Plans for Shropshire Live to launch on DAB Digital Radio, live from The Wrekin, from early next year have been unveiled to a Shropshire Rotary club.
The announcement was made to members of Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club by Chris Pritchard, co-founder of Shropshire Live, during a talk on Tuesday evening.
“We can’t wait to bring our current online service to the airwaves of Shropshire in 2026, allowing more people to listen to us in their cars, homes and offices,” said Chris.
Shropshire Live, which launched 16 years ago in 2009 as a local news and information media outlet, launched its radio service to complement its local website in October 2022. Since then, it has grown with over 80,000 people viewing the website each month and 45,000 radio listeners.
Speaking to members of Shrewsbury Severn Rotary, Chris told of how he and his business partner Martin Childs launched Shropshire Live in 2009 and grew the website as technology made the process of reporting news and broadcasting radio an easier task. “We gather news from a variety of sources, including emergency services, local authorities and people, such as Rotary, who send us information which we publish. We write our own stories, as well as sharing others. A recent major story was the fire on The Wrekin at the weekend, we shared updates from Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service warning walkers to stay away whilst they tackled the fire. Within an hour of our first update we had thousands of people reading that story which was then updated through the day – which is the benefit of being online.”
Chris told Rotary members that Shropshire Live is funded through local advertising and sponsorship deals, which enables the latest news and entertainment to be available to the 80,000-plus users for free.
Feedback from readers, including analytics, particularly Google Analytics, helps Shropshire Live to decide on what articles to include on the website and talk about on air. Chris explained that its team all work from home, with presenters broadcasting from home studios around the county, including Shrewsbury, Telford, Market Drayton, Newport and Oswestry. Chris said he would love to have presenters in Ludlow and Bridgnorth too. Talking about being involved in the community, Chris said: “We like to get out and about and as a media company help organisations like Rotary.”
He also revealed to Rotarians that younger people were not looking at news on traditional platforms, getting their updates from social media, including Instagram and TikTok, which are platforms that attract a younger audience. “Our audience is generally 30-plus up to 65,” Chris said. He added that Shropshire Live was looking to the future and harnessing technology like AI which can be a benefit but also a challenge, with search engines displaying more AI content on their own pages rather than passing traffic to publishers.
“There’s the challenge of learning new stuff, and there’s been a massive shift and change for local and national media, not only online, but in newspapers and radio. We are a small team, but constantly learning new ways of connecting with our audience.”
