On May 8th 1990, Inner City Radio opened after a few days of tests playing ‘Soul II Soul’ tapes on 102FM and announced it would broadcast Thursdays to Sundays from 10am to 10pm on 101.75FM. Like most other pirates in Bristol the schedule would be filled with Reggae, Soul, Hip Hop and black-influenced chart stars such as Lisa Stansfield. At least, that was the plan.

However, despite having very good audio and a clean signal, it failed to get the schedule running as intended in its initial broadcasts. Programming would often start late and end early with broadcasts liable to suddenly and abruptly cease. On one or two occasions, broadcasts were abandoned for a whole day.

At the beginning of June, they changed frequency to 100FM and started more regular broadcasts in earnest. Part of the schedule included a two hour show from The Soul Brothers, followed by another two hour show from The Brothers Soul. This didn’t last long though.

Despite having excellent audio quality for a pirate, on the 21st June one DJ complained on air that the very slight buzzing from the turntables was simply unacceptable and announced that the station would be shutting down for a while because the staff were all going out to buy some better decks. They reverted to tests in the form on non-stop music for a couple of hours before leaving the airwaves completely.

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Inner City Radio 100 FM – Summer Tests 1990 52 mins