Heart Bath

Heart 103 (formerly GWR FM Bath) was an independent radio station serving Bath in Somerset, England, broadcasting on 103 MHz FM, on DAB Digital radio and online.

History

In 1986, a Bath ILR licence was awarded by the IBA. GWR Radio Bath first broadcast on 22 May 1987.

In its latter years, the station played Hot adult contemporary, ranging from the early 1980s to the current successful chart hits. The station was rebranded on 23 March 2009 in line with the rebranding by Global Radio of most of the One Network.

Up until its closure, the station shared some of its programming with Heart Bristol. However for official licensing purposes Heart Bath and Bristol were listed as one station and audience figures from RAJAR are combined with Heart Wiltshire.

Network restructuring

On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced plans to close Heart Bath and merge the station with Heart Bristol and Heart Somerset as part of plans to reduce the Heart network of stations from 33 to 16. The new station, Heart West Country, began broadcasting from Bristol on 16 July 2010.

GWR FM

GWR FM was a network of three radio stations in the south west of England. All three stations were rebranded and joined the Heart Network on 23 March 2009. The stations in the network were:

Heart Bristol

Heart 96.3 (formerly GWR FM Bristol) is a radio station serving Bristol and surrounding areas and broadcasting on 96.3 MHz in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare. Launched in 1981 as Radio West, it was merged with neighbouring Wiltshire Radio and relaunched under the name GWR in 1985, retaining the name through several changes of ownership until rebranding in March 2009. Heart Bristol merged with sister stations in Somerset and Bath to form Heart West Country.

History

Radio West

Radio West began broadcasting on Tuesday 27 October 1981, eleven years after the region's first local radio station BBC Radio Bristol launched. The station started a full service commercial radio station on 96.3 MHz FM and 1260 kHz AM (238 metres medium wave) – the culmination of a merger between two companies bidding for the Bristol and Bath radio licence (Radio Avonside and Bristol Channel) awarded by the then Independent Broadcasting Authority. The choice of on-air name proved to be simple when the BBC aired a series called Shoestring complete with the fictitious Radio West.

Heart Wiltshire

Heart Wiltshire (formerly GWR FM Wiltshire) is a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to north and west Wiltshire. The station was rebranded to Heart in March 2009 in line with Global Radio's rebranding of most of the One Network, to which the station was part of.

Because of the rebrand, the station recently started targeting 25- to 44-year-olds. The local competitors are BBC Wiltshire, 107 Sam FM and community radio station, Swindon 105.5.

History

Heart Wiltshire launched on 12 October 1982 under its original name, Wiltshire Radio (shortened often to WR). Broadcasting from 'The Limekiln' in Wooton Bassett, they capitalised on the fact that BBC Radio 1 had bad reception in North Wiltshire and it was to be nine years before BBC Local Radio launched in the county. The station began a full service commercial radio station on 96.4 and 97.4 MHz FM and 936 and 1161 kHz AM (320 and 258 metres medium wave).

Because there was no BBC radio for Wiltshire and therefore no competition, Wiltshire Radio found it relatively easy to build a very loyal listenership and only a few months into broadcasting became very profitable. Early programmes started out with a general diet of local news, community information, talk and middle-of-the-road pop music, then eventually became more and more formatted, saving its 4-hour 'needle time' daily music quota for the evening show to play rock and newer pop. The station's Head of Programmes Ralph Bernard went on to become a very significant figure in British commercial radio as founder of Classic FM.