Heart Wiltshire
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| City | Swindon |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Swindon and west Wiltshire |
| Branding | This is Heart |
| Slogan | Turn up the Feel Good! |
| Frequency | 102.2 MHz, 96.5 MHz, 97.2 MHz, RDS Name: Heart___ NOW Swindon DAB multiplex NOW Wiltshire DAB multiplex and Online [1] |
| First air date | (as Wiltshire Radio) 12 October 1982 |
| Format | Hot AC |
| Audience share | 15.8% (June 2009, [2]) |
| Owner | Global |
| Website | Heart Wiltshire |
Heart Wiltshire (formerly GWR FM Wiltshire) is a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to north and west Wiltshire. The station was rebranded to Heart in March 2009 in line with Global Radio's rebranding of most of the One Network, to which the station was part of.
Because of the rebrand, the station recently started targeting 25- to 44-year-olds. The local competitors are BBC Wiltshire, 107 Sam FM and community radio station, Swindon 105.5.
Heart Wiltshire launched on 12 October 1982 under its original name, Wiltshire Radio (shortened often to WR). Broadcasting from 'The Limekiln' in Wooton Bassett, they capitalised on the fact that BBC Radio 1 had bad reception in North Wiltshire and it was to be nine years before BBC Local Radio launched in the county. The station began a full service commercial radio station on 96.4 and 97.4 MHz FM and 936 and 1161 kHz AM (320 and 258 metres medium wave).
Because there was no BBC radio for Wiltshire and therefore no competition, Wiltshire Radio found it relatively easy to build a very loyal listenership and only a few months into broadcasting became very profitable. Early programmes started out with a general diet of local news, community information, talk and middle-of-the-road pop music, then eventually became more and more formatted, saving its 4-hour 'needle time' daily music quota for the evening show to play rock and newer pop. The station's Head of Programmes Ralph Bernard went on to become a very significant figure in British commercial radio as founder of Classic FM.
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