MAGA types for sport – has been pulled in the wake of mass shootings. Supposedly features liberal men hunting a conservative woman in the woods. I’m still not sure a bunch of armed soyboys who flutter their hands instead of clapping would be able to take a single conservative female.  The Census Bureau is pursuing a legal loophole that its officials believe would allow them to temporarily hire non-U.S. citizens as part of its efforts to reach populations that are difficult to count, including in non-English speaking and immigrant communities. Seems a lot of opportunity for fraud.  Two Boston City Hall officials have been convicted of conspiring to extort the founders of the Boston Calling music festival.  Washington Examiner says, “The lower-tier Democratic candidates never had a chance, except as spoilers.” I wondered if the real purpose was to have twenty five people to all assail President Trump, who is alone. Imagine if it was just Biden, Bernie, and Warren. The subconscious perception you get from twenty candidates is that there is an “outnumbered” aspect which liberals need, to be able to fight on. Especially with Trump rallies happening. If Trump had twenty trustworthy friends running against him on the right, and defending him after shit like the El Paso shooting, and there was only Biden, Bernie, and Warren, it would make leftists feel outnumbered and marginalized, which is an important aspect to demoralizing them.  AG Barr is pushing for encryption backdoors. No idea if he is doing this because he is expected to, if it is needed for the Storm, or if it is just a demand they never intend to pursue.  Environmentalists try to get a judge to stop Trump’s border wall construction.  Ryan Saavedra highlighted a tweet-video which threatened Mitch McConnel, and was suspended because twitter wanted the tweet-video of a Warren supporter threatening Mitch deleted. Then twitter suspended Mitch’s reelection campaign as well.  Lunatic on MSNBC says Trump putting flags at half staff until 8/8 was a secret sign to White Supremacists because H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, and 8/8 is code for Hail Hitler. Now says it probably wasn’t intentional, but Trump and his team should have known better.  MSNBC’s Malcolm Nance says Trump is sending a White Nationalist Army subliminal messages to launch mass shootings to defend the white race. It is not entirely bad once liberals enter the phase where they all try to out virtue signal each other by saying more and more ridiculous things. While leftists are fluttering their hands in the air at this, the rest of society is going to begin to tune these channels out.  Case in point – actress Rossana Arquette tweets, “I’m sorry I was born white and privileged. It disgusts me. And I feel so much shame.” Who would really listen to her after that? And yet, picture all the fluttering hands in her crowd.  MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace apologizes for saying President Trump is calling for “exterminating Latinos.” Just a slip of the tongue.  Sanders pledges to let Americans in on aliens, UFOs if elected president.  Baltimore Sun attacks Trump supporter who organized massive cleanup in the city. Says by removing 12 tons of trash, he perpetuated a perception the residents couldn’t solve their own problems.  Beto O’Rourke calls Trump ‘white supremacist,’ says US ‘has been racist since it’s been a country.’ Beto is now on par with Andrew “America was never that great” Cuomo. Wonderful party they have over there.  Student with a gun arrested near Indiana high school after making threats. Sounds like almost another shooting.  The effects of a false flag (and note this ignored Baltimore politicians embezzling billions in government funds):  Trump says he’s ‘very strongly’ considering commuting Rod Blagojevich’s sentence. Rod may know things about the Cabal and even Obama’s rise, given he was right there in Chicago.  Blacks and legal Hispanics are going to vote for anti-illegal immigrant candidates come 2020. So all the Cabal is doing is trying to keep the migrant train coming, so they can maximize the fraud come 2020. This has nothing to do with swaying the population. It makes me wonder if everyone you see protesting is actually Secret Society, and in on the secret that everything you see on the news is a show, produced to keep you asleep.  Search Warrant served at Fort Pierce Florida Humane Society. Remember all those stories about PETA taking in money, and then euthanizing all the animals it came across? PETA had political power and was a place to attract politically motivated people, so it would probably be a Cabal target to infiltrate. And people gave it money to protect animals. If you were Cabal, and you had money given to you to protect animals, but you could just euthanize those animals and push the money up to management, how do you think that would work? What would it look like from the outside? No idea what this story is, but it made me think of PETA.  Democrats claimed President Trump was protested, but Trump and the White House revealed photos of a rock star reception at the hospital where victims were treated in Ohio. Videos and photos will be below in the tweets.  An article that notes Americans are fleeing from Trump and going overseas. I suppose you never know with today’s media, but this could fit with r/K’s model where r’s flee to more r-areas at the first hint of K. Then again, in these times, you wonder if it is a Cabal coded message – the enemy has overtaken key positions, the Cabal’s collapse is imminent, it is time to gather your secret passports and flee overseas.  Jussie Smollett cut from Empire for the final season.  Sister of killed El Paso victims says Democrats are ‘pure evil’ for blaming Trump.  The New York Times Company tanks 20% after saying ad revenue will decline next quarter. Another media company is not getting the cash flow it got under Cabal.  Taliban say differences on US troop withdrawal have been resolved. No other President would have gotten us out of Afghanistan.  ACLU sues to stop Trump from deporting illegals so quickly.  Cortez’s favorability rises to 41/41 in New York State, now comparable to Sen. Gillibrand’s. Good to keep her around.  Trump wants background checks, but doubts the will of Congress. So basically the “Red Flags” thing was a brief rhetorical play by Trump, and not a necessary move for the Storm. It was risky, but he worked it well. Again, Trump seems to have walked the line perfectly. Probably even good to acclimate people to the idea he will say stuff initially, and it is just a negotiating position, and not his intent. Also, note Don Jr and Eric are there by his side, so it was predictable.  NY Times is trying to generate momentum for the Redflag law in Congress. Red Flag laws in gun owner’s heads call up images of New Orleans after the hurricane, when the local New Orleans PD went house to house and demanded guns be turned over right as things turned lawless. Nothing is more frustrating than pussy leftists hiding and sending in cops, who we don’t want to engage, to take our weapons, pitting what should be our allies against us. And gunowners hate the idea of a leftist government able to declare them unfit to own guns arbitrarily. That is why the left is pushing this so hard. If it passes, expect a Democrat governor to purposely abuse it, probably on somebody they identify who they feel could produce a shooting of cops or the gunowner like this one. I can’t say it would definitely affect turnout given the economy, the pro-Americanism, and the awesomeness elsewhere, but I suspect it could affect motivation among some, especially if a well-planning adversary was willing to exploit it via any means in a coordinated campaign. I doubt it would affect Trump much, if at all, but I could see a Republican in the House or Senate getting hit at the ballot box for supporting it, especially if the left organized something to highlight it being abused near the election. It really needs to die in Congress.  Fox says Republicans who support Background checks and Red Flag laws would be covered if the President supported it. I think they would be at more risk because of Trump being involved. When I was way less engaged, I relished seeing George H W Bush humiliated with his loss over banning 19 types of semi autos from being imported. Even though I had some idea Clinton was a scumbag and didn’t want him to win, Bush was a traitor who screwed us gratuitously to please the left, and traitors are worse, so his loss was comforting. These things create a frustration, where someone who thinks they are beyond reach is poking you in the eye to make your enemy happy and help themselves. When the chance comes to lash out in the ballot booth, rational thought can leave. I think especially given there is a natural tendency to love Trump and feel you have to vote for him, and perhaps especially because he feels like an overdose of winning and Congress feels useless by comparison, gunowners might, especially with appropriate media gloating and goading, take it out on down ticket candidates who supported this. If so, this might be a sign Fox is now trying to lure Republicans into a trap.  A poll says 65% of gun owners say they will not support President Trump over Red Flag laws. I don’t doubt they would say that now, and feel it. The fact 35% of gunowners say they would support Trump even if he gave the government the ability to take our guns is a measure of the love and loyalty he has built up. My guess is when the election came around, it would be more like a 1-2% affect on Trump, if even, and that would just be turnout diminishment and degraded morale the left was able to culture on with concern trolls and maybe a false flag. But down ticket, candidates would get the animus they had coming for supporting it – and then additional animus which would have gone to the President will get redirected on them. Red Flags would have a big effect, and the more conservative the area, the bigger the effect. Especially because Trump is so much bigger than life it feels like we could vent our rage, give up Congress and the Senate to the ultra-left entirely, and still win regularly just with him.  Nadler is bringing everyone back to try and get to work on a gun violence bill. This isn’t even about getting gun control measures, or incrementalism now. This is the only way they see to try and maybe fracture what is a terrifyingly (to them) united Republican Party which is 100% behind President Trump because all he does is win. We’ve been winning, winning, winning, and that has united us completely, and enthused us to show up and vote again. They need to get that tempered by making something bad happen, and ideally to make the Republicans do it. We need to get control of the narrative again.  Asked who he blames, President Trump says, “I don’t blame Elizabeth Warren, and I don’t blame Bernie Sanders in the case of Ohio,” Trump explained. “And I don’t blame anybody. These are sick people….it’s a mental problem.”  Just weeks before the 2020 presidential election FX will run a dramatization of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair.  FEMA and FCC ran a test of the Emergency Broadcast system on the 7th.  Trump’s Latino supporters are sticking with him, don’t see El Paso as related to him.  DHS department currently redeploying Customs agents & Customs supervisors from U.S. International Airports to the U.S.-Mexico border for ‘months-long assignments’ to assist Border Patrol agents who are being “overrun” by illegal border crossers.  The Trump administration is reportedly considering executive action to address President Trump’s and other Republicans’ allegations of anti-conservative bias by social media companies.  Spread r/K Theory, because 8Chan is still down, so you don’t have Q to talk about.


anonymousconservative--2019-10-11--News Briefs – 10/11/2019

News Briefs – 10/11/2019

I always see lots of r/K related stories I think might interest the readers here, but I only have time to blog about a few, so here are some additional news stories that might be of interest. For unknown reasons, in some browsers the tweets in these posts display best if you click on the post instead of viewing it on the main page. You can skim the titles and summaries, and click the links if they are of interest. Keep in mind, many of these reports are products of the Fake News, so although they will be what people are hearing and talking about, there is no guarantee any one of them is necessarily correct, and we have had cases of outright lies make it onto these pages, especially about President Trump.  No Q. You can see Q’s posts aggregated live, and new ones which may have gone live after our print deadline at http://www.qanon.pub  President Trump is now on Twitch. First video up is the Minneapolis rally.  Biden’s brother was awarded a $1.5B contract to build homes in Iraq.  John Solomon announced that the Trump-hating former Ukrainian Ambassador Yovanovich, who handed the Ukraine Prosecutor a “Do Not Prosecute” list, and denied Visas to Ukraine officials who were trying to deliver evidence of Obama misdeeds to Trump, was monitoring the communications of reporters digging into Ukrainian lawlessness, including John Solomon. Here is the thing. How was she monitoring him? Did she deploy State Intel agents? Probably not. There is a central repository sucking up intel on everyone, including the observations of real people watching their neighbors and friends, and she was surfing it like it was Yahoo. And you are in it too. I’ve told you, I could not leak to a reporter without it being picked up immediately on my side, and the reporter’s.  As an example of how out of control our domestic spying has become, the Whistleblower’s attorney didn’t like what somebody tweeted, so he tweeted back he was going to have his intelligence agency clients use the government surveillance databases to unmask him and reveal his identity to everyone. But nobody would have spied illegally on the Trump campaign. That would be wrong.  James Comey was running an agent in Loretta Lynch’s office to spy on her and make sure she didn’t do anything he didn’t approve of. I talk about the intel game here to make you stronger. Because everyone is playing it and if you don’t know how pervasive it is, it will roll right over you and you will never figure out what happened. It doesn’t want me to tell you, because it wants to be able to roll over you easily. I support everyone being made strong, because as we saw under Obama, those who gravitate to the game do so because they want the easy win, and that will tend to be leftist SJWs who are perfectly happy to destroy freedom to enhance their own position at the expense of us, our nation, and even the world.  Whistleblower worked with Joe Biden when he was VP.  Lawyers for the whistleblower have asked Congress whether their client could submit testimony in writing instead of appearing in person, amid persistent concerns about protecting his anonymity and safety. It would not be surprising to find out the whistleblower is entirely made up at this point.  Somebody in the comments criticized Trump pulling out of the Kurdish areas. I was going to post this as a reply there, but I think it belongs here. There have been times Trump has done things I thought I disagreed with. After all the other politicians, I think I simply assume at some point he will, because I have been told so often that we all disagree on something, there is no real right or wrong, it is all perspective, etc, etc. But with Trump I have to say as I look closer, I always seem to find there is additional information I missed which makes his position seem dead on. To the point I am beginning to wonder if all that, “You’ll never agree with anyone on everything” or “The leader has to serve many people so you will never agree with everything,” and even the old donkey, old man, and child story, where each passerby thinks somebody else should be getting the easy ride, is all propaganda, designed to program us so when the politician betrays you here and there you explain it to yourself with that. After seeing this much of Trump, I think it is possible there is a right and wrong, and if your leader is loyal to his own, intelligent, has good intel, and his heart is in the right place, there is no reason he shouldn’t hit that right decision every time, and if you disagree, you might change your mind if you knew everything. On the Kurds, I notice Tom Kratman’s piece has essentially been disappeared online. I found some of the relevant parts reprinted here, and I think it is worth a read. In it, a soldier recounts how Kurds would stage small arms fire against one of their enemies, like the Turks at the border, so when the Turks returned fire, they would be firing at our guys, and then we would kill some of their enemies with return fire. He even recounts a firefight they touched off this way between US soldiers and Iraqis who had just been waving at each other as friends. The only reason our guys didn’t get shredded was they were better gunfighters. We hear from the media, and Lindsey Graham (who is either a total idiot, compromised, or evil) how wonderful the Kurds are. The satanic controlled media tells us they are some sort of noble force. And Tom Kratman tells us they brutally genocide Christians, starve their own children, try to get our soldiers killed, take all the aid we send and then some, and demand we pay them. Don’t forget, Trump has intel that is equivalent to all the accounts from every Tom Kratman who has ever made contact with the Kurds. Personally, I am perfectly happy to take Kratman’s word, and stop spending decades defending people who refuse to defend their own lands, take all our wealth, and fuck us over in the process.  Biden campaign now asking Twitter to reject a Trump campaign ad on his corruption, claiming he isn’t corrupt, therefore it must be false.  This is a picture of the woman the Germany shooter supposedly sprayed with a 9mm submachine gun from behind. Notice the backpack, and the fact it was removed from her and she was rolled over on her back. No bullet holes in it. And someone said maybe she was hit in the head, but you have zero spatter, literally nothing on the bag, and that was full auto 9mm. It is possible that was real. But I am at the point I could see that whole video being an act, played out as some sort of mass-media manipulation of psychologies. This world could be much stranger than we think.  FOX News oversampled Democrats by 14 points in their junk impeachment poll. Only 12% Republicans were in the poll. Notice how the Fake Right and Fake Left can unite – against Donald Trump.  Temperatures in Denver dropped 64 degrees in less than 24 hours, setting a record.  Adam Schiff refused to meet with a group of ten senior citizens opposed to the impeachment of President Donald Trump at his district office in Burbank on Thursday, citing a “new policy” on “security.”  The abortionist who was keeping all those dead baby bodies from abortions on his property had still more stashed away in his car decomposing.  Turkey President Erdogan threatens to send 3.6million refugees into Europe, says, “I’ll open the gates.”  Ocasio Cortez blows $260 on one haircut, blames right wing for being bitter she looks good.  Mitt quits before he got started, refuses to face Donald Trump, saying he will probably win.  ICE Director says a single California judge is crippling enforcement in 43 states.  ICE says 1000 false families have already been detected at the border with DNA tests.  More than 1,000 African migrants are battling with Mexican National Guard and riot police in the streets of southern Mexico.  Trudeau accuser who he was sleeping with illegally at 17 when he was a teacher, lands a seven-figure NDA to keep quiet about West Grey departure.  Ronan Farrow says Hillary pressured him to kill his story on Weinstein.  The federal government collected fewer than 1,000 bump stocks during the run-up to a new ban in March, despite estimates that hundreds of thousands of the devices that mimic machine gun fire are in circulation, according to the Justice Department.  Three years after LA tax payers approve $1.2 billion for homeless housing, not a single unit built.  The backstory on that French domestic intelligence agent who embraced Islam, radicalized, and then brought a knife to work and stabbed four coworkers to death. The interesting part of the article is he was a computer guy. They found he had downloaded the data on undercovers and operations at mosques across the country to a flash drive, and now they have no idea if he burned all of their agents and operations to his radical buddies.  Amazon workers may be watching your cloud-cam footage. They admit they have been watching people have sex. I am beginning to wonder if this is a program, to try to desensitize the population to that kind of monitoring, so they won’t freak out if what has been going on comes out. Because a lot of people are under that at various times each year, whether they have these devices or not.  An adviser to President Trump has claimed that China handed him intelligence on Hunter Biden in the same week Trump publicly told Beijing to investigate Joe Biden’s son. Sounds like it could be a Fake News Cabal set up.  Power outages still riling California. It is pretty impressive the degree to which California has become a melting pot of the third world. They have the Shanty towns of Somalia in their homeless camps, the street shitting of India, and now they have the rolling blackouts of Venezuela. If they can just get some middle eastern goat-fucking going, and maybe weekly beheadings in the public square, it will be a leftist’s diverse utopia.  To really get an idea of how fake our Mockingbird Media is, you need only go to the Russian news shows, which I have found to be quite honest. Here, RT.com’s American branch looks at how corporate interests fuel the rise of “celebrities” like Ellen DeGeneres, who ostensibly have jobs that pay them for entertaining people, but which also involve inuring people to the surveillance state and supporting the waging of wars overseas to critical demographics. (Starts at 4:05, and runs to 9:05, if you don’t have the time, it just says they have emails showing she is willingly being used to mold policy-opinions in the masses, and is funded by the same interests benefiting from the things she advances.):  From the degenerate shitshow which is the escaped asylum inmates who make up the base of the Democrat Party:  How letting the intelligence game play out facilitates evil:  We really need a counter-intelligence agency devoted solely to limiting intelligence gathering operations within our own nation, on our own citizens. Once you have a system where the currency is trading on each other’s misdeeds, you will only have misdeed-doers in power, and they will fear and blacklist nobody, so much as the one honest leader like Trump who tries to get in. Because that man is the only one who they will have no power over, and no ability to defend against.  On this next one, notice Musk just keeps going and going, as if Tesla is a going concern. He is a cover for something interesting:  Denmark is to impose temporary border controls at the Swedish border next month, after Swedes were suspected of being behind a number of serious attacks this year in the Danish capital Copenhagen. K will bring borders back in style.  Trump surges deportations of illegal aliens by 453 percent in recent months.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar agree they can “see a pathway to a possible deal” on Brexit after talks, Downing Street says.  Slovenia — the home country of First Lady Melania Trump — has formed a civil defense force to put a stop to illegal Muslim migrants entering their country from Croatia.  US manufacturing entering a ‘golden era’ under Trump, says auto parts billionaire and NFL owner.  Trump to award Medal of Honor to Green Beret for heroics in 2008 Afghanistan fight.  Hong Kong protestors are thwarting the surveillance state as they protest:  Again, if it is anything there like it is here, they are probably not escaping it entirely, and somewhere it is going in a file on them. But there are two factors – one, the machine wants to hide itself, and cannot let everyone know how thick the networks are. So you can probably hide yourself good enough, where taking action against you would be too big a risk, as it would expose they could only have identified you through extraordinary means, and you might be able to figure out how and spread that around, exposing the system, and touching off real rebellion. The second possibility is the real surveillance player is very likely not the government per se. So there is no guarantee the surveillance has the same objectives as the government. In these situations, the Hong Kong mayor could have said something that offended Cabal leadership, it wants her gone, and it is actually fomenting and using these protests to do it. In which case surveillance might not say anything as you lash out at her and give Beijing the pretext to move in and take over. Or Cabal may even be setting in play a total civil war which would spread to the mainland and produce a new leadership in Beijing. If Cabal is moving to China more overtly, it may need something different in the way of leaders.  Don’t remember if I put this up, but it was super cool, so a second airing doesn’t hurt:  Spread r/K Theory, because a diversity of shitholes is still a shithole.


21stcenturywire--2019-01-24--LISTEN Mark Anderson Interviews Cliven Bundy on STOP THE PRESSES Radio

LISTEN: Mark Anderson Interviews Cliven Bundy on STOP THE PRESSES! Radio

ROUND ROCK, Texas — Cliven Bundy, the patriarch-cattleman of the embattled Nevada family that locked horns with the federal government nearly five years ago—in a land-rights protest that some refer to as the now-legendary “Battle of Bunkerville”—was a guest on Mark Anderson’s STOP THE PRESSES! Radio Show on the LIVE stream at the Republic Broadcasting Network (RBN) on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019.    Anderson’s show runs from 2 to 3 p.m. Central Time, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He is the director of this TRUTH HOUND website, which operates under the auspices of his STOP THE PRESSES News Association. Listeners can catch the show live and on the archive.  It’s been just over one year since federal judge Gloria Navarro freed Bundy, some of his sons and others in her Jan. 8, 2018 court ruling in Las Vegas. They had been imprisoned under various charges stemming from their protest of federal land policies.  Cliven shared with Anderson the latest information on the federal government’s indications that it will appeal Navarro’s decision, while giving the big picture of life as a rancher and the fight for property rights in an age when huge tracts of Western lands are federally “owned” and controlled.


21stcenturywire--2019-07-03--INTERVIEW Fukushima an Ongoing Global Radiological Catastrophe A Huge Coverup

INTERVIEW: ‘Fukushima an Ongoing Global Radiological Catastrophe – A Huge Coverup’

The following is a transcript of the 8th anniversary Fukushima, with an interview between Global Research host Michael Welsh and Dr. Helen Caldicott, first published on March 21, 2019  The eight year anniversary of the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility passed mostly without comment in mainstream media circles. In spite of ongoing radiological contamination that will continue to spread and threaten human health for lifetimes to come, other stories dominate the international news cycle. The climate change conundrum, serious though it may be, seemingly crowds out all other clear and present environmental hazards.  As part of efforts to normalize this historic event and cover it up in its magnitude, the Japanese government has invested considerable financial, public relations and other resources into what they are billing the ‘Recovery Olympics‘ set to take place in a year’s time in Tokyo.  But Helen Caldicott warns that the dangers associated with Fukushima have not gone away and remain a cause for concern. Dr. Helen Caldicott has been an author, physician and one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear campaigners. She helped to reinvigorate the group of Physicians for Social Responsibility, acting as president from 1978 to 1983. Since its founding in 2001 she served as president of the US based Nuclear Policy Research Institute later called Beyond Nuclear which initiates symposia and educational projects aimed at informing the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and nuclear war. And she is the editor of the 2014 book, Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe.  On the week marking the eighth anniversary of the Fukushima meltdowns, the Global Research News Hour radio program, hosted by Michael Welch, reached out to Dr. Caldicott to get her expert opinion on the health dangers posed by the most serious nuclear disaster since, at least, the 1986 Chernobyl event.  Global Research: Now the Japanese government is preparing to welcome visitors to Japan for the 2020 Olympic Games, and coverage of the 8th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster is hardly, it seems to me, registered given the significant radiological and other dangers that you cited and your authors cited in your 2014 book, Crisis Without End. Now it’s been more than four years since that book came out. I was hoping you could update our listenership on what is currently being recognized as the main health threats in 2019, perhaps not registered in the book, that you’re currently looking at in relation to the Fukushima meltdown.  Helen Caldicott: Well it’s difficult because the Japanese government has authorized really only examination of thyroid cancer. Now thyroid cancer is caused by radioactive iodine and there were many, many cases of that after Chernobyl. And already, they’ve looked at children under the age of 18 in the Fukushima prefecture at the time of the accident, and … how many children… 100…no 201 by June 18 last year… 201 had developed thyroid cancer. Some cancers had metastasized. The incidence of thyroid cancer in that population normally is 1 per million. So obviously it’s an epidemic of thyroid cancer and it’s just starting now.  What people need to understand is the latent period of carcinogenesis, ie the time after exposure to radiation when cancers develop is any time from 3 years to 80 years. And so it’s a very, very long period. Thyroid cancers appear early. Leukemia appears about 5 to 10 years later. They’re not looking for leukemia. Solid cancers of every organ, or any organ as such appear about 15 years later and continue and in fact the Hibakusha from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are still alive are still developing cancers in higher than normal numbers.  The Japanese government has told doctors that they are not to talk to their patients about radiation and illnesses derived thereof, and in fact if the doctors do do that, they might lose their funding from the government. The IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency interestingly set up a hospital – a cancer hospital – in Fukushima along with the Fukushima University for people with cancer, which tells you everything.  So there’s a huge, huge cover up. I have been to Japan twice and particularly to Fukushima and spoken to people there and the parents are desperate to hear the truth even if it’s not good truth. And they thanked me for telling them the truth. So it’s an absolute medical catastrophe I would say, and a total cover up to protect the nuclear industry and all its ramifications.  GR: Now, are we talking about some of the, the contamination that happened 8 years ago or are we talking about ongoing emissions from, for example–  HC: Well there are ongoing emissions into the air consistently, number one. Number two, a huge amount of water is being stored –over a million gallons in tanks at the site. That water is being siphoned off from the reactor cores, the damaged melted cores. Water is pumped consistently every day, every hour, to keep the cores cool in case they have another melt. And that water, of course, is extremely contaminated.  Now they say they’ve filtered out the contaminants except for the tritium which is part of the water molecule, but they haven’t. There’s strontium, cesium, and many other elements in that water – it’s highly radioactive – and because there isn’t enough room to build more tanks, they’re talking about emptying all that water into the Pacific Ocean and the fishermen are very, very upset. The fish already being caught off Fukushima, some are obviously contaminated. But this will be a disaster.  Water comes down from the mountains behind the reactors, flows underneath the reactors into the sea and always has. And when the reactors were in good shape, the water was fine, didn’t get contaminated. But now the three molten cores in contact with that water flowing under the reactors and so the water flowing into the Pacific is very radioactive and that’s a separate thing from the million gallons or more in those tanks.  They put up a refrigerated wall of frozen dirt around the reactors to prevent that water from the mountains flowing underneath the reactors, which has cut down the amount of water flowing per day from 500 tons to about a hundred and fifty. But of course, if they lose electricity, that refrigeration system is going to fail, and it’s a transient thing anyway so it’s ridiculous. In terms… So over time the Pacific is going to become more and more radioactive.  They talk about decommissioning and removing those molten cores. When robots go in and try and have a look at them, their wiring just melts and disappears. They’re extraordinarily radioactive. No human can go near them because they would die within 48 hours from the radiation exposure. They will never, and I quote never, decommission those reactors. They will never be able to stop the water coming down from the mountains. And so, the truth be known, it’s an ongoing global radiological catastrophe which no one really is addressing in full.  GR: Do we have a better reading on, for example the thyroids, but also leukemia incubation—  HC: No they’re not looking–well, leukemia they’re not looking for leukemia…  HC: They’re not charting it. So the only cancer they’re looking at is thyroid cancer and that’s really high, and you know it’s at 201 have already been diagnosed and some have metastasized. And a very tight lid is being kept on any other sort of radiation related illnesses and leukemia and the like. All the other cancers and the like, and leukemia is so… It’s not just a catastrophe it’s a…  HC: Yeah. I can’t really explain how I feel medically about it. It’s just hideous.  GR: Well I have a brother who’s a physician, who was pointing to well we should maybe, the World Health Organization is a fairly authoritative body of research for all of the indicators and epidemiological aspects of this, but you seem to suggest the World Health Organization may not be that reliable in light of the fact that they are partnered with the IAEA. Is that my understanding…?  HC: Correct. They signed a document, I think in ‘59, with the IAEA that they would not report any medical effects of radiological disasters and they’ve stuck to that. So they are in effect in this area part of the International Atomic Energy Agency whose mission is to promote nuclear power. So don’t even think about the WHO. it’s really obscene.  GR: So what would… the incentive would be simply that they got funding?  HC: I don’t know. I really don’t know but they sold themselves to the devil.  GR: That’s pretty incredible. So there’s also the issue of biomagnification in the oceans, where you have radioactive debris, hundreds of tons of this radioactive water getting into the oceans and biomagnifying up through the food chain, so these radioactive particles can get inside our bodies. Could you speak to what you anticipate to see, what you would anticipate, whether it’s recorded by World Health authorities or not, what we could expect to see in the years ahead in terms of the illnesses that manifest themselves?  HC: Well number one, Fukushima is a very agricultural prefecture. Beautiful, beautiful peaches, beautiful food, and lots of rice. And the radiation spread far and wide through the Fukushima prefecture, and indeed they have been plowing up millions and millions of tons of radioactive dirt and storing it in plastic bags all over the prefecture. The mountains are highly radioactive and every time it rains, down comes radiation with the water. So the radiation – the elements. And there are over 200 radioactive elements made in a nuclear reactor. Some have lives of seconds and some have lives of millions of years or lasts for millions of years will I say. So there are many many isotopes, long-lasting isotopes – cesium, strontium, tritium is another one – but many, many on the soil in Fukushima.  And what happens is – you talked about biomagnification – when the plants take up the water from the soil, they take up the cesium which is a potassium analog – it resembles potassium. Strontium 90 resembles calcium and the like. And these elements get magnified by orders of magnitude in the rice and in the plants. And so when you eat food that is grown in Fukushima, the chances are it’s going to be relatively radioactive.  They’ve been diluting radioactive rice with non-radioactive rice to make it seem a bit better. Now, into the ocean go these isotopes as well, and the algae bio-magnify them by – you know -ten to a hundred times or more. And then the crustaceans eat the algae, bio-magnify it more. The little fish eat the crustaceans, the big fish eat the little fish and the like. And tuna found in – off the coast of California some years ago contained isotopes from Fukushima. Also fish, being caught on the west coast of California contained some of these isotopes. So, it’s an ongoing bio-magnification catastrophe.  And the thing is that you can’t even taste, smell or see radioactive elements in your food. They’re invisible. And it takes a long time for cancers to occur. And you can’t identify a particular cancer caused by a particular substance or isotope. You can only identify that problem by doing epidemiological studies comparing irradiated people with non-irradiated people to see what the cancer levels are and that data comes from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and many, many, many other studies.  GR: Chernobyl as well, no?  HC: Oh, Chernobyl! Well, a wonderful book was produced by the, uh, Russians, and published by the New York Academy of Sciences, called Chernobyl with over 5000 on the ground studies of children and diseases in Belarus and the Ukraine, and all over Europe. And by now over a million people have already died from the Chernobyl disaster. And many diseases have been caused by that, including premature aging in children, microcephaly in babies, very small heads, diabetes, leukemia, I mean, I could go on and on.  Um, and those diseases which have been very well described in that wonderful book, um, which everyone should read, are not being addressed or identified or looked for in the Fukushima or Japanese population.  May I say that parts of Tokyo are extremely radioactive. People have been measuring the dirt from rooves of apartments, from the roadway, from vacuum cleaner dust. And some of these samples, they’re so radioactive that they would classify to be buried in radioactive waste facilities in America. So, that’s number one.  Number two, to have the Olympics in Fukushima just defies imagination. And uh, some of the areas where the athletes are going to be running, the dust and dirt there has been measured, and it’s highly radioactive. So, this is Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, who set this up to – as a sort of way to obscure what Fukushima really means. And those young athletes, you know, who are – and young people are much more sensitive to radiation, developing cancers later than older people – it’s just a catastrophe waiting to happen.  GR: (Chuckle). Is there anything that people can do, you know, whether they live in Japan or, say, the west coast of North America to mitigate the effects that this disaster has had, and may still be having eight years later?  HC: Yes. Do not eat any Japanese food because you don’t know where it’s sourced. Do not eat fish from Japan, miso, rice, you name it. Do not eat Japanese food. Period. Um, fish caught off the west coast of Canada and America, well, they’re not testing the fish so I don’t know what you’d do. Um, I mean, most of it’s probably not radioactive but you don’t know because you can’t taste it.  Um they’ve closed down the air-borne radioactive measuring instruments off the west coast of America, uh, but that’s pretty bad, because there still could be another huge accident at those reactors.  For instance, if there’s another large earthquake, number one, all those tanks would be destroyed and the water would pour into the Pacific. Number two, there could be another meltdown, a release – huge release of radiation, um, from the damaged reactors. So, things are very tenuous, but they’re not just tenuous now. They’re going to be tenuous forever.  The original source of this article is Global Research


activistpost--2019-08-06--Anonymous Bites Back Radio Show Strikes Against Censorship Now Broadcasted On 50 Platforms

Anonymous Bites Back Radio Show Strikes Against Censorship — Now Broadcasted On 50+ Platforms

Anonymous Bites Back, an all volunteer activist apolitical radio show, has been broadcasting for several years with constant problems fighting back against censorship for the topics discussed. Now, ABB seems to have found an unorthodox solution to their problem.  Originally, episodes received good viewer counts, starting out using Facebook and YouTube as a home to stream the weekly shows.  On Facebook alone the Anonymous Bites Back page quickly grew to 25,000+ viewers per episode. This was mainly due to the huge amount of promotion on different pages and groups by the team and by the viewers themselves. Everyone was working hard on building up the show.  Then shit started to hit the fan. Suddenly ABB episodes were “shadow banned” and outright censored. When an episode went live, it started out with a certain amount of viewers. But then the team started to share, and with each share to a page the view count actually started to drop. At some point there were more people replying below the episode than the amount Facebook claimed were watching the live stream. After a while, Anonymous Bites Back realized why the social media site was doing this and how.  The show had become too big and was causing ripple waves on the InQTel-funded platform.  It’s no surprise that Facebook did this to ABB, as the group of activists are who originally came up with the #DeleteFacebook movement.  Facebook works with a “live stream map.” This map shows dots representing all the different live streams in the world. When a stream gets more viewers, the dot becomes larger, making you more visible, giving you more and more exposure. So a popular stream will get a big boost by Facebook, unless you are “deboosted.”  It’s now been revealed that Facebook will “deboost” posts including political targeting users. It’s something that all of us knew, and is more commonly referred to in the industry as “shadow banning.” However, the claim holds more water coming from a former employee than just mere speculation, especially with documents that Project Veritas reported.  They began artificially reducing the live view count, they were actively attempting to reduce the reach of the show. So Anonymous Bites Back realized the establishment social media wanted a war. And the team started to invent solutions. They started out by changing the location of the live stream to a popular location. If something big was happening at that moment, the show would “move” to that location. This offered a temporary solution, and new viewers did arrive. Also a team was created to increase the sharing, consisting of active supporters and fans, and they were organizing “watch parties” to increase the amount of viewers. It worked, and Anonymous Bites Back was able to restore the numbers. But then Facebook hit them again. This time by limiting accounts of people who would share from the page. The moment you would share from the page more than 3 times, your account would be unable to share anything for 7 days. Sometimes it would lock you out of your account entirely.  Keep in mind that all of this happened on Facebook while the show never received a single infraction. But the team didn’t give up, instead they started to branch out using different services. The team’s focus was then put on to YouTube.  Viewers quickly moved over and after just a mere two episodes even the chat below the live shows became very active.  However, that didn’t last long at all before once again the activists faced blow back. All of a sudden, YouTube stopped the streaming capabilities a month or two ago for a false copyright claim of a documentary the team had permission to stream, coincidentally right before the U.S. debates. YouTube also censored other accounts who were actually talking about the debates, as Elizabeth Lea Vos reported on Steemit. Albeit the fact that the radio show is apolitical and didn’t plan on covering the Democratic debates, the timing of the suspended live stream capability can’t be ignored.  After the show was “shadow banned” on both Facebook and Youtube, the Anonymous activists had to find solutions. Quickly a team member developed a method to stream to over 30 different social media websites at once. This allowed them to be decentralized, no longer being dependent on any individual website. They would always be online “somewhere” and would just post the links to their incredibly large network. When last month they lost their live stream capabilities on the famous Anonymous Worldwide Youtube channel for 90 days, after a so called copyright infraction that later turned out to be false, they were able to switch to Periscope within seconds. This is the live stream website created by the Twitter company. They were even able to increase the viewer count of Anonymous Bites Back shows ten fold compared to Youtube, easily reaching 5-10.000 unique viewers per show.  After this happened, YouTube in a clear moment of irony started to care and sent private messages on Twitter to one of the show hosts asking if they can offer a solution to the stream being limited.  Since the message from YouTube, Anonymous Bites Back, (ABB) was shockingly allowed to stream again.  Despite this, there is a huge list of different sites now streaming the show displayed on the Anonymous Bites Back Gravatar page. And it is increasing by the day, as ABB organizes the different profiles to make them look a little more “professional.”  The ABB team is from all over the world and they don’t care what political flavor of ice cream you choose to eat, everyone is welcome to come on air. That may be why the establishment doesn’t like the show. So as a result they are always trying to disturb and disrupt in many different ways. But the ABB team is ready and loved in the Anonymous collective for being consistent with standing up for human rights and highlighting numerous activism causes without taking donations or monetizing the show.  During the last month or so ABB have been working on a direct audio stream on the Anonymous Bites Back website that cannot be removed by social media, as a backup system to current streams. You can listen to ABB below via Periscope each week on Thursday at 9 P.M. CST and again on Saturday and Sunday for special episodes at 2 p.m. CST. Of course, episodes are always uploaded after the show in podcasts. For more information follow the ABB Twitter account – @abbliveshow.  For the latest Twitter Periscope live stream on Catalonia see the link below:


ageofautism--2019-02-27--Laura Hayes on Healthy Life Radio with Dr Andy McCabe

Laura Hayes on Healthy Life Radio with Dr. Andy McCabe!

We invite you to listen to Laura Hayes' interview on VACCINATIONS and all the great interviews on Dr. Andy McCabe's program called Healthy Life! You'll see many familiar names on the interview list. Click here to look, listen and learn!  Thanks to Laura for her tireless fight for all of our kids - and us - as adult vaccine mandates are looming even as we speak.    Visit the site here.


ageofautism--2019-03-17--Laura Hayes on PRN Radio Monday 318

Laura Hayes on PRN Radio Monday 3/18

Tomorrow, 3/18 , I will be interviewed on PRN.fm, by Renee of Vaccine Information Coalition, at:  If you go to PRN.fm, there is a small "Listen Now" sign on the top left corner of the home page under the words "Deadly Deception".  It also looks like you can click on the "Shows" tab at the top of the page, then click on the "Schedule" link in the drop-down menu, then click on the Monday 2:00pm show titled "What In the Cell Is Going On?".  Hope one of those ways will make it easy for you to tune in tomorrow!


ageofautism--2019-07-30--Radio Interviews This Week With Laura Hayes

I am doing 2 radio interviews this week. I am hoping that you will be able to tune in, and that perhaps you will consider inviting a few people over to listen with you :)  First one is this Tuesday, July 30th, 9:00-10:00am PST, on Food Chain Radio with host Michael Olson. Topic will be vaccines, and I will be interviewed along with Dena Churchill from Canada, who recently paid an extreme price for standing firm in her right to proclaim vaccine truths.  To listen in live, click here, then click the "Listen Live" button:  Or here, then scroll down for the "Listen Live" button:  Second one is this Wednesday, July 31st, 12:00-1:00pm PST, on KVMR Radio with host Jeanie Keltner. As most of you know, Jeanie is savvy to the truth about vaccines, and we always have a robust and informative discussion about them, in addition to discussing the most-recent efforts to eliminate our parental rights and medical choice freedom.  To listen in live, click here, then click the "Listen Live" button at the very top:  Both interviews will be available as podcasts after the fact for those who are unable to tune in live.


aljazeera--2019-01-05--Radio La Colifata Argentinas loony radio

Radio La Colifata: Argentina's 'loony radio'

More than 20 years ago, a psychology student doing his training at one of Argentina's oldest psychiatric wards kept being asked by his family and friends what it was like to work in there. So, he came up with an idea: to let the patients explain in their own words.  The first radio station to broadcast from inside a mental hospital was born.  Radio La Colifata - slang for "loon", or "crazy person", has been on air from Hospital Jose Borda in Buenos Aires every Saturday afternoon for 23 years - to confront the stigma around mental illness, breaking through the wall in AM, FM and now online.  In-patients produce and present the shows that range from politics to sports - and over the years, millions of Argentinians have been tuning in.  Today, the radio frequencies have reached further, with around 50 stations based on the Radio Colifata model in Latin America, Europe and Asia - and soon, it will be setting up outside the asylum, hosted by former patients.  The radio was never intended as a serious journalistic enterprise per se.  But the voices it includes, the things that are said, and the way the stories are told are enough to make anyone in the mainstream world of journalism stop, listen and think about how their own voices are repressed, censored and sedated - and how truth lies beyond what has been prescribed.     This week, we hear what the Colifatos have to say in a special collaboration between The Listening Post and Radio La Colifata.


aljazeera--2019-04-21--Radio Maryja and the media empire of Polands polarising priest

Radio Maryja and the media empire of Poland's polarising priest

The story of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk and his radio station that lie at the heart of the country's politics.  I spent the first 19 years of my life in Poland and this media story has always been in the background, in public discourse, in politics, in the Catholic Church - a sort of cultural phenomenon.  Few people in Poland are as well known as Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, a Redemptorist and, more importantly for this story, the cofounder of the Catholic radio station Radio Maryja. Even fewer Poles attract such polarised opinions.  As the author of Rydzyk's unauthorised biography, Emperor, Piotr Głuchowski, told The Listening Post's Artur Osiński: "Myths about Rydzyk have entered Polish folklore." Many people distrust, dislike or even downright loathe him. However, he also has thousands, perhaps millions, of followers whose reverence for Rydzyk is unparalleled.  As we found out when we talked with parishioners in Torun - the town where Radio Maryja is based - there are those who see Rydzyk almost as a cult figure. For many listeners, particularly the elderly, looking to find their way in the modern world, he offers a haven - and, in return, Rydzyk readily collects their donations.  One of the main issues for Rydzyk's critics is that it's not just his supporters who give him money. It's every taxpayer in Poland, whether they like it or not.  According to Magdalena Chrzczonowicz from the investigative website OKO.press, "since the current populist, right-wing government returned to power in 2015, it has given Rydzyk at least $21m in grants, contracts and donations". Chrzczonowicz also told us that the full data is not available, so the amount is likely to be even higher.  The political power Rydzyk wields through his media empire is staggering, especially when you consider the audience numbers, according to the ratings company Nielsen, it is just a 2 percent share of the radio market and even less for his TV channel - and given how the current government treats news outlets it doesn't like.  Gazeta Wyborcza reporter Marcin Kącki says, "It is degrading that the leaders such as the prime minister, government ministers, drive like crazy to the other side of Poland to make it for a Radio Maryja meeting because this is what Father Rydzyk wishes. It is unacceptable in the 21st century that one individual, a monk, can hold such power."  So why is he so powerful?  The answer is simple: religion. The Catholic Church remains a potent force in Poland. An overwhelming majority of the country is Catholic (even though the number has been falling) and Radio Maryja listeners are among the most devout.  For many, the radio serves primarily as an extension of their faith. For others, the political messaging is made all the more effective when mixed with the Sacrum. It creates a strong, unified, loyal electorate.  As Ireneusz Krzemiński, author of What Does Radio Maryja Teach Us? explains, "If I'm a Radio Maryja listener, I know straight away what my views are, whom I will vote for, who my enemy is."  When I pitched this story, I had expected that neither Rydzyk nor any of his representatives would agree to an interview. That proved true. We were told by a Radio Maryja spokesman that Rydzyk "rarely speaks to media other than his own" and that, "due to years of bad experiences with the media", neither he nor anyone else associated with his organisation would speak to us.  Nor would Al Jazeera be allowed to film inside their newsroom. That was not a surprise.  What was surprising was that not a single right-wing journalist/news outlet outside the Rydzyk circle that I approached (and there were many) even got back to us. Not even to say no. Quite telling.  Arguably, when one individual wields so much power over a government, scrutiny is appropriate, even inevitable. Not so for Tadeusz Rydzyk, it seems.  He is exactly as I remembered him before I left Poland. Only more powerful.  Ireneusz Krzeminski - author, What Does Radio Maryja Teach Us? and professor of sociology, Warsaw University


aljazeera--2019-06-26--Al Jazeera Wins Gold Silver at New York Festivals Radio Awards

Al Jazeera Wins Gold, Silver at New York Festivals Radio Awards

Flanked by industry peers on Monday in New York, Al Jazeera Digital received a Gold Radio award for its current affairs podcast The Take and a Silver Radio award for its sports and lifestyle podcast Game of Our Lives.  The trophies were conferred during the New York Festivals Radio Awards gala in Manhattan in recognition of a wide spectrum of radio content submitted from 35 countries across a variety of genres, including breaking news, podcasts, audiobooks, live events, audio dramas and documentaries.  The Gold Radio award marked a first industry recognition for The Take, which began its weekly production less than a year ago.  Hosted by Malika Bilal, The Take interviews journalists from Al Jazeera's international bureaus to take a deeper look at the events that are shaping our world.  Al Jazeera Digital's head of audio, Graelyn Brashear received the awards in front of a packed audience.  Fellow winners and nominees included industry peers from The Guardian, BBC, Vox and CBC.  "It's an honour to receive these awards on behalf of our talented, hard-working audio teams," Brashear said from the sidelines of the ceremony.  "The Gold award for The Take is also a win for Al Jazeera's correspondents and producers in TV and Digital, whose firsthand knowledge of the regions they're covering help us to produce a show that truly covers the globe."  "Podcasting is new for us at the Al Jazeera Media Network," said Carlos van Meek, Director of Digital Innovation and Programming, "so this win confirms there is a home for our content in audio and that our team is on the right track editorially."  "We're very proud of what we've accomplished in a short time and with the resources at our disposal. I'd ask discerning listeners to watch this space. More award-winning content is on the way."  Drawing upon the appeal of the world's most popular sport, Game of our Lives won the Silver Radio Award for its treatment of football as a metaphor for global living.  Weaving together interviews with athletes, cultural icons and commentators, Game of our Lives spans the interconnected worlds of sportsmanship, politics and cinema.  The podcast emerged ahead of competitors ESPN Films, BBC Radio 5 Live and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.


bbc--2019-03-23--Ball-by-ball radio commentary of IPL on BBC

The BBC has signed a two-year deal to broadcast ball-by-ball commentary of the Indian Premier League.  The 2019 edition of the world's biggest T20 competition begins on Saturday, 23 March and runs until 12 May.  Matches will be broadcast on both the BBC Sport website and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra (UK only).  Coverage of the Indian Premier League (IPL) kicks off a big summer of cricket on BBC radio, including the World Cup and the men's and women's Ashes.  "This summer of cricket is set to be one of the most exciting in recent memory and I'm thrilled we're kicking it off with comprehensive coverage of the IPL, which is one of the sport's most vibrant competitions," said Ben Gallop, head of radio and digital for BBC Sport.  As well as match commentary, The Doosra podcast will round up the IPL action each week with England's Women's World Cup-winning bowler Isa Guha, stand-up comedian Aatif Nawaz and BBC Asian Network host Ankur Desai.


bbc--2019-04-03--BBC secures Premier League radio rights until 2022

The BBC has secured radio rights for Premier League games for another three years until the end of the 2021-22 season.  BBC Radio 5 live will have commentary of around 140 games a season - more than any other broadcaster.  The station will also be the only place to listen to Premier League games on a Sunday at 2pm and 4.30pm.  The BBC will also have the first pick of Saturday 3pm game, plus matches on Friday, Saturday and Monday evenings.  "Live radio coverage of the Premier League is a key element of the BBC's audience offer for football fans," said director of BBC Sport Barbara Slater, after the BBC secured four of the seven packages on offer.  "The quality of our production, commentary, analysis and presentation is unrivalled and it's something we are immensely proud of."  Match of the Day already has a contract to show Premier League highlights until at least the 2021-22 season.  The BBC Sport website has live text commentary of all matches.  You can listen to BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC 5 Live Sports Extra on BBC Sounds, digital radio, online at bbc.co.uk/5live, Digital Freeview, Sky, Freesat, Virgin Media and 909 & 693 AM.


bbc--2019-05-28--Radio 5 Live to broadcast Joshua title fight with Ruiz Jr

Unified world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua's first fight in America will be broadcast on BBC Radio 5 Live.  Joshua's US bow on 1 June sees him face America-born Andy Ruiz Jr at New York's Madison Square Garden, a "bucket list" venue according to BBC Sport boxing correspondent Mike Costello.  The contest, for the IBF, WBA and WBO world titles, will take place at around 03:00 BST on Sunday, 2 June.  Costello said the 29-year-old's career is moving on to "another iconic venue".  Costello, who will call the action from ringside, added: "There are hallowed arenas across all sports that bring an extra dimension to a commentator's excitement and Madison Square Garden, especially for a world heavyweight title fight, belongs high on the bucket list."  Joshua's bout will be one of three commentaries on BBC Radio 5 Live, following Callum Smith's defence of his WBA world super-middleweight title against Hassan N'Dam and Katie Taylor's lightweight showdown with Delphine Persoon, where all four women's world titles are on the line.  Throughout the week, 5 Live's boxing podcast with Costello and Steve Bunce will deliver fresh editions on Monday, after the midweek main event news conference, following Friday's weigh-in and on Sunday morning in the hours after the bout.  The BBC Sport website will provide updates throughout the week, as well as a live text commentary in the early hours of Sunday morning.  Joshua has not been in action since his impressive win last September over Alexander Povetkin, where he took his record to 22 wins from 22 fights, including 21 knockouts.  Ruiz stepped up for the bout when it was announced Joshua's original opponent Jarrell Miller failed drugs tests in April.  Ruiz, who has one loss in 33 fights, has said Joshua "fights like a big robot" in the build-up, while Joshua has labelled his opponent "a great challenger".  Ben Gallop, head of BBC Radio and Digital Sport, said: "Anthony Joshua is one of the most iconic British sportsmen of his generation and his first fight in the USA is an event not to be missed. I'm delighted we're able to bring our listeners exclusive commentary of the bout on BBC Radio 5 Live and the BBC Sport website following the conclusion of the all-English Champions League final, making for an unmissable night of sport on 5 Live this Saturday."


bbc--2019-11-23--Greta Thunberg to guest edit Radio 4's Today programme

Environmental activist, Greta Thunberg is to appear as one of the Christmas guest editors of Radio 4's Today programme.  The 16-year-old campaigner will be one of five high-profile people who will take over the programme during the festive period, as is tradition.  The others include Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry and Supreme Court president Baroness Hale of Richmond.  George the Poet and journalist Charles Moore will also take the reins.  They will each guest edit an edition of the Radio 4 programme between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve.  Thunberg was nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, after spearheading a global movement demanding world leaders take action over climate change. It led to co-ordinated school strikes across the globe.  The Swedish activist's name is synonymous with the fight to save the planet. Thunberg's voice appears on the opening track of the forthcoming album by the popular UK rock band, The 1975.  "We are right now at the beginning of a climate and ecological crisis. And we need to call it what it is: an emergency," Thunberg is heard saying on the track.  Thunberg will speak to the world's leading climate change figures and hear from frontline activists, the BBC said.  She has also commissioned reports from the Antarctic and Zambia, as well as a Mishal Husain interview with the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney.  Elsewhere, Baroness Hale will give Today a tour of the Supreme Court and explore the concept of coercive control. while Perry will help to examine stereotypes and conventional thinking.  Moore will focus on freedom of expression, and spoken word artist-turned-podcaster George will report from Uganda and explore issues around identity.  Previous guest editors of the show have included the Duke of Sussex, Angelina Jolie, former House of Commons speaker John Bercow and David Dimbleby, as well as Sir Lenny Henry, Nicola Adams, Tracey Emin, Professor Stephen Hawking and Sir Richard Branson.  Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


bbc--2019-12-19--US radio host fired over 'nice school shooting' comments

A radio host has lost his job after saying he would like "a nice school shooting" to interrupt the "never-ending" coverage of US President Donald Trump's impeachment.  Chuck Bonniwell apologised on Twitter for his "inappropriate comment" before deleting the post.  The station, based in Denver, Colorado, has confirmed it has now axed the news programme, the Chuck and Julie Show.  A student was killed in a Denver school shooting earlier this year.  The right-leaning station, 710 KNUS, said it was cancelling the show "given the history of school violence that has plagued our community".  "You know, you wish for a nice school shooting to interrupt the monopoly," Mr Bonniwell said on air of the impeachment news coverage.  His wife and co-host of the show, Julie Hayden, hit back: "No, don't even say that! He didn't say that."  "No one would be hurt," he clarified.  John Castillo, whose son Kendrick was killed in a shooting at the STEM School Highlands Ranch near Denver in May, said the comments were "unbelievable".  "I made an inappropriate comment meant as a joke. I'm sorry it was not received that way," Mr Bonniwell said on Twitter, before the post was deleted.  Denver's Columbine High School marked the 20th anniversary of a shooting that killed 13 people in April.  710 KNUS has replaced the Chuck and Julie Show with America First, presented by Sebastian Gorka - a former aide to President Trump.


bbcuk--2019-01-11--Zoe Ball Im such a different person to my Radio 1 days

Zoe Ball: I'm such a different person to my Radio 1 days

It's fair to say Zoe Ball's new breakfast show is going to strike quite a different tone to the one she hosted on Radio 1 in the late 1990s.  "I remember our quiz Shop 'Em or Drop 'Em, where Hollywood stars would have to either give us a piece of gossip or drop their pants, and Samuel L Jackson dropped his jeans," the presenter recalls to BBC News.  "It was quite wild... I saw my old team recently and we were like, 'God, do you remember when we went to France for the Euros and I broke Simon Mayo's ankle playing five-a-side football?  "Those little things have come back to me. But the main thing that's come back to me is how much fun breakfast radio is."  It's just as well she feels that way, as Ball is gearing up for a new life of alarm clocks and afternoon naps as she replaces Chris Evans on Radio 2's breakfast show from Monday, following his nine-year tenure.  It's one of several schedule changes at the station - Rylan Clark-Neal is joining to take over Ball's weekend slot and there are new weekday programmes for Jo Whiley, Trevor Nelson and Sara Cox, who moves to Drivetime.  But it's Ball who has landed the big gig.  As the most listened to programme in the UK by some distance, hosting the Radio 2 breakfast show is, quite simply, the top job in radio.  Evans's departure came at the end of a turbulent year for the station, in which Whiley joined Mayo on Drivetime - a format change which lasted just a few months and was a total disaster with listeners.  Ball's appointment was also not without controversy, with the radio industry and indeed many listeners expecting one of her colleagues to get the breakfast job.  "A small spurt of positive publicity, from the announcement of Zoe Ball as Evans's successor, was offset by disappointment from some listeners, who would have preferred Sara Cox," wrote Mark Lawson in the Radio Times in a wide-ranging piece that outlined Radio 2's troubles.  Acknowledging Cox's status as frontrunner, Ball says: "I think it's because Sara had been Chris's stand-in, and I love Sara, and so it's actually all turned out so brilliantly - she starts her new [Drivetime] show on Monday.  "And it's also nice not being the only new girl. I mean, I'm not a new girl, I've been at Radio 2 for years, but in that new role.  Speaking to This Morning on Wednesday, Cox joked: "The ancient Chinese proverb says the stand-in never gets the gig. It just doesn't happen in radio. So I never thought I was going to get breakfast."  She added: "The beauty about this moment is there are more women coming through in broadcasting. Zoe and I have been texting non-stop about our various anxiety dreams we've been having.  "But I think Zoe's got the job because she's a great broadcaster, not because she's got fallopian tubes."  Some have argued, however, that the number of women on radio isn't quite as progressive as it looks.  "Sara Cox, Zoe Ball, Jo Whiley all came out of the 1990s, and at that time they were all called 'ladettes', i.e. women you can have a pint with," Observer radio critic Miranda Sawyer told Media Masters last month.  "What I find quite interesting is that those women, while still seen as women and eminently qualified to do that job, are all seen as slightly blokey, so they're allowed into the blokes' world."  With that in mind, has the radio industry really changed since those nineties days?  "I do think [it has], but also we've changed," replies Ball. "I think the ladette culture was a label thing, and it was the nineties and it was Britpop and it was quite wild.  "To be honest with you, I think you try to live up to that, I don't think actually it was as rock'n'roll as we professed it to be, but 20 years on, you're mums, you've been working, you've learned a lot, you're at a different point in your life.  "I'm nearly 50, you've got to grow up at some point, I'm such a different person to the one I was at Radio 1... and I like to think that women are treated slightly differently to back then."  Ball plans to juggle breakfast with her Strictly: It Takes Two presenting gig in the latter part of the year.  Which means she may find herself regularly interviewing her new rival Evans, who has already said he'll be taking part in the next series.  Under his stewardship, the Radio 2 breakfast show has generally attracted between nine and 10 million listeners, according to industry body Rajar, which monitors ratings.  Ball will, however, likely be feeling relieved that his listening figures dropped to a six-year low on the last quarter to be published before he left. Will she be concerned with audience levels?  "You can't help but pay attention to the Rajars," she admits.  "It's going to be interesting times, I'm going to be up against Chris, I'm up against Jamie Theakston [on Heart], my old telly husband. But I feel generally it's a really exciting time for radio, and I hope we can make a success of it."  The 48-year-old says her features on the new show will include Why Wednesdays, where researchers from QI will answer listeners' questions, and The Ken O'Clock News, building up to Ken Bruce at 09:30.  "The thing we really wanna do is bring lots of music, lots of energy, not too much chat - but enough, and we want people to have learned something by the end of the show," says Ball.  "And I think the show you start with might not necessarily be the show you finish with, I'm sure the listeners will tell us very quickly if they're loving features or not, but we want people to feel that they're part of the show, and that we're listening to them about things that they want."  The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show will be broadcast Monday-Friday, 06:30-09.30 GMT, on BBC Radio 2, from Monday 14 January.


bbcuk--2019-01-11--Zoe Ball on choosing her first song for Radio 2 Breakfast Show

New Radio 2 Breakfast Show presenter Zoe Ball has revealed how she chose what will be her very first song as she begins her new role next week.  Ball replaced Chris Evans after he announced he would be leaving to host the breakfast programme on Virgin Radio.  Speaking on BBC One's The One Show, she told viewers her famous guest line-up included stars such as Saoirse Ronan and Hugh Jackman.  Ball's first Radio 2 Breakfast Show will be on 14 January.


bbcuk--2019-01-14--Zoe Ball earns respect with new BBC Radio 2 breakfast show

Zoe Ball has begun her tenure as BBC Radio 2's first female weekday breakfast host by playing Aretha Franklin's Respect as her first song.  "It had to be a dame on this occasion," she told listeners.  Ball has taken over from Chris Evans in the most listened-to slot on the UK airwaves.  She began Monday's show with the words: "Hello, my name is Zoe. How's your belly off for spots? Good morning Radio 2 superstar listeners, here we go."  The saying "How's your belly off for spots?" is an alternative way of asking: "How are you?"  Ball inherits about nine million listeners from Evans and told listeners he sent her a "lovely message" on Sunday night.  Evans will start his new rival show on Virgin Radio next week.  Referring to messages of support sent by fans before the show, Ball said: "It's been really wonderful for all of us. It's been really positive."  And she received some good early feedback from listeners on Twitter.  Others didn't take to her style straight away, though.  Ball has previously hosted the Radio 1 breakfast show and weekend breakfast shows on Radio 2. Her guests on Monday's show will be John Cleese and Nadiya Hussain.  Her breakfast show will run from 06:30-09:30 Monday to Friday, with Tina Daheley reading the news, Mike Williams on sport and Richie Anderson doing travel.  Speaking about her plans, Ball told BBC News: "The thing we really wanna do is bring lots of music, lots of energy, not too much chat - but enough, and we want people to have learned something by the end of the show."  The 48-year-old said features on the new show would include Why Wednesdays, where researchers from QI will answer listeners' questions, and The Ken O'Clock News, building up to Ken Bruce at 09:30.  Her new show is part of a new Radio 2 line-up that is launching on Monday. Sara Cox will launch her drivetime show, Jo Whiley will begin a new evening solo slot, and Trevor Nelson will bring his Rhythm Nation to late nights.  Rylan Clark-Neal will take over Ball's old weekend afternoon slot from this Saturday.  Ball earned between £250,000 and £299,000 for her various BBC presenting jobs at the BBC last year, including Strictly: It Takes Two, which she will continue to host.  Evans was paid £1.6m last year to host the breakfast show. When she got the job, Ball said she was "not expecting the same" as her predecessor but was "very, very happy with what the BBC are paying me".  Evans hosted his final Radio 2 breakfast show on Christmas Eve after 13 years with the station. He will have had a four-week break by the time he joins Virgin on 21 January.  His new programme is being billed as the first commercial radio breakfast show without conventional advert breaks. Instead, it will be sponsored by Sky, and Evans will promote the company's programmes during his slot.  Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


bbcuk--2019-01-14--Zoe Ball kicks off new BBC Radio 2 breakfast show

Zoe Ball has launched her first BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, taking over from Chris Evans in the most listened-to slot on the UK airwaves.  Ball will inherit about nine million listeners from Evans, who starts his rival Virgin Radio show next week.  Ball has previously hosted the Radio 1 breakfast show and weekend breakfasts on Radio 2 - and is now the station's first female weekday breakfast host.  The guests on Monday's show will be John Cleese and Nadiya Hussain.  Her breakfast show will run from 06:30-09:30 Monday to Friday, with Tina Daheley reading the news, Mike Williams on sport and Richie Anderson doing travel.  Speaking about her plans, Ball told BBC News: "The thing we really wanna do is bring lots of music, lots of energy, not too much chat - but enough, and we want people to have learned something by the end of the show."  The 48-year-old said features on the new show would include Why Wednesdays, where researchers from QI will answer listeners' questions, and The Ken O'Clock News, building up to Ken Bruce at 09:30.  Her new show is part of a new Radio 2 line-up that is launching on Monday. Sara Cox will launch her drivetime show, Jo Whiley will begin a new evening solo slot, and Trevor Nelson will bring his Rhythm Nation to late nights.  Rylan Clark-Neal will take over Ball's old weekend afternoon slot from this Saturday.  Ball earned between £250,000 and £299,000 for her various BBC presenting jobs at the BBC last year, including Strictly: It Takes Two, which she will continue to host.  Evans was paid £1.6m last year to host the breakfast show. When she got the job, Ball said she was "not expecting the same" as her predecessor but was "very, very happy with what the BBC are paying me".  Evans hosted his final Radio 2 breakfast show on Christmas Eve after 13 years with the station. He will have had a four-week break by the time he joins Virgin on 21 January.  His new programme is being billed as the first commercial radio breakfast show without conventional advert breaks. Instead, it will be sponsored by Sky, and Evans will promote the company's programmes during his slot.  Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


bbcuk--2019-01-14--Zoe Ball starts her role as BBC Radio 2s Breakfast presenter

Zoe Ball starts her role as BBC Radio 2's Breakfast presenter.

She is BBC Radio 2's first female weekday breakfast host.  She began Monday's show with the words: "Hello, my name is Zoe. How's your belly off for spots? Good morning Radio 2 superstar listeners, here we go."


bbcuk--2019-01-21--Simon Mayo to launch classical station Scala Radio after leaving Radio 2

Former BBC Radio 2 DJ Simon Mayo is to lead the line-up on a new classical music radio station.  Mayo, who left his Radio 2 drivetime show just before Christmas, will host a mid-morning show on Scala Radio when it launches on 4 March.  The station will hope to win listeners from BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM.  Mayo said the digital station would be different to its rivals because "we're going all out to entertain, laugh with the listeners and have a good time".  The station's owners Bauer Media said Mayo's new show would include celebrity interviews, listener interaction and a classical version of the long-running Confessions feature from his Radio 1 and Radio 2 days.  "There are hundreds of radio stations playing rock and pop, and only two classical music stations up until now," Mayo said.  "We're different because we're going all out to entertain, laugh with the listeners, and have a good time. Some of it will be familiar, some new and exciting but all timeless, beautiful and all absolutely relevant to today".  Mayo presented Radio 2's drivetime slot for eight years, co-presenting with Jo Whiley for the final seven months.  But their show was scrapped after a backlash from listeners, with Whiley moving back to evenings and Sara Cox taking over drivetime.  Mayo will continue to co-host his BBC Radio 5 Live's Friday film show with Mark Kermode - and Kermode has also been given his own slot playing film scores on Scala Radio.  Angellica Bell and Chris Rogers will host weekend shows, while DJs Goldie and William Orbit will front their own series.  The Scala line-up will also feature Charles Nove, Mark Forrest, Sam Hughes and Jamie Crick.  The launch comes amid resurgent interest in classical music - it was the fastest-growing musical genre in 2018, with sales and streams up 10% on the previous year.  Scala will replace Heat Radio in Bauer's portfolio of national DAB stations after the company said Heat would become an online-only station with no presenters.  Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


bbcuk--2019-02-07--Rajar figures Greg James boosts Radio 1 breakfast audience by 230000

Rajar figures: Greg James boosts Radio 1 breakfast audience by 230,000

More than 230,000 extra listeners have been tuning in to the Radio 1 breakfast show since Greg James took over from Nick Grimshaw in August.  According to industry body Rajar, his reach in the last three months of 2018 was 5.1 million - up on the 4.8 million recorded between July and September.  "It's brilliant that our new and fresh Radio 1 breakfast show is doing so well," Bob Shennan, director of BBC Radio and Music, said.  However, Radio 1 as a whole went down.  The station dropped from 9.6 million in the third quarter of 2018 to 9.37 million in the fourth.  Latest figures also show Chris Evans grew his breakfast audience at Radio 2 by 241,000 listeners before leaving in December.  Yet his overall audience was still down on the equivalent period in 2017.  Rajar puts his audience between October and December 2018 as 9.06 million - an increase on the 8.8 million between July and September.  But he had been up as high as 9.43 million at the end of of 2017.  Rajar's figures do not show how the Radio 1 breakfast show fares between Friday and Sunday, when Matt Edmondson and Mollie King take over the booth. The station split its breakfast shows into Monday-Thursday and Friday-Sunday last year.  Over at Magic, Ronan Keating and Harriet Scott are celebrating the biggest audience the station's breakfast show has ever attracted - 1.53 million.  There will also be jubilation at the British-only radio station Union Jack, whose exclusively domestic content has recorded the fastest-growing audience in the UK.  The digital station, established in 2016 in the wake of the Brexit referendum, increased its reach by 73% year-on-year to 153,000 weekly listeners.  Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


bbcuk--2019-02-12--Desert Island Discs greatest radio show of all time

Desert Island Discs 'greatest radio show of all time'

Desert Island Discs has been named the greatest radio programme of all time by a panel of industry experts.  The BBC Radio 4 show, which since 1942 has been inviting famous guests to share their favourite musical choices, beat drama The Archers to the top spot.  Other choices in the Radio Times poll included Wake Up To Wogan, John Peel and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Many of the 30 programmes on the list are no longer broadcast, with almost a third being comedies or panel shows.  Desert Island Discs is currently presented by Lauren Laverne, who is filling in while Kirsty Young is being treated for fibromyalgia.  The programme invites high-profile guests to choose eight discs, a book and a luxury item to take with them as they are castaway on a mythical desert island.  Prime ministers and industry leaders have all been castaways, with notable recent guests having included Sir David Attenborough, JK Rowling, Yoko Ono and David Beckham.  Desert Island Discs producer Cathy Drysdale said the accolade was "wonderful", attributing it to an "absolute genius format".  Radio Times editor Mark Frith said the "poll illustrates how memorable and timeless great radio can be".  The list was compiled by 46 industry experts, of which 42 had a professional connection to the BBC.  Terry Wogan's BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, which ran for more than 25 years until 2009, was in 12th position, just ahead of John Peel's late-night BBC Radio 1 programme, on air between 1967 and 2004.


bbcuk--2019-02-26--Capital Heart and Smooth cull local radio shows

Capital, Heart and Smooth cull local radio shows

Global media has announced it will launch UK-wide national breakfast shows on Capital, Heart and Smooth radio.  Global say they will be creating the three largest commercial radio breakfast shows in the UK, with 4.8m, 3.7m and 2.7m listeners respectively each week.  But it means a reduction in locally produced programmes, with more than 100 jobs at risk due to the changes.  Ofcom has approved the move following a change in guidelines for local radio.  Capital will launch their network breakfast show first in April, with Heart and Smooth following later in the year.  Global says local news and travel information "will continue to air on a local licence level as per legislation requirements".  But it said its news teams would see "refreshed structures" along with engineering and marketing.  Analysis by Radio Today said that 95 local radio presenters could lose their jobs as a result of the changes.  The changes will also mean the closure of broadcast facilities. The sites earmarked for closure are Brighton, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Exeter, Gloucester, Kendal, Kent, Lancaster, Norwich and Swindon.  Global's revamp is likely to be replicated at its biggest commercial rival, Bauer, which owns stations like Kiss, Absolute and Magic.  The companies have been given the go-ahead by broadcasting regulator Ofcom, which relaxed its rules on how and where stations make their programmes last October.  Stations still need to apply to change their formats, and Ofcom has published a number of approved format changes for Global Radio stations across the UK.  Ashley Tabor, Global's founder, told staff the news at a meeting on Tuesday and said it "would mean change".  Yet he also said "the ability to lead the commercial radio sector's next huge step, and to properly compete with BBC Radio 1 and 2 at breakfast time" was "a huge opportunity".  Meanwhile, Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson - who is also the shadow culture secretary - said the announcement was a "terrible blow".  He added: "The loss of more than 100 local radio jobs across the country is a travesty and particularly damaging at a time when local news is already under extreme pressure.  "Replacing local voices with London-based presenters will be a terrible loss to communities across the country."  Many big-name stars have yet to comment on the news, but some station staff have given their reaction.  BBC Berkshire presenter Paul Coia tweeted his support for his fellow radio professionals.  Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


bbcuk--2019-02-27--Stars announced for Radio 1s Big Weekend

Stars announced for Radio 1's Big Weekend

Little Mix, The 1975 and Miley Cyrus will play Radio 1's Big Weekend, with the location announced as Middlesbrough.  The music festival will take place at Stewart Park and will also feature performances from Zara Larsson, Mabel and Khalid.  Making the announcement on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, Greg James said: "I can't wait to take some of the best acts on the planet to Middlesbrough."  Big Weekend will be on 25 and 26 May.  Little Mix say they are "so excited" to perform at the event, now in its 16th year.  It'll be the fourth time The 1975, who won two Brit Awards last week, have played Big Weekend but they said it's "great to be coming back, this time as headliners".  More names will be added to the line-up at a later date.  2018: Swansea - Sam Smith, Florence and the Machine, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift  2014: Glasgow - Calvin Harris, One Direction, Paolo Nutini and Kings of Leon  The Mayor of Middlesbrough, Dave Budd, described the announcement as "a major coup for Middlesbrough" and he's looking forward to "welcoming the world" to his town.  More information on how to get tickets will be released in the coming weeks.  Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here.


bbcuk--2019-03-12--First nationwide country music radio station to launch in UK

The UK is to get its first ever national country music radio station next month.  Country Hits Radio will launch on 5 April and be aimed at listeners aged 25-44.  Baylen Leonard and Ty Bentli will be among the weekday presenters, while Saturdays singer Una Healy has been signed up to host a weekend show.  It's the latest development in the growing popularity of country music in the UK.  The announcement of Bauer's Country Hits Radio comes just 10 days after the launch of Smooth Country, an online-only station from the company's major competitor in the commercial sector, Global Radio.  It also follows the Country 2 Country music festival which took place over the weekend - which is routinely covered by BBC Radio 2 and is the biggest festival of its kind outside of the US.  "When you look at the success of artists such as The Shires and Ward Thomas as well as huge events like Country 2 Country, it's clear there's a real audience for country music in the UK," said Healy.  "It's a genre I've fallen in love with and it's thrilling that it now has a home in Country Hits Radio. I can't wait to get started!"  Healy is the second Saturday to enter the world of radio presenting. Mollie King currently co-hosts Radio 1's weekend breakfast show with Matt Edmondson.  Country Hits Radio's playlist will feature the likes of Keith Urban, Kacey Musgraves, Thomas Rhett, Maren Morris and Carrie Underwood, station bosses said.  Bauer added country was the "biggest genre of music to have previously been without its own radio station".  The station's launch is a continuation of the company's rapid expansion in the radio industry.  Bauer has already launched two new stations this year - Scala Radio and Greatest Hits Radio - and last week acquired the UKRD group, which owns 10 local radio stations in the UK.  Other stations owned by Bauer include Magic, Kiss, Planet Rock, Kerrang and Absolute.  Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


bbcuk--2019-08-01--Zoe Ball loses 780000 listeners from BBC Radio 2 breakfast show

Zoe Ball loses 780,000 listeners from BBC Radio 2 breakfast show

Zoe Ball has lost 780,000 weekly listeners from her Radio 2 breakfast show, the latest industry figures show.  The presenter took over from Chris Evans in January, after he left the station to join Virgin Radio.  In the second quarter of 2019, Ball's figures fell from 9.05m to 8.27m - but her breakfast show is still the most popular, industry body Rajar said.  Elsewhere, new classical music station Scala Radio, whose presenters include Simon Mayo, reached 250,000 listeners.  But that doesn't seem to have dented the popularity of its main commercial rival Classic FM, which increased from 5.3m in the first quarter of this year to 5.6m in the second.  The other major new station to launch this year - Country Hits Radio - recorded 208,000 listeners in its first three months on air.  Ball's decrease in listeners means Ken Bruce's mid-morning show on Radio 2 becomes the most popular radio programme in the UK, with 8.49m listeners.  Bruce said: "After 34 years as a part of the BBC Radio 2 family, I'm astounded that the allure of my daily grumpy musings, coupled with PopMaster, continue to entertain. Many thanks to the long-suffering listeners."  BBC Radio 1's Greg James attracted 5.19m listeners this quarter - his highest listening figures since taking over the breakfast show last August.  Nick Ferrari's LBC breakfast show also reached a new record audience of 1.4m, while the station as a whole attracted 2.4m weekly listeners - its best ever figures.  Eddie Mair, who left the BBC last year, has added 120,000 listeners to LBC's late afternoon show since he began presenting it in September 2018.  Another station to reach a new record audience was Kisstory - which attracted 2.32m listeners. As BBC 6 Music dropped to 2.28m this quarter, Kisstory is now the most popular digital-only station in the UK.  Roman Kemp increased Capital's breakfast show audience to 3.8m. This was the first quarter where his show has been broadcast across the whole of the UK.  Previously, each regional Capital station had its own breakfast show, which collectively attracted 3.73m in the previous quarter.  Chris Evans also went up slightly, boosting his audience on Virgin Radio from 1.04m to 1.11m.  Other national breakfast shows which improved their audience included Tom Green and Daisy Maskell (Kiss), Ronan Keating and Harriet Scott (Magic) and Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burden (BBC Radio 5 Live).  The latest figures don't fully reflect Heart's new national breakfast show - as Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden didn't join Jamie Theakston as a co-presenter until June.  Similarly, the recently-launched breakfast show on Hits Radio hosted by Fleur East, Greg and James will post its first listening figures next quarter.  Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.