Heart South West
 |
|
| City | Exeter |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Barnstaple, Cornwall, Exeter, Plymouth, South Hams, Torbay |
| Branding | This is Heart |
| Slogan | Turn up the Feel Good! |
| Frequency |
96.2-107.0MHz, DAB
|
| First air date | 27 August 2010 |
| Format | Hot AC |
| Audience share | 9.8% (December 2012, [1]) |
| Owner | Global |
| Website | Barnstaple Cornwall Exeter Plymouth South Hams Torbay |
Heart South West is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to Devon and Cornwall from studios in Exeter 7 hours a day, the rest from London. The station launched on Friday 27 August 2010 under the name Heart Devon, as a result of a merger between Heart Exeter and Heart Torbay (formerly Gemini FM), Heart Plymouth (formerly Plymouth Sound), Heart North Devon (formerly Lantern Radio) and Heart South Devon (formerly South Hams Radio). On Monday 7 May 2012, the station merged again with Atlantic FM in Cornwall, and was renamed Heart South West.
The regional station originally broadcast as six separate stations - Plymouth Sound began broadcasting to Plymouth and surrounding areas in May 1975, Lantern Radio served North Devon from October 1992, Gemini FM broadcast separate services for East and South Devon from January 1995 onwards (DevonAir Radio served the dual-franchise area until losing its broadcast licence on New Year's Eve 1994) and South Hams Radio launched in the South Hams district of South Devon in December 1998. Atlantic FM began broadcasting to Cornwall from July 2006.
By 1999, Plymouth Sound, Gemini FM and Lantern FM were under the ownership of the GWR Group, which merged with the Capital Radio Group to form GCap Media six years later. In that same year, the stations were put up for sale as they were considered outside of the company's primary target area. In the event, the sale did not go ahead as all of the bids made fell short of expectations. In 2008, the group was taken over by Global Radio, which eventually took ownership of South Hams Radio as a joint venture with the UKRD Group. A year later, the stations were rebranded as Heart.
...
Wikipedia