Heart Peterborough (formerly Hereward FM) was an

Independent Local Radio Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. As a result of the buyouts and mergers permitted by the Broadcasting Act 1990, and deregulation resulting from the Communications Act 2 ...

station serving

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

, south

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

and west

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

. Launched on 10 July 1980 as Hereward Radio 225, the station was the first local service in the area, with the studios originally based in the back of a former pub in Bridge Street, Peterborough, before relocating to the Queensgate shopping centre in the city in 1987.

History

With the tagline of ''the station you can really call your own'', Hereward Radio began on 95.7 MHz and 225 metres/1332 kHz. Reorganisation of the FM broadcast band moved the station to 102.7 since around 1987/1988, with

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire BBC Radio Cambridgeshire is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Cambridgeshire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at the Cambridge Business Park on Cowley Road in Cambridge. The station al ...

using the former frequency for the

Peterborough Peterborough ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in the City of Peterborough district in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. The city is north of London, on the River Nene. A ...

area. Notable personalities from the past include the former chief executive of

GCap Media GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed on 9 May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index ...

, Ralph Bernard, who was the station's first news editor. Hereward split its AM and FM frequencies in April 1992, and called its 1332 kHz AM service ' WGMS - The World's Greatest Music Station'. The station was bought out by the

GWR Group GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed on 9 May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Inde ...

in 1995 from its original management,

Mid-Anglia Radio Mid-Anglia Radio PLC, was a company that owned radio stations in the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire regions of the UK. The stations they owned were: * Hereward FM, Hereward Radio, in Peterborough (and, briefly, in Northampton as well). * Worlds Gre ...

plc. On 5 January 2009, Hereward FM rebranded as ''Heart Peterborough'', as part of a major rebrand involving twenty-nine stations owned by Global Radio. On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced that Heart Peterborough's programming would be merged with Heart Cambridge as part of plans to reduce the Heart network of stations from 33 to 16. It has still got different advertisements to Heart Cambridge. ''Heart Cambridgeshire's'' programming began broadcasting from Peterborough on 2 July 2010. On 19 September 2011, the station announced it would relocate to new studios in the Histon area of Cambridge.

Morborne Mast collapse

In October 2004, the 153-metre Morborne mast near Peterborough collapsed after a fire in suspicious circumstances, taking Hereward's DAB service off the air, along with the national and local

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

services. A temporary mast was soon erected, restoring the service and a new permanent mast has since been erected.BBC news East of England
Mast fire 'could be deliberate' - Retrieved 1 March 2009

References

External links

*
Heart Peterborough's VHF/FM Mast

Heart Peterborough's DAB Mast
{{coord, 52.5746, -0.2471, display=title} Radio stations in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Radio stations established in 1980 Radio stations disestablished in 2010

Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom