British radio station
Heart South
is a regional
radio station
owned and operated by
Global
as part of the
Heart
network. It broadcasts to
the south and south east of England
from studios in
Fareham
,
Hampshire
.
The station launched on 3 June 2019 as a result of a merger between four sister stations in
Hampshire and Dorset
,
Kent
,
Sussex and Surrey
and
Thames Valley
.
History
[
edit
]
Under relaxed OFCOM requirements for local content on commercial radio, Heart South is permitted to share all programmes between seven licences located in the
ITV Meridian
broadcast region.
[1]
Previously, these licences broadcast as separate stations:
- Radio 210
began broadcasting from
Reading
in March 1976, serving
Berkshire
and north
Hampshire
.
- 2CR - Two Counties Radio
began broadcasting from
Bournemouth
in September 1980, serving east
Dorset
and west
Hampshire
.
- Southern Sound
began broadcasting from
Portslade
, near
Brighton
, in August 1983, serving
East Sussex
and parts of
West Sussex
.
- Invicta Radio
began broadcasting to
Kent
in October 1984, initially from studios in
Canterbury
and
Maidstone
, before moving to
Whitstable
in 1991. Over the years, the station provided opt-out programming for the East and West of the county - at one point, extending to separate breakfast shows for
Ashford
and
Thanet
.
- Radio Mercury
began broadcasting from
Crawley
in October 1984, serving east
Surrey
and north Sussex.
- Ocean Sound
began broadcasting to south
Hampshire
,
West Sussex
and the
Isle of Wight
in October 1986, after taking over the licence previously held by
Radio Victory
. Initially providing separate programming for the East and West of the area, it also ran a split service for the
Winchester
area called
The Light FM
.
- Fox FM
began broadcasting to
Oxfordshire
in September 1989.
Ocean Sound's West service was split off into Power FM in December 1988 - with the parent service, later known was Ocean FM continuing for the East and North areas.
In 1992, Ocean merged with Southern Sound (latterly Southern FM) to form the
Southern Radio Group
with the two stations largely sharing output. The company went onto purchase Invicta Radio in 1992, before being brought by Capital Radio plc in 1994.
By 2005, all seven stations entered common ownership when GWR Group merged with Capital to form
GCap Media
, which in turn was taken over by Global in 2008.
In 2009, six of the stations were rebranded as part of a rollout of the Heart network across 29 local radio stations owned by Global. Fox FM and 2-Ten FM relaunched in March, followed by 2CR, Invicta, Ocean FM, Southern FM. By this point, local programming had been reduced to ten hours on weekdays and four hours at weekends.
During the summer of 2010, Global merged six of the stations into three - with
Mercury FM
joining the Heart network as a result:
Heart Kent
retained its local programming - but across all stations, local output was further cut to seven hours on weekdays. Localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising continued to air as opt-outs.
On 26 February 2019, following OFCOM's decision to relax local content obligations from commercial radio, Global announced it would merge the four stations in the South and South East into one.
[2]
As of 3 June 2019, regional programming consists of three hours on weekdays, alongside localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising.
[3]
Local breakfast and weekend shows were replaced with network programming from London.
Global's studio centres in
Portslade
,
Reading
and
Whitstable
were closed, although local newsgathering and sales staff were retained.
[2]
Across the four stations, fourteen local presenters left the Heart network.
[4]
Programming
[
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]
All networked programming originates from Global's London headquarters, including
Heart Breakfast
, presented each weekday by
Jamie Theakston
and
Amanda Holden
.
Regional programming is produced and broadcast from Global's Fareham studios from 4-7pm on weekdays, presented by
Rich Clarke
.
[4]
[5]
News
[
edit
]
Heart South broadcasts hourly local news bulletins from 6am-7pm on weekdays and 6am-12pm at weekends.
[5]
Separate bulletins are produced for the licence areas previously served by Heart's stations in Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Sussex and Surrey.
National news updates air hourly from Global's London headquarters at all other times.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Heart Bournemouth - format change request
, OFCOM, 4 December 2018
- ^
a
b
Global to network Capital, Heart and Smooth breakfast shows
, RadioToday, 26 February 2019
- ^
Amanda Holden to join Jamie Theakston for Heart UK Breakfast
, Radio Today, 29 April 2019
- ^
a
b
Heart Drivetime show presenters announced by Global
, Radio Today, 20 May 2019
- ^
a
b
Public File - Solent
, heart.co.uk, 1 June 2019
External links
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Regional stations
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