Annual Report
Of The Trustees
2025
Overview.
The Trustees of Bedrock Radio have compiled a report of station activities over the last 12-month period, including annual accounts.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476
Reporting period: 01.02.2025 to 31.01.2026
Our Charity.
Bedrock Radio is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) No: 1180476 registered with the Charity Commission of England & Wales.
Bedrock Radio is run entirely by a membership volunteers, with no paid staff.
The CIO is governed by a constitution, supported with associated policies, that is managed by the charity trustees who are elected by CIO membership. The trustees oversee the daily operations of Bedrock Radio, acting in best interest of the CIO and supporting its volunteers to further the charitable objectives.
In 2023 Bedrock Radio secured a Community Digital Sound Programme Service (C-DSP) licence from The Office of Communications (Ofcom) and began broadcasting on DAB Digital Radio in December 2025 across Northeast London and Southwest Essex area.
Charitable Objective of the CIO
1) The relief of sickness, poor health and old age amongst people living in East London, South Essex and immediate surrounding areas by providing a local broadcasting service for hospitals, residential homes and similar institutions, and for patients receiving community care;
2) The advancement of health and prevention or relief of sickness for the public benefit through the promotion of the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, and the importance of maintaining good personal mental and physical health by (mainly, but not exclusively) the means of broadcasting health education messages to people living in East London, South Essex and immediate surrounding areas.
Key Commitments with Ofcom
Key commitments (known as a character of service) are agreed with regulator Ofcom and provide a condition of licencing of the nature of community service we provide as a C-DSP service.
Description of character of service:
Bedrock Radio is a radio service intended to serve People using healthcare services, and healthcare staff. Targeting those with sickness, poor health and long-term conditions, who are users of health services such as Hospitals, units, clinics, residential homes and similar institutions and for patients receiving community care, in East London and South Essex.
Trustee Reports & Accounts
Trustee Board 2025: Mat Watson Station Manager (Chair) | Chris Deighton Secretary | Lee Howe Engineering Beverley Stroud Treasurer & Fundraising | Gill Rowley Admin Support
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476
Introduction.
2025 has been a landmark year for Bedrock Radio, marked the launch of DAB+ Digital Radio broadcasting. As a volunteer ‑ run charity serving hospitals, health centres, and the wider community across East London and ‑ West Essex, Bedrock Radio has continued to evolve from its traditional hospital radio roots into a modern, ‑ community focused broadcaster. The station’s digital platforms, including the Bedrock Radio App and online streaming services, have continued to support listeners across hospitals and the community.
Bedrock Radio has averaged approximately 20 volunteers throughout the year, of which 40% are presenting programmes on-air over the week.
2025 has been a year of focusing on our launch on DAB Digital Radio, and after several missed launch dates, the first transmitter of the multiplex operated by East London and Essex Digital, went LIVE on 31[st] December 2025, with all sites being online by early January 2026.
The Digital Radio coverage can be heard (East/West) Stratford to Billericay and (North/South) Ongar to Thurrock. As radio signals carry, we’ve been informed the signal has reached parts of Hackney, Dartford, Epping & outer areas of Chelmsford. It’s been estimated by our operator 2.3 million people can comfortably pick up the NEL/SWE Multiplex. With Bedrock Radio being the only ‘health’ themed service on the multiplex.
Volunteer Membership.
In 2024 further tweaks and changes to our recruitment process have been made. Bedrock Radio continue to work closely with Volunteer Services at BHR Hospital’s Trust for volunteer onboarding, with new volunteers partially going through the Trust Volunteers process, including a seminar.
While processes such as DBS checks have become faster, there are still delays in the system, Either from occupational health, or from applicant’s not providing documents in a timely manner delaying the process and when they can be booked onto the seminars.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024 | Registered Charity 1180476
An attempt was made to re-launch Bedrock Books this year, with a view to updating how the service operates and it operating Midweek and Weekends, we began looking for new volunteers, unfortunately this has been put on hold due to Trustee unavailability and has not been pursued further at this time.
Continuing a trend from last year, we have received a number of applications from further afield; such as Kent, South London and Southall to name a few - We suspect this period is due to the DAB launch, but also other community / hospital radio services not being as responsive as us, or having out-dated information on their websites.
While we prefer local volunteers, as they have a connection to our community, we do accept volunteers from outside the area, but they must be able to get to our studios in Romford.
At the time of writing this report, we have approximately 20 volunteers on file, and 3 in the on-boarding stage.
On-Air
2025 was all about getting ready for our Digital Radio Launch. – Which finally happened on 31[st] December. This achievement marks a new era for the charity, expanding its reach across Havering, Redbridge, Barking & Dagenham, and West Essex.
Mat ran several “Getting DAB Ready” sessions for volunteers to understand what was happening, running through Ofcom rules and explaining what presenters can and should be doing once launched. DAB isn’t just about having ‘more listeners’ – It’s about making Bedrock Radio more accessible and putting the charity in a better position to serve hospitals, health hubs, residential homes and the local community better.
While we offer presenters the option to do programmes Live or Voice Tracked. The charity’s preference is
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024 | Registered Charity 1180476
for our daytime programmes (Lunchtime & Evening shows) should be presented LIVE as much as possible.
This offers opportunities for live interviews with medical professionals, councillors, people of interest and most importantly having listener interaction, which encourages dialogue, local discussion, and the expression of opinion to foster community cohesion, known as ‘Social Gains’, as outlined in Ofcom licencing for community station.
This is an area that everyone on-air needs to improve on and general presenter participation needs to be improved in terms of doing Interviews, interactive content and even special shows. It has been very hard to plan things with such little response or interest from presenters.
Fustratatingly and disappointingly, we’ve had an increase of presenters agreeing to do programmes and then failing to do them, and more disheartening is presenters missing their shows entirely giving NO notice of absence. – This is just unprofessional and not in line with Bedrock Radio’s practices, and is discourteous to the programming team.
At the moment we have many daytimes that consist of a ‘jukebox’ while this is okay, It’s not productive for a community station to be doing this. Mat has worked with individuals to record links to create ‘Filler Shows’ to break up the monotony of back-to-back ‘jukebox’ hours. As soon as a suitable regular live presenter is available, they will take these show times, and the ‘Filler Show’ can be used as ‘cover’ or to help fill other slots during the daytimes.
Bedrock Community News remains cornerstone content, while nobody at Bedrock is a qualified journalist. we ensure local stories come from proven sources, these are mostly the press-releases that are sent to us, predominantly our sources come from local Councils, Hospitals, Police & Fire reports. Whereby we pull essential information to create a community bulletin. – The vast majority of news our scripts are voiced by an AI Voiceover, creating a separation between our presenters and the local news. We avoid all stories about politics, if we don’t think something is right, we leave it out.
Now on DAB Digital Radio, we’re encouraging presenters to also make use of tools in Myriad & links on SharePoint to mention about local sporting action and Travel information.
With our programme schedule being consistent we are appealing to local businesses to take up on-air advertising or programme sponsorship on Bedrock Radio. This is necessary to help us fund the increase in running fees now we’re on DAB. We need all volunteers help to secure advertisers and sponsors.
Publicity & Fundraising
Support from our membership at Fundraising Events is very hit and miss.
It has been disheartening for Beverley, who arranges events to have such little support from our own team. For instance, a recent ‘tin-shake’ was attended by just ONE member.
Other events people have offered to help, attended and have been witnessed walking off and not helping.
Bedrock’s annual Quiz Night at the Crumpled Horn in Upminster, suffered a similar disappointment, with a very low. We plan to host a 2026 quiz, as we know these events have great fundraising potential, and needs support from our own team to help make it a success.
On a more positive note;
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024 | Registered Charity 1180476
We’ve continued to receive income from the Online Donations (Via CAF Donate), EasyFundraising and the Havering Local Lottery. A number of collection tins placed out into the community last year came back and raised some great passive income for us, these tins will be re-sealed and placed back into the local area.
The Bedrock Roadshow was out again for the Mind Essex Family Fest at Harrow Lodge Park, then over Christmas we attended Hornchurch, Elm Park, Collier Row and Upminster, Providing a great promotional opportunity for the station and raising over £600 in the process!
With around 20 volunteers on our books, we hope the show of support improves in 2026. Fundraising isn’t everyone’s favourite activity, but many of these events double up as promotional events and even outside broadcasts - If you have ideas for events or something you want to host, then talk to Beverley, we can help provide materials needed.
Bedrock has signed up to DONR, a Text Giving platform, that allows donations via SMS message, like all 3[rd] party platforms, we do loose a small amount in processing fee (5%).
However, the platform also offers ‘Text Raffles’, which lends itself to being able to run prize raffles on-air & off-air simultaneously with a dedicated keyword & Text Short Code, that we will look to make use of in 2026.
Mid December, we developed our Media Pack, started contacting local businesses to promote our on-air Advertising and Sponsorship opportunities.
This will be a slow process initially, Bedrock Radio has good presence internally, up on DAB Bedrock Radio is virtually unknown. So, we need to push and promote the station to start getting some interest.
As part of this and the wider DAB launch, we adopted a marketing slogan “The Heartbeat of East London and West Essex” / “ The Heartbeat of the Community” to support our DAB launch and reinforce our community identity.
As part recent IT changes & support, we have agreed a Contra-Deal with EduNet ICT, who will be the permanent sponsorship of hourly Time Check.
We have invested in some new banners that promote we’re on Digital Radio & have been using our socials more to promote shows, being on DAB & community news, where we are seeing an increase in interactions and visitors.
Finances:
Bedrock Radio’s financial position remained stable in 2025, supported by donations, fundraising activities, and careful cost management. We have tried to minimise spending to ensure we have cash reserve to run the DAB for the first year.
We received a generous donation from RBC BlueBay Asset Management, thanks to an ex-volunteer nominating us. Furthermore, several donors via CAF Donate have used Gift Aid to increase their donations.
Another slight reduction in our insurance bill was very welcome surprise from Policy Bee this year.
Frustratingly again we’ve had an increase in our ADSL broadband line at Queen’s. Our provider BOnline has tried to give us the best possible deal, however the increases are due to Openreach increasing the costs to
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476
maintain ‘Copper Cable’ lines. Despite this it is Openreach’s responsibility to upgrade the lines into the building to fibre. Lee continues to review other possible options, but none of these are coming affordable.
As we start 2026 on Digital Radio, our running cost doubled! We have estimated to cost £7000 a year to operate Bedrock Radio now. To help spread the costs DAB Transmission fees will be paid month and PRS/PPL The Music Licence will be invoiced quarterly.
Therefore, it’s more important than ever to secure advertisers and sponsors to keep the station On-Air across Northeast London and Southwest Essex.
Mat has been talking with established community FM stations Gateway 97.8 in Basildon and Phoenix FM in Brentwood to understand more on how they get funding (Both are on DAB with us too). Gateway provided some useful ideas on how perhaps we can tackle grants that we wouldn’t normally be accepted for, but using the radio-output we stand a chance.
Phoenix meanwhile, we have entered an advertising arrangement with, being that we are quite close to each other, we risk targeting the same larger brands advertisers at the same time, so have agreed to work together.
At the time of writing, we have a couple of potentially interested advertisers, we’re hoping to get on-air with us soon. Mat & Chris are continuing to send letters & emails out, with Bev following up places a few weeks later
Overall, for the first time in a few years, Bedrock Radio has made a small profit, which will be put towards the running of our Digital Radio Service.
Fiscal breakdown on the following pages;
2026 – Bedrock Radio Accounts
Bedrock Radio - Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) 1180476 Year Ended 31 January 2026
Receipts and Payments
Income
| Donations | 3580.50 |
|---|---|
| Fundraising | 1615.26 |
| Members subs | 0.00 |
| Bank Credits | 16.42 |
| Other | 49.88 |
| ----------- |
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476
| Total Receipts | 5262.06 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Expenditure | |||
| Office Supplies | 218.70 | ||
| Phone/Postage | 1340.46 | ||
| Equipment & Repairs | 164.63 | ||
| Fees and Licences | 1217.92 | ||
| Bank Charges | 25.00 | ||
| Advertising and Publicity | 0.00 | ||
| Broadcasting Expenses | 1179.60 | ||
| Fundraising Expenses | 90.72 | ||
| Other | 53.89 | ||
| ----------- | |||
| Total Expenses | 4290.92 | ||
| Balances: | 2025-2026 | ||
| 1st Feb 2025 | 31st Jan 2026 | ||
| Opening | Closing | ||
| Current Account | 8601.00 | 9572.24 | |
| Cash | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| Floats | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| ----------- | ----------- | ||
| Total | 8601.00 | 9572.24 | |
| Surplus | 971.14 | ||
| Deficit |
Simplified Accounts
Income: £5626 Expenditure: £4290
Engineering:
2025 has been mostly stable, but also some issues have still not gone away.
Myriad 6 has had several updates and improvements again, with a couple of new features added. We still occasionally have issues where Myriad will crash for no apparent reason on the AutoPC, while it hasn’t happened in a long time, it has happened and we don’t know why.
We have had to make changes to our 5G, there has been a long-standing issue with the O2 network locally, the nearest mast is just a stone’s throw away at Roneo Corner, but the connection was being throttled and dropping. We swapped to an EE sim; the signal has been more reliable with the added bonus the speed was over double! Remote Voice Tracking (when it works) has bene noticeably faster and more stable!
Unfortunately, we still have an ADSL line at Queen’s, this is due to Openreach still not upgrading lines at the hospital, this line is costing us around £50pcm. While other solutions of having cables run have been investigated, there is going to be a notable cost involved and we’re putting this off, as it’s just expensive. However as of writing, we’ve had another solution suggested to us, that we may be able to test soon.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476
Remote Voice Tracking – While RVT is a great feature to have, it’s not always the most stable tool to use. As mentioned last year, RVT uses our 5G connection which isn’t always reliable, it’s been noted several presenters have an overreliance on it, and number of people were using RVT down as an excuse not to their show. There is only 1% of the membership this is an acceptable reason, for everyone else, if RVT is down, please go into the studio to record your shows, we generally scheduling two to three weeks in advance where possible. It’s always been intended that RVT is a support tool to support volunteers who can’t get to the studio reliably, either due to medical or work commitments.
Remember: Priority : Live shows, Secondary : Studio VT Shows, Tertiary : RVT.
Bedrock Online:
App: In its lifetime The Bedrock app has surpassed 3500 downloads! The Aiir platform remains reliable, and regular updates have been pushed out. & the Studio Dashboard provides useful tool for presenters to have listener interaction on.
Website: Amazingly over 17,000 users have visited – More than double the 2024 period.
This last year we strategically published news & events of local interest, with SEO optimisation on these articles, to drive traffic, our biggest hitters have been Havering Christmas Events & Gallows Corner works. Then when we launched on DAB, we had a spike in people visiting our website & listening. This practice is something we plan continue in 2026 as it drives traffic to our website.
Online Listening: continues to be small but steady number of daily listeners, with notable peaks during live shows. Bedrock Radio is now available on the UKRadioPlayer platform brining us to Smart TVs & Smart speakers & other devices.
We Thank EduNetICT for their continued support in 2025.
Bedrock Radio on DAB Digital Radio, while we don’t know how many have ‘Made the Switch’. The multiplex operator ELED runs the 3 transmitters in Ilford, Romford and Brentwood.
Where regular reception reports have indicated that over 2.3 million people comfortably receive the service on their existing DAB+ radios. Covering the E, IG, RM + CM4, CM5, CM11 to 16 & SS13 to SS17 Postcodes.
Our assets in hospitals:
Queens: Ward Radios continue to record long listening hours often exceeding 10 hours per day, although sadly a few radios have come back broken beyond repair this year & a couple more gone missing. The Amplifier in the food court had developed a fault, however Lee repaired the old amp, which has been reinstated and music continues to play in the Food Court.
Now we’re on DAB, we’re looking for a grant or financial support to buy some cheap DAB Radios for King George Hospitals & wards our radios don’t cover which we will pre-programme & deploy.
Goodmayes:
There has been no action or involvement from Bedrock at Goodmayes throughout all 2025. Neither Lee or Mat have had time to go over due to the intensity of their day-jobs and no other volunteer stepped forward when asked to visit the site.
Now we’re on DAB, we need to try installing a DAB Tuner on the site, to connect to the wards together wards, removing the reliance on streaming services, meaning we can drop all existing broadband lines saving
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476
money, as DAB will serve the wards sufficiently.
We should talk to NEFLT about other sites within our DAB area, to see if we can secure funding for DAB Radios.
Whipps Cross:
Our equipment remains untouched, with the speakers playing loud and clear throughout. (We’ve received an email about how great the station sounds here!)
The 5G mast issues persist, these are beyond our control and is mobile infostructure issue.
We’re due to test if our DAB digital can be picked up within the former WXHR studio, where we hope to switch the speaker feed from streaming to DAB at this location, and use the 5G to monitor the stream / dropout & possibly have off-site ROT logging.
Barts Health Trust remain unresponsive, but we keep trying.
And Finally
2025 has been one of the most transformative years in Bedrock Radio’s history.
Our launch on DAB+ Digital Radio marks a major step forward and is truly turning the chapter of our radio station, moving from Hospital Radio service to Community Radio Service.
Truly expanding the station’s reach and strengthening its role in the community.
While challenges remain — particularly in volunteer participation and involvement in developing content, the charity is positioned for growth in 2026.
Promote health, wellbeing, and community connections across East London and West Essex, pushing our charitable objective further, helping people feel better, and outreach to parts of our community, and involve them in our programmes.
May 2026 be the year of “Making the Switch, To Your Healthy Music Mix”.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476
Bedrock Radio: Your Healthy Music Mix The Heartbeat of the Northeast London & Southwest Essex.
Your local radio station, serving hospitals and the community.
Bedrock Radio is a charity run radio station with the objective of; providing relief of sickness, poor health and old age, and advancement of health through the promotion of the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, and having good personal mental and physical health for the public benefit, by providing a local broadcasting service for the health community across the London boroughs of; Havering, Barking & Dagenham, Redbridge and Newham, plus Essex areas of Brentwood, Thurrock and Basildon.
We cover hospitals & clinics served BHR Hospitals, NELFT NHS Trusts and Barts Health Trust, Whipps Cross Hospital.
Listen to Bedrock Radio to keep updated with local news, events and information DAB+ Digital Radio, App, Hospitals, Online.
Listen | Donate | Volunteer
www.bedrockradio.org.uk
www.bedrock.radio | www.bedrockradio.co.uk | www.hospital-radio.org
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
| Registered Charity 1180476