Smooth Wales
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| Frequency | 1260 AM (North Wales/West Cheshire) 1305 & 1359 AM and DAB (South Wales) DAB (Northwest Wales) |
|---|---|
| First air date | 11 March 1980 (South Wales) 5 September 1983 (North Wales) 24 March 2014 (as Smooth) |
| Format | Adult Contemporary |
| Owner | Global |
| Sister stations |
Capital FM Capital Xtra Classic FM Heart LBC Radio X Gold |
| Website | Smooth |
Smooth Wales is an Independent Local Radio station broadcasting to the Cardiff area of South Wales and to the Wrexham area of North Wales, as well as parts of Cheshire in England. All programming content is now shared to both areas. It is the only AM station in the Smooth radio network to have its own content, a local four-hour weekday show, as all other Smooth AM stations, as added to the network in 2014, carry the London network FM content, opting out only for local news and advertising breaks. The local show on Smooth Wales was carried over from the station's previous incarnation as Gold.
The two stations now broadcasting as Smooth in Wales were originally the AM frequencies of separate ILR stations in North and South Wales. CBC launched to Cardiff in April 1980, and Marcher Sound broadcast to Wrexham and Deeside from September 1983. Both launched with FM and AM transmission. Initially, each station broadcast its own local programmes on both frequencies but, later, following the lead of Capital Radio in London and others, split their transmissions: CBC, which became Red Dragon in 1985, split off its AM frequencies as Touch Radio in 1990, and at around the same time Marcher Sound's AM franchise became Marcher Gold. The stations continued to exist as separate entities throughout this era.
Both Touch Radio and Marcher Gold would later go on to join network services after their parent stations were absorbed into larger entities. Capital Radio Group purchased Red Dragon and Touch Radio in 1999, and as a result the AM service joined the Capital Gold network, which was also being rolled out to other AM stations owned by the group. (Red Dragon on FM would retain its local programming and identity until becoming part of the Capital network in 2011.) Marcher Radio Group, meanwhile, was taken over by the GWR Group in 2000, and the Marcher Gold service on 1260 AM joined GWR's Classic Gold network, initially as 'Classic Gold Marcher' and latterly as 'Classic Gold 1260'. The Classic Gold station group was sold by GWR to UBC in 2002, though operationally little changed. On-air, the amount of local programming for Wales was reduced as the stations began to carry more of the networked programmes being broadcast from London (Capital Gold) and Dunstable (Classic Gold).
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