Marcher Sound

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Marcher Sound

Broadcast area	Wrexham and Chester
Frequency	103.4 MHz
First air date	31 March 1989 (on FM and mediumwave 5 September 1983)
Format	Contemporary
Audience share	8.9% (September 2007, [1])
Owner	GCap Media
Website	www.marchersound.co.uk

Marcher Sound (formerly MFM 103.4) is a radio station broadcasting to north east Wales and north west England from its Mold Road studios in Gwersyllt, Wrexham, also shared with Wrexham and Chester Gold and Buzz 97.1 ^[1]. The station is owned by GCap Media after GWR Group purchased Marcher Radio Group in October 2000, and subsequently GWR merged with Capital Radio Group creating GCap Media. Despite this, Marcher Radio Group Ltd remains the official licensee.

It is broadcast from the Wrexham-Rhos Relay, situated just above Moss Village near Wrexham, and although it officially broadcasts to Wrexham and Chester, it can be heard much further afield, in towns such as St Helens and Warrington where reception is surprisingly good. It is part of GCap's The One Network, and brings the network's national programming to its broadcast area. Its sister radio station is Wrexham and Chester Gold.

Its current on-air slogan is "Today's Best Mix for Wrexham and Chester".

[edit] History

The station went on air in 1983^[2], on 95.4 VHF and 1260AM under the name Marcher Sound, nicknamed Radio Redundo because the original management were made redundant by coal mine closures in Flintshire and surrounding counties, and investments were made with their redundancy money. During its early years the station broadcast during the daytime only and relayed Radio City, from Liverpool, during the late evenings and throughout the night. After a frequency review, it moved to 103.4 FM on the Wrexham-Rhos transmitter (for Wrexham and Chester) and on 97.1 to the Moel-y-Parc transmitter (for transmission on The Wirral).

It remained as Marcher Sound until 1989 when the FM and AM frequencies were split into three separate services. 103.4FM remained as MFM 103.4, the service on 97.1 was re-named MFM 97.1 (whose transmission site was later moved to the Storeton transmitter on the Wirral in 1998 and the station was renamed again to 'Wirral's Buzz 97.1'), while the medium wave (AM) frequency became Marcher Gold, now Classic Gold Marcher.

Former logo

In November 2005 it was announced that the Marcher Group's radio stations, including Marcher, were to be sold, but in March 2006, despite a number of offers GCap called off the sale. [2].

On Monday 25 September 2006, the station rebranded as 103.4 Marcher Sound, reverting to their original name, after to a survey conducted by listeners confirmed the name "Marcher Sound" was more appropriate^[3].