A logo that lasts a lifetime

The original sheet music – from traditionalmusic.co.uk

It’s a tune those who grew up in the Southern English county of Sussex will know from school assemblies and village fetes; an unofficial county anthem as On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at is to Yorkshire.

Originally intended as a military marching song and adopted by the Royal Sussex regiment before the First World War, Sussex by the Sea is heard today at Brighton and Hove Albion matches and those of Sussex County Cricket Club.

From this month it’s back on the air too as the logo melody in the radio imaging package used by local stations in the Media Sound network

History

Sussex by the Sea is almost as old as radio itself. Composer William Ward-Higgs wrote the song in 1907 while Marconi and friends were making their pioneering electromagnetic transmissions.

In 1989 the melody was adopted by BBC Radio Sussex in a jingle package by Alfasound. The late Alan Fawkes arranged the music and the instrumental package was produced and engineered at St Martin’s Studios in Sale, Cheshire by Steve England.

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bbc-sussex-1989-theme.mp3|titles=”BBC Radio Sussex theme from 1989 by Alfasound”]

Now the central six note motif is back on the air in Sussex in one the latest imaging packages from AudioSweets ID, the imaging company based in Alfasound’s former St Martin’s studios.

The four stations in the Media Sound group, Sovereign FM (Eastbourne), Bright FM (Burgess Hill), Splash FM (Worthing) and Arrow FM (Hastings) are running the package.

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/MEDIA-SOUND-DEMO-2014.mp3|titles=”Media Sound network package from 2014 by AudioSweets ID”]

It all goes to show that the style of radio imaging may change from one generation to the next but you can’t keep a good tune down.