| City of license | Harlow |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | East Hertfordshire and West Essex |
| Frequency | 101.7 MHz RDS: _ten-17_ |
| First air date | 1 May 1993 |
| Format | CHR/Pop |
| Owner | Global Radio |
Ten-17 was an Independent Local Radio station, broadcast from studios at the Latton Bush Centre in Harlow. The station launched in May 1993 and served East Hertfordshire and West Essex until its closure on 25 July 2010.
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The local station for the Essex new town of Harlow was launched back in May 1993 by the Essex Radio Group, and was closely linked to sister station Essex FM in Southend-on-Sea. Essex FM made use of the 101.7FM transmitter to rebroadcast its output, leaving Ten 17 to broadcast a mere three-hour evening show from local studios in Harlow.
As time moved on, the station took on more hours, more staff, better studio equipment, and computerisation. Eventually, Ten 17 became a completely local station for Harlow.
In 1999 Ten17 FM was rebranded as Mercury FM, as were 5 of the 6 stations owned by DMG Radio Ltd. This station was known as Mercury 101.7. It was then changed back to Ten-17 when it was bought by GWR.
Ten-17's owners, GWR, later merged with Capital Radio to become G-Cap. The station was retained. G-Cap was then bought by Global Radio in 2008. Up until July 2010, the station formed part of Global's The Hit Music Network, broadcasting a mix of locally produced output from Harlow and networked programming from Nottingham.
On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced plans to rebrand Ten 17 as Heart and merge the station with Heart Essex and Heart Colchester as part of restructuring plans for the Heart Network.[1]
The new station, Heart Essex, launched on Monday 26 July 2010 and broadcasts from studios in Chelmsford.[2][3] The very last programme from Ten 17 was broadcast on Sunday 25 July 2010.