Heart Sussex and Surrey
 | |
| City of license | Brighton |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Sussex and Surrey |
| Frequency |
96.9, 97.5 102, 102.4, 102.7 & 103.5 MHz, DAB 11B |
| Format | Adult Contemporary |
| Audience share | 9.8% (March 2011, ) |
| Owner | Global Radio |
| Website |
Heart Sussex Heart Crawley & Surrey |
Heart Sussex and Surrey is a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to Sussex and Surrey from studios in the Portslade area of Brighton. The station launched on Monday 26 July 2010 as a result of a merger between Heart Sussex (formerly Southern FM) and Mercury FM.
History
The regional station originally broadcast as two separate stations - Southern Sound began broadcasting to Brighton and parts of West Sussex in August 1983 and Mercury FM broadcast to the Reigate and Crawley areas from October 1984 onwards. In addition, Southern Sound ran a separate broadcasting service for East Sussex from February 1989 until the Radio Authority merged the two licenses for East and West Sussex to form one station.
Under the ownership of Global Radio, Southern FM was rebranded as Heart Sussex on 22 June 2009 while Mercury FM retained its local identity and became part of The Hit Music Network. By this time, both stations' local output had become restricted to breakfast and weekday drivetime programming only.
On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced it would merge the two stations as part of plans to restructure the Heart Network.[1] The new station began broadcasting from Brighton on Monday 26 July 2010, with a sales office and newsroom retained in Crawley.[2]
References
- ↑ Global Radio to halve number of local Heart stations, mediaguardian.co.uk, 21 June 2010 Archived 1 January 2011 at WebCite
- ↑ Heart slims but strengthens, RadioToday, 21 June 2010 Archived 1 January 2011 at WebCite
External links
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