| Broadcast area | Norfolk and Suffolk |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 1152, 1170, 1251 Khz |
| First air date | 24 September 1995 |
| Format | Oldies |
| Owner | East Anglian Radio Group |
Amber Radio was a golden oldies radio station operating from Norwich, part of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.[1][2]
It was the AM sister station of SGR and Radio Broadland and served Norfolk and north Suffolk and Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds.
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The station came about when the owners of SGR and Radio Broadland, the East Anglian Radio Group, decided to make better use of the medium wave frequencies. On 24 September 1995, the AM frequencies of these stations became Amber Radio, which was launched to play 60's and 70's music, leaving the FM stations to focus more on current and recent chart hits.
Following a take over of the East Anglian Radio Group by GWR, Amber Radio was renamed Classic Gold Amber and it joined their Classic Gold Digital Network of stations in 1998.[3]
During 1998 GWR began to pressure the Radio Authority to allow them to 'network' Classic Gold for up to 20 hours a day. This meant that all of the stations in the Classic Gold network, as far apart as Classic Gold GEM in the East Midlands and Classic Gold 1152 in Devon, would receive the same programmes. GWR's argument was that the use of higher profile presenters would allow listeners a better quality of service. The Radio Authority agreed, and so all the stations began sharing the same programmes which were produced in Dunstable in Bedfordshire, which was over 100 miles away from the Norwich studios.[4]
At this stage the only programme on Classic Gold Amber which remained local was the Breakfast Show, this was later changed to be Drivetime, to allow Mike Read and later Dave Lee Travis to present a networked breakfast show.
Due to GWR going over the limits of the amount of stations a group can own, the entire group of Classic Gold stations was sold to UBC Media, although GWR did keep a 20% stake. Then, on August 3, 2007, the stations were rebranded as Gold. This followed the GCap Media purchase of the Classic Gold network, and the merging of the Capital Gold and Classic Gold stations[5][6]
Prior to being taken over by GWR, Amber Radio's jingles were made by Thompson Creative in Dallas, Texas.[7]