Music, chat, info: Howie Pressman returns to new commercial radio station for Sheffield and South Yorkshire
Sheffield and South Yorkshire’s newest local commercial radio station is welcoming listeners who live, work and commute to and from the city and across the region.
Bringing together a team of committed and experienced professionals, this 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, 365-day-a-year station aims to bring back the love, familiarity, fun, and friendship of great radio. The local family owned SME are also giving away a free advertising campaign to one local business every month in 2025*.
The station was founded by Lee Glasby and Stephen Booth, the team behind Essential Media, which set up Radio Essentials. Stephen explains the station’s ethos:
Stephen Booth, founder of Radio Essentials“Our aim is to bring back the "love" of radio in Sheffield – remember when radio was your friend? – and support local businesses across Sheffield and South Yorkshire like us.”
Return of a legend
One very friendly and familiar voice back on the airwaves is Howie Pressman, who brings his unique style, interaction, and chat to the regular weekly show Sunday Essentials.
Howie, a former presenter for Hallam FM and drive-time presenter on BBC Radio Sheffield for eight years up to 2023, will be behind the wheels of steel at the brand-new studio just off the Parkway every Sunday between 10 and 1.
We caught up with Howie to find out what it means to return to the job he’s made his passion for the past 38 years.
“It’s absolutely great to be back,” he said. “We’re bringing the excitement back to radio again and this is just the start of the journey”
In Sunday Essentials – a mix of music, talk, and interaction – he looks back at the week and matches music to events and key moments in the industry. For example, if it’s a singer’s birthday that week, he’ll play one of their tunes. Music masterminds will love Connect 4 – Howie picks four tracks, and listeners have to identify the connection between them. Howie’s listeners get to select the sign-off track every week by voting for their pick of four options selected by Howie.
Listeners constantly interact through social media, text, and messages via the Radio Essentials App—especially photos for Toast or Roast!
“Sunday used to be a day for the big Sunday lunch, but nowadays, people might just be snacking on a Sunday – so we ask what you’re having to eat, toast or a roast?”
With plenty of pics of Sunday dinners, lunches, and brunches – and the inevitable Yorkshire pudding debates – there’s always plenty to digest.
Howie has been delighted with the response from listeners – many of whom are familiar names to him and each other.
“People who used to listen are back and becoming involved again,” he said. And it’s not just interaction with him, but between listeners themselves, who interact with each other – like one big family.
“I’ve been shocked how strong the bond has been, and this kind of radio breaks down those barriers and gets people talking.”
Bringing back the love for radio
With no thoughts of retiring from the mic, Howie says: “It’s a certain buzz, a certain feeling that you can’t replicate anywhere else.”
He says Radio Essentials’ ethos chimes with the kind of program he loves to present, and listeners' response shows they want it, too.
With over 2,000 followers on Facebook and the show being live-streamed on both Facebook and TikTok, it’s a two-way communication with his audience. To join Howie’s listener club text the word ‘HOWIE’ to 82228 and include your email address and name or feel free to email [email protected]
Video compilations of the show will be available via social media and you can ‘listen again’ to all his shows on the Radio Essentials website.
After leaving school, Howie worked in insurance and ran a mobile disco. He got his first break after sending a demo tape to Radio Hallam in 1985. He’s worked for many commercial stations and the BBC, at one point doing three shows a day—a breakfast show at Radio Leeds, a lunchtime show for Radio Lincoln, and evenings at Radio Hull!
He felt both commercial radio and the BBC radio services had lost their local connections with people and communities and had become ‘disjointed’. When he took voluntary redundancy from the BBC, he went back to his roots and now works in insurance again. But after Stephen approached him and heard what Radio Essentials was all about, the ambition brought Howie back to the airwaves every Sunday.
Tune in to Radio Essentials
Radio Essentials broadcasts live from The Quadrant in Sheffield. It’s available to listen to on DAB+ Digital Radio in Sheffield, Rotherham, and now across Doncaster, on Alexa smart speakers, via downloadable apps on Apple and Android phones, on Freeview TV, Sky TV Q boxes, and via the station’s website
Helping business and the community – win an ad campaign!
Stephen says, “We are on a journey. We are taking big, small steps, given the climate, too, and we also want to support local businesses and charities.”
*To get things started, the family-run station is giving away a free on-air commercial campaign worth £500 to local businesses every month throughout 2025.
To enter, email [email protected] with your name and business. One business per month will be selected throughout 2025
For all the details on programs, presenters, and advertising and to listen again, visit the Radio Essentials website here