Real Radio (North West)

Heart North West

City	Salford Quays
Broadcast area	North West England
Branding	This is Heart
Slogan	Turn up the Feel Good!
Frequency	105.4 MHz / DAB: 11B Liverpool 12A Lancashire 11C Manchester
First air date	8 September 1998
Format	Adult Contemporary
Owner	Global
Sister stations	Capital Manchester Smooth North West XFM Manchester
Website	Heart North West

Heart North West is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. The station broadcasts to North West England from studios at Exchange Quay, Salford.

Originally known as Century Radio and Century FM, and from 2009 Real Radio North West, the station relaunched as Heart North West on Tuesday 6 May 2014.

The station opened as Century Radio on 8 September 1998 as the second Century station in the country (the first being Gateshead-based 100-102 Century Radio). Owned and operated by Border Television, Century was founded by managing director John Myers, who had also established the north east station. Like the first station, Myers also presented the breakfast show under the pseudonym John Morgan.

The station's launch was the subject of an episode of a BBC Two fly-on-the-wall documentary Trouble at the Top, mainly following Myers. The episode, entitled "Degsy Rides Again", showed Myers' attempts to train lunchtime phone-in host Derek Hatton, a controversial local ex-politician who had never before presented on radio. Myers was not confident enough in Hatton for him to appear on pre-launch publicity, although his show "The Degsy Debate" performed well at the first RAJAR. Also amongst its launch presenters was controversial shock jock Scottie McClue.

The documentary also covered the station's acquisition of exclusive commentary rights for Manchester United F.C.'s games. They remained United's official radio partner for almost a decade until selling the rights to Xfm Manchester for the 2007–08 season.

...
Wikipedia