Faze FM Radio Ltd was the owner of two dance music

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

s in the North of England. It operated

Kiss 102 Kiss 102 was a dance music radio station based in Manchester, England. History The frequency was originally issued to Sunset 102, Sunset 102 Radio - The Kickin FM but that suffered some financial problems. In May 1993, the Radio Authority made ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

and

Kiss 105 Kiss 105 was a dance music radio station based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. It was part of a new breed of regional radio stations as opposed to independent local radio. History The station was launched at and the first track played was 'I Like ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

from 1994 to 1997 before being taken over by

Chrysalis Group Chrysalis Group was a United Kingdom, UK media company that was founded by Chris Wright (Music), Chris Wright, chairman, and Terry Ellis (record producer), Terry Ellis. Wright was named in ''Sunday Times Rich List 2009'' of the 1,000 richest per ...

History

Faze FM Radio Ltd was incorporated in 1993 by Eugene Perera's Level Broadcast Ltd. A licence application for the Manchester ILR with shareholders Level Broadcast, Mike Powell's

UKRD The UKRD Group Ltd was a British media company that owned 15 commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. The name originates from UK Radio Developments. Since its acquisition in March 2019, it has been run as a subsidiary of Bauer Radio. H ...

, Eastern Counties Newspaper Group and 3i was successful and Faze FM Radio Ltd launched as

in November 1994. At launch, Guy Hornsby was Managing Director, Mike Gray, Programme Controller, Julian Martin, Sales Controller and Eugene Perera, Marketing Director. A further successful licence application for the Yorkshire regional licence resulted in the launch of

in 1997. Initially the group employed just 17 staff, but this grew to over 120 individuals working full and part-time in programming, sales, marketing, administration, finance and engineering. The Kiss 102/105 dance music format was the brainchild of two highly experienced UK radio programmers, Mike Gray and Guy Hornsby, who first worked together at the original

BBC Radio London BBC Radio London is the BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM frequency, DAB, Virgin Media channel 937, Sky channel 0152 (in the London ...

where they produced the station's leading DJ presenters

Robbie Vincent Robbie Vincent (born 9 June 1947) is an English radio broadcaster and DJ. As a champion of jazz, funk and soul music in the UK during the late 1970s he made an important contribution both live in clubs and on radio. In 1995 he was voted Independ ...

and

Tony Blackburn Anthony Kenneth Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey, singer and TV presenter. He first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC, on the BBC ...

. Despite staying true to its roots and playing "thumping

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded danc ...

" at breakfast time, a move perceived of in the radio industry at the time as unlikely to be popular, the station achieved a 10% share of the total available audience, and its yellow oblong car stickers could be seen proudly displayed by an enthusiastic audience across the entire region. Following approaches by most of the country's key media players, Faze FM was purchased by the

(now

Global Radio Global Media & Entertainment Limited, trading as Global, is a British media company formed in 2007. It is the owner of the largest commercial radio company in Europe having expanded through a number of historical acquisitions, including Chrys ...

) for £17.6m just over four years after the company had been founded with an initial investment of £600k. The stations were renamed as

Galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

after the purchase, and in 2011 Global Radio re-branded them both

Capital Manchester Capital Manchester was a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Capital radio network. The station broadcast from their studios at Global's Manchester HQ in the XYZ Building in Spinningfields, Manchester. In April ...

and

Capital Yorkshire Capital Yorkshire is a regional radio station owned by Global as part of the Capital network. It broadcasts to South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire from studios in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Engla ...

as part of the new

Capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

network.

Branding

Faze licensed the "Kiss" brand from

Kiss 100 Kiss is a British digital radio station owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Kiss Network. It is primarily aimed at the 15-34 age group and broadcasts nationally to the UK on DAB Digital Radio, as well as on FM in London, Bristol a ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and commissioned radio ident company Alfasound to make their jingles. Two custom packages were made, the first was called "Danceman" and the follow-up was called "Music is Life".

References

{{Reflist

Notes

UKRD helped getting the licences
Radio stations in England Former British radio networks Dance radio stations Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom