Sir Lindsay Hoyle opens new cloud radio facility for The Mediasite in Lancashire

The Mediasite has officially opened its new digital base at the £4m Strawberry Fields Digital Hub in Lancashire.

And the local MP for Chorley, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was on hand to officially cut the ribbon on the new offices.

The facility is now home to hundreds of UK and worldwide radio stations whose playout systems are hosted on the Mediasite cloud, along with this very site.

Managing director, Darren Shortt, said: “This is a great move for both the company and our clients as it has the necessary infrastructure in place for us to grow the business.

“We saw during the pandemic how the need for cloud facilities in radio boomed. These facilitate full live broadcast and playout system hosting without the need for studios. With the steep rise in small-scale DAB radio stations in the UK and a growing number of stations coming online in the US, there is a lot of potential for growth in this sector.

“Radio customers need a reliable service that will keep them on-air and is affordable and the move to Strawberry Fields allows us to deliver on this.”

Among the radio industry professionals attending the launch were Red Rose Radio’s Rob Charles, Ged Mills from Coastal Radio DAB, Usha Parmar From Sunrise Radio, Ryan Davies From Like Radio, Chris Hurst From the Dee Radio Group, Debz Henley from Travel Radio and Officiating the day was Alistair Clarke MBE, who heads Fun Coast Digital which operates the DAB radio transmitter located on Blackpool Tower.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle joined the gathered dignitaries and guests to officially welcome hundreds of radio stations to be based in Chorley and said: “Radio is a great medium. People love radio and what The Mediasite is doing is to make radio accessible and affordable, and we are proud to welcome them to Chorley.”