Heart UK (formerly Heart Extra) is a

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

owned and operated by

Global Global may refer to: General *Globe, a spherical model of celestial bodies *Earth, the third planet from the Sun Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 198 ...

as a national version of

Heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

, and broadcast from studios at

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised town square, square in the West End of London, England, and is the centre of London's entertainment district. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leice ...

in London. On 2 February 2016, Global announced that the station would launch as Heart Extra on national DAB on 29 February. As Heart Extra, the station broadcast a presenter-free music sequence from 10am-4pm on weekdays, and simulcast Heart London programming outside this time. On 14 March 2017, Heart Extra was removed from the Sky and Virgin Media TV platforms in favour of new sibling Heart 80s. Heart Extra continued to broadcast on DAB and online as before. Global closed Heart Extra on 12 March 2020 and replaced it with a full-time 'Heart UK' national feed.

Heart Xmas

Heart Extra was re-branded as ''Heart Extra Xmas'', a pop-up

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of Music genre, genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas and holiday season, Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of Christmas ...

service with the slogan 'Turn up the festive feel good!', during November and December 2016. The pop-up festive offering was Global's successor to the prior Smooth Christmas service. Heart Extra Xmas ran again at the end of 2017. Heart Extra Xmas was relaunched again for 2018, this time running between 3 November until midnight on 26 December 2018. Heart Extra Xmas relaunched for 2019 on 1 November 2019. It relaunched on 25 October 2020 branded as Heart Xmas following the closure of Heart Extra in March 2020. Heart Xmas relaunched for 2021 on 15 October ran until 27 December. Heart Xmas returned in 2022 for its 7th consecutive year, launching on 23 September. Heart Xmas officially returned exclusively to Global Player on 22 September 2023 and also on 28 September on DAB for its 8th year. Heart Xmas returned for its 9th year on 25 September 2024 along with Smooth Christmas.

References

External links

* UK Global Radio Radio stations established in 2016 Adult contemporary radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio stations in London {{UK-radio-station-stub