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.

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).

Real Radio

Real Radio was a network of five regional radio stations broadcasting to Northern England, Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire. Each station broadcast a mix of local and networked programming. On Tuesday 6 May 2014, the stations were merged with the Heart network.

History

Sir Robert Phillis, the former GMG chief executive, enlisted John Myers to establish GMG Radio. Myers became the company's managing director in 1999, and won GMG its first licence in South Wales in April 2000.Real Radio (Wales) launched on Tuesday 3 October 2000. Initially serving south and west Wales, the station expanded to north and mid Wales in January 2011, over two years after winning a second licence.

In June 2001, Scot FM was acquired from the Wireless Group for £25.5 million. Scot FM would become Real Radio's second station at 8am on Tuesday 8 January 2002. A bid to expand the service to Aberdeenshire in 2006 proved unsuccessful, losing out to Original 106.

Real Yorkshire, the third station, launched on 25 March 2002 and broadcast to South & West Yorkshire.