Playback Magazine

Playback, latterly Playback RadioWorks, was a professionally designed and printed A5 monthly magazine for people interested in radio. It was distributed to key people in the UK and European radio business, but also had a sizeable number of subscribers that had no professional connection with radio. It lasted for just about three years and 34 issues were produced in that time.

The magazine was started initially by Mike Kerslake, but after the first 16 issues were produced a new partner in the shape of legendary jingle producer Steve England and his company Alfasound came forward. We gained another partner and major editorial provider when John Brocks’s RadioWorks partnership joined the party and issue 23 announced details of this!

The magazine featured a varied diet of news, reviews and features, and was widely regarded as an excellent read by many people. Some of the contributors were, and still are, heavily involved in radio and their knowledge and support made the magazine a far more interesting and clear read than the weekly Radio Magazine.

However, the good times were not to last, simple economics and lack of advertising support from radio-related businesses made life very difficult, and although the magazine could have just about continued financially, there just wasn’t the free time available to do a proper job on it, so sadly after much soul-searching the magazine had to close in 1997.

After the closure all remaining back issues of the printed version of Playback RadioWorks magazine were given to Radio Caroline’s sales organisation to help them raise funds.