Century 106 was a regional independent radio station based in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire in England.
Based in Nottingham on the City link in the Sneinton area of the city centre, the station was launched on 23 September 1997 as Radio 106. In April 1998, station owners, Border Radio Holdings felt a change was needed, so in April 1998, John Myers took control over the station and it was rebranded as Century 106. Myers brought with him a number of new presenters including Adrian Allen and Chris Ashley.[1]
Former Radio Trent presenter David Lloyd then arrived as Managing Director and Programme Controller and with him came the old Trent presenters of Tony Lyman, Gary Burton and Andy Marriott. David also hired Bernie Keith to present the afternoon show and Steve Jordan for breakfast.
In May 2000, Century 106, along with the other Century stations in the North East and North West, were sold to Capital Radio. David Lloyd went up the M1 to Galaxy 105 in Leeds, Adrian Allen walked out mid show, and Capital brought in more new presenters including Ian Skye, Jason King, Stuart Ellis and Paula White. They also dramatically increased the amount of sports coverage, and the station strapline became "music, fun and football".[2]
Because Capital later merged with GWR, they were forced to sell the station before the Office of Fair Trading would agree to clear the deal. Chrysalis bought Century 106 for £29.5m and said it planned to rebrand the station as Heart 106, to go with 100.7 Heart FM in the West Midlands as the area matched that of Central ITV and that would make it attractive to advertisers.[3][4][5]