ABOUT US
Reform Radio broadcasts the best in music, arts and culture from Manchester to the World.
We’re a multi-award winning online radio station and arts organisation working with local creatives, DJs and young people to develop and showcase new work via our online platforms. This large active community works together to create all the content on Reform Radio, supported by regular outside broadcasts within the city, as well as specially recorded shows from artists across the globe.
Our main focus is to use our platform to engage young people looking for new opportunities, working creatively with them over a sustained period to develop new skills for employment. In 20/21 we delivered 906 creative sessions and hundreds of pastoral sessions supporting 312 young adults, 80% of whom progressed into employment, education or volunteering. We worked with 194 individual freelancers, creating 445 freelance opportunities and injecting £217,113.39 into the creative economy.
We’ve been repeatedly recognised by MixCloud as one of the top five radio stations in Europe at their Online Radio Awards and are a proud Manchester City Council Cultural partner, using our platform to showcase the city on a global scale. We’re also a British Podcast Award winning production company, developing industry audio as well as branded multimedia content and events for clients and partners.
To get in touch, please visit our contact page
OUR STORY
In 2013 three friends Jemma, Rachel and Sam had an idea of using the rapidly growing online radio scene to engage and work with young people looking for employment. After self funding a pilot in which five young people created a world class radio show in just a week, they realised they actually needed a radio station to play it on. So in May 2014 they began broadcasting from the basement of the share house where they met, turning off the loud washing machine above during broadcasts and enticing DJs to play with Harty home cooked meals.
Within the space of a year, the interest in artists and DJs wanting to do shows had outgrown the tiny basement and Reform needed a new space to expand into. This is where Reform Radio’s long standing relationship with Allied London began, with the developers offering up Coronation Street’s old dubbing suite in the heart of Old Granada Studios. Reform quickly began broadcasting 24/7 and was able to offer regular employment and training programmes to young people from Allied’s event space.
By 2018 Allied London’s Enterprise City development was well underway with the studios sadly slated to be part of this work. Keen to keep Reform as part of this new creative community, Allied worked with Reform to secure funding to build an accessible and culturally demongratic space in the heart of the city. For this work they won best Business Partnership at the Manchester Culture Awards 2019. Reform’s new space, which thoughtfully accentuates the features of this Grade 1 listed warehouse, the oldest in Manchester, includes two high end studios, a small cap, live-to-air event space with custom sound install and modular workshop and office spaces.
