Heart North West
Heart North West is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. The station broadcasts to North West England from studios at Exchange Quay, Salford.
Originally known as Century Radio and Century FM, and from 2009 Real Radio North West, the station relaunched as Heart North West on Tuesday 6 May 2014.
Overview
Century Radio
The station opened as Century Radio on 8 September 1998 as the second Century station in the country (the first being Gateshead-based 100-102 Century Radio). Owned and operated by Border Television, Century was founded by managing director John Myers, who had also established the north east station. Like the first station, Myers also presented the breakfast show under the pseudonym John Morgan.
The station's launch was the subject of an episode of a BBC Two fly-on-the-wall documentary Trouble at the Top, mainly following Myers. The episode, entitled "Degsy Rides Again", showed Myers' attempts to train lunchtime phone-in host Derek Hatton, a controversial local ex-politician who had never before presented on radio. Myers was not confident enough in Hatton for him to appear on pre-launch publicity, although his show "The Degsy Debate" performed well at the first RAJAR. Also amongst its launch presenters was controversial shock jock Scottie McClue.
Gem 106
Gem 106 is an English regional radio station broadcasting to the East Midlands, owned and operated by Orion Media. The station is transmitted from the Copt Oak transmitter close to the M1 north of Leicester in the National Forest.
History
Radio 106
Radio 106 launched at 6am on Tuesday 23 September 1997. Billed as Radio for Grown Ups, the new regional station was led by ex-Radio Trent managing director Ron Coles with former Centre Radio MD Ken Warburton as programming controller. The first presenter on air was Dickie Dodd.
Radio 106's launch schedule included a heavy emphasis on speech content, including daily guests on mid-morning shows and a nightly 3-hour phone-in. Specialist music output featured country, soul and motown at weekends. The station's launch team included Kevin Fernihough, Mark Keen, Willie Morgan, Kenny Hague, Jake Yapp, Peter King and Sarah Graham.
Against competition from established BBC Local Radio and GWR-owned commercial stations, Radio 106 recorded positive listening figures for its first set of RAJAR audience figures, but within seven months of launch, the station's owners Border Radio Holdings opted for a complete relaunch.
Heart North East
Heart North East is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to North East England from studios in Newcastle.
History
Century Radio
Conceived as the second regional station for North East England, it was also the first to use the Century brand, which followed a 'personality' format, mixing speech and music. The station was originally based beside the Tyne Bridge in Gateshead, before relocating to Team Valley in 2008 to share a building with GMG stations Smooth Radio and Rock Radio. The station was originally called Century Radio, before changing its name to Century FM and finally reverting to the original moniker in 2008.
The station was set up by Border Television, with John Myers as managing director and John Simons as programme director. Myers presented the breakfast show under the pseudonym of John Morgan. The first song played on air was "A Star is Born" (also used to launch the North West's Century FM).
Century Network
Century Radio was the brand name of a group of independent local radio stations in England. The brand was developed with the launch of 100-102 Century Radio in North East England in 1994, with John Myers as managing director and John Simons as programme director. The brand grew when Myers launched 106 Century FM for the East Midlands, and further when 105.4 Century Radio was launched in North West England in 1998. Ocean FM used the Century format, but not the brand.
The group was initially owned by Border Radio Holdings until 2000, when Capital Radio Group took over the brand. When the larger GCap Media acquired the group in 2005, they were forced to sell the Nottingham-based "106" station to Chrysalis Group for competition reasons. GMG Radio, with Myers and Simons as senior executives, bought the stations in 2006. They were rebranded Real Radio to conform to the branding and network programming of the other stations in the Real Radio network that Myers had developed since in 2000.
