Popular Music Show
a.k.a. PMS Radio - welcome to our online home
We are the longest-running specialist-alternative music programme on UK radio,
beginning in 1977 and with Roger Hill at the helm since 1982.
Always broadcasting live.
beginning in 1977 and with Roger Hill at the helm since 1982.
Always broadcasting live.
Play back our very last programme on Radio M at the link above ^
News and Updates
The Popular Music Show team 2025 - left to right: Karen Timms, Roger Hill, George Maund
Glory Days of Radio
Dear listener, reader and fellow fanatic,
We may have retired “PMS – The Popular Music Show” but it’s not gone without trace. If you’d like to keep in touch with us and with the glory days of the programme, here are some links you should definitely bookmark:
Catch (or catch again) our last programme on Svara HERE or at the player below.
Enjoy our epic final programme on the BBC HERE
All our playlists for the programme going back a long time are HERE
And of course our web-site will continue to be LIVE with the programme history, exclusive sessions and special musical projects
If you or someone you know would like a link to our newsletter, sign up HERE
All the best,
Roger, Karen, George
PS: One gig guide pick - this month's Outer Waves festival in Liverpool - with numerous PMS favourites performing live HERE
We may have retired “PMS – The Popular Music Show” but it’s not gone without trace. If you’d like to keep in touch with us and with the glory days of the programme, here are some links you should definitely bookmark:
Catch (or catch again) our last programme on Svara HERE or at the player below.
Enjoy our epic final programme on the BBC HERE
All our playlists for the programme going back a long time are HERE
And of course our web-site will continue to be LIVE with the programme history, exclusive sessions and special musical projects
If you or someone you know would like a link to our newsletter, sign up HERE
All the best,
Roger, Karen, George
PS: One gig guide pick - this month's Outer Waves festival in Liverpool - with numerous PMS favourites performing live HERE
Winter 2025 Announcement
This is to let listeners know that we have decided to retire “PMS - The Popular Music Show” from the airwaves with effect from Sunday 30th March. This will be the last live outing for a programme which was first broadcast in 1977 on BBC Radio Merseyside. We have had a good year’s residency at Svara Radio and they have supported us well for which we thank them, but we have struggled to get an audience which matches the quality of our programming.
In a crowded radio market we lacked ways to promote ourselves and exhausted our options for alternative platforms for our broadcasting. It seems best to end “the longest-running alternative music programme on UK radio” before it exhausts itself entirely. Whilst we will not be actively seeking new platforms for “PMS” we are happy to consider others’ proposals for its future.
Meanwhile the programme website (www.pmsradio.co.uk) will continue for the foreseeable and it contains links to some of the highlights of “PMS’s” time on the airwaves. We’d like to think that the example the programme has set over the decades has done something to make possible the diversity of current music broadcasting.
Thanks to all who listened to and contacted the programme over the years. We will take away a lot of great memories and feel proud of what we have done with our chance to broadcast the best to the best. We will keep the mailing address pmsradiolive(@)gmail(.)com live for post-retirement communications.
All the best
The “PMS” team.
In a crowded radio market we lacked ways to promote ourselves and exhausted our options for alternative platforms for our broadcasting. It seems best to end “the longest-running alternative music programme on UK radio” before it exhausts itself entirely. Whilst we will not be actively seeking new platforms for “PMS” we are happy to consider others’ proposals for its future.
Meanwhile the programme website (www.pmsradio.co.uk) will continue for the foreseeable and it contains links to some of the highlights of “PMS’s” time on the airwaves. We’d like to think that the example the programme has set over the decades has done something to make possible the diversity of current music broadcasting.
Thanks to all who listened to and contacted the programme over the years. We will take away a lot of great memories and feel proud of what we have done with our chance to broadcast the best to the best. We will keep the mailing address pmsradiolive(@)gmail(.)com live for post-retirement communications.
All the best
The “PMS” team.
The Popular Music Show: Now and Then
Aired live on Sundays from March 2024 to March 2025.
>> Farewell Endings Finale (the last PMS) - listening link coming soon <<
via
Svara Radio
Keep in touch
(email is ideal)
+ our newsletter is how we maintain best contact with you
Aired live on Sundays from March 2024 to March 2025.
>> Farewell Endings Finale (the last PMS) - listening link coming soon <<
via
Svara Radio
Keep in touch
(email is ideal)
+ our newsletter is how we maintain best contact with you
Our penultimate programme – find February 2025's Popular Music Show with Roger and George below:
PMS Now & Then is the current iteration of our programme: a live audio-visual broadcast streamed LIVE from Svara Radio on the last Sunday of each month then shared here (below) as a keepsake for ever after...
Listen to PMS Now & Then on Mixcloud
BBC Radio Merseyside Update Summer 2023
“The Popular Music Show” ceased broadcasting on the BBC on May 19th 2023. This brought to an end 46 years of alternative music on Radio Merseyside. It is of course all to do with the changes to Local Radio which will affect pretty much everybody on the station by the summer.
That final show on the BBC is available for re-listen here and clips of programmes from across the years live on BBC Sounds - stream away.
The final programmes were a series of “specials”, to manage a decent retrospect for listeners, including programmes dedicated to World Music, Local Music, Music Sessions, Interviews with musical eminences from our time on-air, and climaxing in a whole evening of on-air celebration including another of our “Live Relays” (formerly from Berlin and Estonia, but this from a little nearer to home).
It's worth remembering that we will end as the longest-running alternative music show on UK radio, and that we have always been a pioneering and adventurous programme.
In November 1992 we broadcast the first on-air live mixing on the BBC
We broadcast a remix of one of our programmes (remixed in Berlin) while the programme was still broadcasting
We were the Regional Rock Show back when regional was first a “thing”
We recently broadcast a live relay from Estonia with Tallinn band Shelton San, only the second time in history that an Estonian band has had a session with the BBC (the first being 40 years ago, a John Peel Session)
And we have kept faith with the local creative underground where the real genius of the city and region is to be found.
PMS will continue to exist with our regular shows on local digital station Melodic Distraction.
Keep up to date with us via our mailing list.
- The PMS Team
That final show on the BBC is available for re-listen here and clips of programmes from across the years live on BBC Sounds - stream away.
The final programmes were a series of “specials”, to manage a decent retrospect for listeners, including programmes dedicated to World Music, Local Music, Music Sessions, Interviews with musical eminences from our time on-air, and climaxing in a whole evening of on-air celebration including another of our “Live Relays” (formerly from Berlin and Estonia, but this from a little nearer to home).
It's worth remembering that we will end as the longest-running alternative music show on UK radio, and that we have always been a pioneering and adventurous programme.
In November 1992 we broadcast the first on-air live mixing on the BBC
We broadcast a remix of one of our programmes (remixed in Berlin) while the programme was still broadcasting
We were the Regional Rock Show back when regional was first a “thing”
We recently broadcast a live relay from Estonia with Tallinn band Shelton San, only the second time in history that an Estonian band has had a session with the BBC (the first being 40 years ago, a John Peel Session)
And we have kept faith with the local creative underground where the real genius of the city and region is to be found.
PMS will continue to exist with our regular shows on local digital station Melodic Distraction.
Keep up to date with us via our mailing list.
- The PMS Team
PMS Radio Link List
Popular Music Show jump-off points:
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• LISTEN BACK to our Radio Merseyside archive on BBC Sounds.
• HEAR OUR Now & Then / Extra broadcasts on Mixcloud. • GET IN TOUCH with us by email. • CHECK our PMS Ongoing online mix series. • SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter and keep up-to-date with new and challenging music, PMS team goings-on and announcements. • FOLLOW our Facebook page, the PMS Instagram. • VISIT the Archive section for programme updates, links and more. + be sure to check Sessions, Playlists and everything else up top in our horizontal menu. |
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Roger Hill's 40th Anniversary Special
"It's Been A While" - read the newsletter
Visit our Archive section for Programme Links and much more
"It's Been A While" - read the newsletter
Visit our Archive section for Programme Links and much more
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Roger Hill outside FACT in Liverpool, next to a poster for Sonic Yootha.
