Rate My Takeaway's Danny Malin shares why he's investing in radio as he's appointed director of Leeds station

I’ve always loved listening to t’old wireless growing up, whether it was while I was sat fishing with my mates eating salad cream sandwiches or when I used to help my mum and dad out at their chippy.

Back in Barnsley as a youngster I’d be listening to Hirsty, Danny and JoJo on Galaxy 105. Then when Stephanie Hirst left and it later moved to Capital FM I started listening to Heart Radio Yorkshire which used to be Real Radio.

When I started listening t’old wireless obviously YouTube wasn’t around then but eventually they both became my trusty companions, especially in lockdown.

Unlike many in lockdown, however, I was out working delivering meat from the market so I didn’t have much time to watch YouTube. Instead I was cranking up the radio in my delivery van.

Driving around in my van singing to some tunes meant I could not only bring meat to people’s homes, but it kept me upbeat so I could bring some cheer to them in a difficult time.

Even young people felt isolated and listening to the radio dramatically declined during the lockdowns ‘as a result of a lack of commuter listening’, according to an Ofcom report in 2020.

Then a new community radio came on the scene which even got this old man dancing away to the radio, not to mention all the youngsters with the non-stop dance music. The new radio station on the block for West Yorkshire was LDC Radio.

During this period I had also started doing funny videos and ones where I was ranting about Covid on Facebook. These started to go viral and I met the guys from the Rate My Takeaway Facebook page. We decided to start the YouTube channel with me presenting it.

We filmed in between my days delivering meat. I would sing in the car to the camera creating my own tunes for YouTube before I’d pull up at a takeaway to review it. On the way home I’d be cranking up t’old wireless again, singing my heart out to LDC.

By the third lockdown Rate My Takeaway had gone viral on YouTube. I was travelling more now in our channel’s campervan rather than my Hyundai, but I was still dancing away to LDC on my journeys.

Radio is and has been one constant in our lives.

I was later invited to be a lunchmate on Channel 4’s Steph’s Packed Lunch. It was here I met fellow lunchmate Leanne Dundas who presents the LDC Breakfast Show with Wes. She invited me onto their show for an interview and I ended up staying for the full two hours.

I got on well with the station directors, the guys who set LDC up – Daniel Tidmarsh, Lyall Cardis and Arran Haj-Najafi.

After hearing me on air a few times, I was invited to host a show on LDC Radio. I’d always enjoyed chatting to people so this was a great opportunity to do something I loved and help the community out.

While the station has nearly two hundred thousand listeners in West Yorkshire, people online listen all over the world including many of my fans.

I have now been hosting the Tuesday afternoon foodie show for two years and on Sundays t’old wife and I present our own Mr and Mrs Yorkshire show.

The radio station has boomed since lockdown and it has built a loyal community of 160,000 people who are mainly from Leeds.

They’ve recently invited me to be a director of LDC Radio to help with their social media and to build it up so it is a sustainable locally born and locally made station for West Yorkshire. Myself along with Mark Hodgson, Dan, Lyall and Arran will be running the station to ensure the community is involved with our evolution.

By Danny Mei Lan Malin (DannyMalin.com/yorkshirefamilies.co.uk)