Invicta FM

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Invicta FM

Broadcast area	Maidstone, Medway, East & West Kent
Frequency	95.9 MHz, 102.8 MHz, 96.1 MHz, 97.0 MHz and 103.1 MHz
First air date	October 1, 1984
Format	Contemporary
Audience share	12.1% (September 2007, [1])
Owner	Global Radio
Website	www.invictafm.com

Invicta FM is a local commercial station which broadcasts to the county of Kent in South East England. It is owned by GCap Media and plays commercial, chart-oriented popular music.

Broadcast from studios on an industrial estate just outside Whitstable, the station plays a mix of pop, rock, RnB and old school with the Tag Line being Today's Best Mix.

The station broadcasts locally produced shows during the day and a number of syndicated "networked" shows, which do not originate from Kent. These are hit40uk, a weekly chart that is broadcast from sister station 95.8 Capital Radio and heard on around 100 stations across the UK (including stations operated by rival media groups); Late Night Love, a nightly music/talk show originates from BRMB in Birmingham and Entertainment Weekly, a weekly showbiz show, that again comes from the Capital Radio studios in Leicester Square, London. Both of these shows are broadcast on other stations in GCap Media's local radio portfolio, called The One Network, of which Invicta FM is a part of.

The word "Invicta" is the county of Kent's Latin motto and means "unconquered".

1 History
2 Invicta FM today
3 Station Straplines
4 Trivia
5 Station staff
6 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Early history

In the early eighties, two different companies won the right to run radio stations in Kent. East Kent was going to be served by Network East Kent while West Kent was to get Northdown Radio. Following problems before launch possibly brought on by the 1984 recession, The Independent Broadcasting Authority agreed to the two companies merging. The new company acquired an unsuccessful applicant for the East Kent licence, Radio Invicta Ltd, which owned the lease on a building in Canterbury which was to become the company's headquarters. The newly created company was known as Invicta Sound plc and was independently owned by a number of private shareholders. The station went to air as Invicta Sound on 1st October 1984. The station output was said to have featured a mix of middle-of-the-road music couple with a prominent news schedule where a news bulletin would last at least 9 minutes [2].

The station's heavy news output - possibly as a way of stealing listeners from rival BBC Radio Kent was recognised by station staff as unsuccessful, losing a lot of listeners. After this disappointing start after the first few months, the station was relaunched as Invicta Radio in October 1985.

The company's studios were based in an old warehouse at 15 Station Road East in Canterbury, with a second, smaller base at 37 Earl Street in Maidstone. Originally, presenters generally had the option of choosing where to present their show from, depending on where they lived. Plus in the very early days, there was some separate programming for East and West Kent.

In 1985, a general reorganisation of radio frequencies in Britain forced Invicta into changing a number of its broadcast numbers:

103.8 MHz (West Kent) became 103.1 MHz
95.1 MHz (East Kent) became 102.8 MHz
96.3 MHz (Ashford) became 96.1 MHz
95.9 MHz (Thanet) and 97.0 MHz (Folkestone and Dover) remained unchanged.

The lack of a single high-powered frequency for the east of the county was because of international frequency clearance problems due to the proximity to France across the English Channel. Instead three low-powered transmitters were installed in Ashford, Folkestone/Dover and Thanet. This problem did not affect BBC national and local radio, which use a single high-powered site at Swingate, near Dover [3]

A few years after the rebranding of the station to Invicta Radio, the station became known as Invicta FM. Soon after, separate breakfast shows started to be broadcast to the following areas:

East Kent / West Kent (from 15 Station Road East, Canterbury, and later from Whitstable)
Ashford (initially from the Ashford International Hotel, Ashford, then from Canterbury, and later from Whitstable)
Thanet (from 15 Station Road East, Canterbury, and later from Whitstable)

[edit] Station split

As required by the Home Office to end simulcasting on FM and AM, in 1989, Invicta Radio became Invicta FM and a sister station, Coast AM begun broadcasting on Invicta's AM frequencies and was an AOR/soft rock station under the leadership of ex Capital Producer/DJ Kerry Juby with music programmed by Paul Stafford (Head of Music /Living on Rock 7-11pm mon-fri), who left the station abruptly in early 1990. Eammon Kelly was the station's first breakfast host. Renamed "Coast Classics" a few months after launch, the service began playing more and more 'oldies' becoming a fully fledged 'Golden Oldies' radio station by 1990. Throughout this period, Coast was a 24-hour local, live station but in 1991 started taking a "sustaining service" from Chiltern Radio's expanding AM 'Gold' service, SuperGold. As a result of this change, as well as the fact that research had shown that listeners never fully got used to the station's name (many still calling it 'Invicta'!), the station was renamed Invicta Supergold. A near-identical set of jingles from JAM were simply re-sung with the station's new name, and there were no major schedule changes. However, just before this change took place, and for most of Summer 1991, presenters at the station were instructed to call the station "Coast Classics Invicta Supergold" on air, to enable listeners to get used to the change. It became a highly popular station and once achieved a 17% reach in a JICRAR survey, much to the disgust of its Southern Radio bosses who preferred their AM stations to hover around the 9% mark.

[edit] Group expansion

In 1991, controversy was sparked as one of the famous DJs, Chris Ryder (aka Caesar the Boogieman or Caesar the Geezer), was terminated from his job over criminal charges related to theft from charity. He was ultimately found not guilty on these charges, but was convicted of intent to defraud.^{[citation needed]}

Also in 1991, the Maidstone studios and offices closed and a few months later, the entire company moved to a brand new, larger, building just outside Whitstable. This was due to the company getting too big for its Canterbury home having started to expand its radio operations beyond Kent. By now it had acquired a radio station in Frinton, Essex called Mellow 1557, as well as a stake in a radio station in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, which it had relaunched as Continental Invicta FM.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Acquisition by Capital Radio

Shortly after moving to its current base, the station was acquired by Southern Radio plc which, in turn, was acquired by Capital Radio plc in May 1994. (Mellow 1557, now known as Dream 100 FM, was sold by Southern Radio plc a few months after it took control of the Invicta Radio Group.)

New commercial micro stations in the late nineties were awarded licences in Kent by the Radio Authority like TLR which covered Thanet, Medway FM (Medway towns), Neptune Radio(Shepway and Dover), CTFM (Canterbury and district) and KFM (Tonbridge). These put extra pressure on advertising revenue and mainly adopted a much larger play list of songs as well as employing ex familiar Invicta presenters. All these stations have now been acquired by KMFM.

[edit] Breakfast shows

For some time the station ran four breakfast shows from Whitstable - Invicta Supergold, Invicta FM (102.8 and 103.1 and in Dover on 97.0) Invicta FM Ashford (96.1) and Invicta FM Thanet (95.9). The different programmes all took the same news and sports bulletins but had different presenters. This made it difficult for Invicta FM to promote its breakfast programme, as there were three different presenters broadcasting to different parts of Kent.

The split FM breakfast was discontinued with the launch of The Invicta FM Morning Zoo in 1995 - with Neil Francis, Simon Beale, Kirsty Long on travel and Stuart Thomas newsreading. The Morning Zoo was the brainchild of then Programme Controller Sandy Beech.

Commercials continued to be split four ways on Invicta FM, with East, West, Thanet and Ashford as the different broadcast regions.

The Morning Zoo was a fixture of the Invicta FM schedule for many years. Neil Francis was the initial lead presenter of the show until 2000 - he was later partnered with Sam Hughes. From 2000, James Heming was the lead presenter of the Morning Zoo following the departure of Neil Francis. The last Morning Zoo was broadcast on Friday 22nd December 2006. The breakfast show was rebranded James and Ali in the morning at the beginning of 2007 and from May 2008 has been known simply as James Heming in the morning, to reflect the move away from the 'zoo' style of a handful of people interacting with each other at once. James now presents the show solo but until May 2008, had a variety of co-presenters on breakfast - his most recent sidekick being Ali Wheeler, who left the station on Friday 2nd May 2008 to have her first child.

[edit] Supergold becomes Capital Gold

See also Capital Gold

When Chiltern closed its SuperGold sustaining service, Invicta FM and Invicta Supergold began sharing a single programme overnight (the presenter simply called it "Invicta" and used split jingles on FM and AM). This usually ran from midnight or 1am till 6am, although the later launch of an "early breakfast" programme on Invicta FM meant the overnight presenter would do the last hour on Supergold alone.

Invicta Supergold closed down March 1998, to be replaced by the mainly networked Capital Gold. A local breakfast show, however, was retained. This was ahead of the rolling out of the station across other AM stations owned by the company and the Kent site acted as a test station (due to its close proximity to Capital Gold in London), to ensure syndication worked OK, and to iron out any problems. By September, Capital Gold could also be heard in Birmingham, Sussex, Hampshire and, not long after, South Wales. To this day, a local breakfast show survives, as does local news, travel and commercials. All other output in now produced at the Capital Gold studios at Leicester Square in London.

[edit] Invicta FM today

Capital Radio plc acquired GWR Group plc in 2005 and on May 1st of that year, the newly enlarged group was renamed GCap Media plc. The first effects of the GCap merger were felt by Invicta FM soon afterwards. New boss Craig Boddy, assisted by GCap management, undertook a radical resturcture of the station in September 2005, in response to falling listening figures and mounting overheads. Boddy changed Invicta from the style influenced by nearby Capital FM, to one which roughly resembled the old Mix Network.

The main thrust of changes occurred on Monday 19 September 2005, when Invicta listeners woke up to a very different sound. On-air talk was cut back dramatically across daytime and weekends, including all presenter's individual competitions, on-air interactivity with listeners, and local information guides. The old Capital FM style playlist- a female-targeted vibrant Hot AC and sung jingles, was replaced with a more repetetive AC playlist with 'dry' voiceovers. Commercial breaks were cut from four per hour to three per hour, meaning ad minuteage was reduced. Specialist weekend shows Party Invicta and Club Invicta were dropped, although 'Party Invicta' has been brought back since for a Saturday evening.

Former logo

The new relaunched Invicta carried the first of the GWR straplines 'The best mix of the 80s, 90s and today' from Monday September 19th 2005. The second strapline 'Today's Best Mix', was introduced on Bank Holiday Monday, the 28th August 2006.

Networking was also introduced overnight during the week, from 10pm with 'Late Night Love', and from 1am with Music on Demand. Since January 2007, they also take Party Friday from 10pm. These programmes are carried by most 'One Network' stations.

[edit] Station Straplines

1984 - The Sound of Kent

1985 - You've Got It Right and Right Across The County

1988 - Tune In And Rip The Knob Off

1989 - 60s, 70s & 80s

1990 - The Best Music

1994 - Betta... Brighta... Hotta... Stronga

1995 - Kent's Best Music

1996 - Kent's Best Music and More of It

1996 - Kent's Number One Hit Music Station

1998 - Today's Music For Kent

2000 - Today's Best Music For Kent

2003 - Kent's Radio Station

2005 - The Best Mix of the 80s, 90s and Today

2006 - Today's Best Mix

2008 - Havn't You Heard

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Ex-presenter and now quite famous Daryl Denham once fell asleep during a show.
Geoff Allan in the middle of his mid-morning show left to go home and get a pigeon out of his loft
Neil Francis overslept and missed the start of the first ever "Morning Zoo" programme, presenting part of it by mobile phone from his car. The story made the front page of "Kent Today".
Invicta Supergold breakfast presenters Dasher and Dawn (ex husband and wife Dave Asher and Caroline Martin) once went on "strike" because programme controller Sandy Beech removed their chairs. Story made front page of the Times
Bob Mower and Tim Stewart both broadcast their shows live from Q101 in Chicago, and were joined by Q101's Murph in The Morning

[edit] Station staff

[edit] Current presenters

Jason Donovan (Sunday Night With Jason Donovan - networked show - Sundays)
James Heming (Chief breakfast presenter since 2000 and the longest serving presenter, since 1997)
Kevin Hughes (Music Control - networked show - weekday evenings)
Matt James (Saturday afternoon presenter)
Neil Kefford (Drivetime and Saturday breakfast presenter)
Rob Knight (Saturday night)
Jeremy Kyle (aka 'Jezza', later at BRMB/Century/Virgin, was at Capital 95.8 (and other GCap stations) and on The Jeremy Kyle Show on ITV. Now presents The Jeremy Kyle Show, Saturdays at 10 'clock
Claire Lawson (Morning Presenter) - Currently on maternity leave
Korenne Lofts (Saturday Breakfast Co-presenter)
Lucio (hit40uk - networked show on Sunday afternoon)
Ben Mundy (Hosts 'The Score' on Saturday afternoons, and reads travel at breakfast and Drive during the week)
Tim Murphy (Sunday breakfast presenter)
Ryan Seacrest (The Entertainment Edge - networked show - Sundays)
Stephen Sullivan (Morning Presenter. Presented popular Kent weekday Evening Show 'The Fridge' from 2001 until May 2008)
Graham Torrington (Late Night Love - networked show weeknights)
Andy Walker (Afternoon presenter and fronts Party Invicta on Saturday nights)
Dan Wood (Music On Demand (weeknights) - networked show. Andy Henly on Friday nights

[edit] Past presenters

Ali Wheller (moved from Kent to have her 1st child!)
Geoff Allen (now at BBC Solent)
Pamela Anderson
Mark Anthony Aka Mark Fox, (Later at Virgin Radio )
Andy Archer (now at BBC Norfolk)
Bam Bam (later at Galaxy 105, then Kiss 100 and Capital 95.8)
Adam Bridge (now at GCap Media Programming Dept)
Caesar the Boogieman (aka Chris Ryder)
Dave Cash (now at BBC Radio Kent)
Ian Collins (now at talkSPORT)
Roger Day (now at BBC Radio Kent)
Paul Deacon
Geoff Fitch (later Neptune), (now qualified Paramedic NHS)
Daryl Denham (later 100.7 Heart FM, Virgin Radio at Century FM (North-East), Hallam FM now at Real Radio Yorkshire)
Paul Ellen AKA Pies In The Skies (now at Time 106.8, South London radio and KMFM)
Neil Faraday (now at KMFM)
Caroline Feraday (later LBC 97.3, now at BBC South-East Today)
Chris Finn (now at KMFM)
Nino Firetto later Super Channel
Neil Francis (now at Virgin Radio)
Nigel Harris (now KMFM)
Tim Stewart (Now working in film)
Steve Harris (now at Xfm London)
Sam Hughes (now at Gold)
Jerry James (now at BBC Leeds)
Adrian John
Duncan Johnson
Kerry Juby (Deceased)
Eamonn Kelly
Myleene Klass (Networked Sunday evening show) with Matt Brown
Simon Lee
Bob LeRoi (ex Invicta Supergold)
Johnny Lewis (now at KMFM)
Wendy Lloyd (later LBC 97.3)
Rod Lucas (now at BBC Radio Five Live)
Justin Mannington (occasional DJ and full-time Record Librarian, Coast AM)
Dan Marsh (now at [{Dubai 92]])
Jonathan Miles (now at [{BBC Radio Newcastle]])
Bob Mower (Coast AM/Invicta Supergold, now breakfast KMFM Canterbury)
Sarah Ollett
John Osborne (now at Virgin Radio)
Simon Parkin (later Real Radio, now at BBC Somerset Sound)
Chris Pearson (now at BFBS)
Carl Partridge (Carter) (former Breakfast Producer - now a writer)
Richard Porter (later Virgin Radio and Magic 105.4, now a Producer at thejazz)
Lee Price (now at Virgin Radio)
Terry Purvis
Rik "The Lovesponge" Scott (now at KMFM)
Benedict Smith (KMFM and freelances at other GCap sites in the South East)
Dobbo (now producing the Invicta FM Breakfast Show)
Paul Stafford (Living on Rock) - Now in Western Australia on Radio Fremantle (The World Football Programme)
Neil Taylor (now at KMFM)
Pete Tong (now at BBC Radio 1)
Glen Thompsett (now at Meridian TV etc)
Tim Votier (now at BSkyB and 107.8 Radio Jackie)
Ali Wheeler (left to become a full-time mother)
Simon West
Jerry Wright (now at 107.8 Radio Jackie SW London & North Surrey)