Heart Thames Valley
The station was formed as a result of a merger between Heart Oxfordshire (formerly Fox FM) and Heart Berkshire (formerly 2-Ten FM).
History
The station originally broadcast as two separate stations. Fox FM served Oxfordshire and West Buckinghamshire and was latterly owned by Capital Radio. Radio 210, later 2-Ten FM, served Berkshire and North Hampshire and was eventually acquired by the GWR Group forming part of GWR's Mix Network. This later merged with Capital's equivalent Capital FM network (comprising the former Invicta FM, the former Southern FM, BRMB, Red Dragon FM and the former Power FM) to form The One Network, after the GWR Group plc and Capital Radio Group plc merged in May 2005. Global Radio acquired GCap Media in 2008 and rebranded most of the One Network stations to Heart, in phases by area, from January 2009.
On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced it would merge the Oxford and Reading stations as part of plans to reduce the Heart network of stations from 33 to 16. The new station began broadcasting from Reading on Friday 9 July 2010, leading to the closure of studios in Oxford.
The stations still carried local advertising and travel bulletins, and accordingly were sub-branded as "Heart Thames Valley for Oxfordshire" and "Heart Thames Valley for Berkshire and NW Hampshire".
Station merger
On 26 February 2019, Global announced Heart Thames Valley would be merged with three sister stations in Hampshire and Dorset, Kent and Sussex and Surrey.
From 3 June 2019, local output will consist of a three-hour regional Drivetime show on weekdays, alongside localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising.
Heart Thames Valley ceased local programming on 31 May 2019, although the station's Reading studios were retained as offices for newsgathering and sales. Local breakfast and weekend shows were replaced with network programming from London.
Heart South began broadcasting regional programming on 3 June 2019.
References
- ^ Global Radio to halve number of local Heart stations, The Guardian, 21 June 2010. Plunkett, John (21 June 2010). "Global Radio to halve number of local Heart stations". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 June 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ Heart slims but strengthens, RadioToday, 21 June 2010 Archived 26 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Find your local Heart station, Heart, UK. Archived 23 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Global to network Capital, Heart and Smooth breakfast shows, RadioToday, 26 February 2019
- ^ Amanda Holden to join Jamie Theakston for Heart UK Breakfast, Radio Today, 29 April 2019