Midlands Radio plc was an independent radio operator, which operated seven radio licences in Birmingham,

Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

and surrounding areas in the United Kingdom.

Stations owned

FM

BRMB BRMB is a British radio station based in Aston, Birmingham, which is owned and operated by Murfin Music International. It broadcasts on 89.1FM in Aston and surrounding areas, on DAB throughout Birmingham, and online via the station's website a ...

Leicester Sound Leicester Sound was an Independent Local Radio station which broadcast to Leicestershire. The station merged with two other East Midlands stations, Trent FM and Ram FM to form Capital FM East Midlands (part of Global's The Capital FM Network, C ...

Radio Trent Trent FM was an Independent Local Radio station which broadcast to Nottinghamshire. The station merged with two other East Midlands stations, Leicester Sound and Ram FM to form Capital FM East Midlands (part of Global's Capital FM Network) on ...

Mercia Sound Hits Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, formerly Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer Radio, Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Co ...

AM

* GEM AM – operated on the medium wave frequencies of Radio Trent. *

Xtra AM Xtra AM was an Independent Local Radio station which was on the air between 1989 and 1998. It was broadcast to much of Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire and was the 'oldies' station which took over the mediumwave frequencies of both BRMB ...

– operated on the medium wave frequencies of BRMB and Mercia.

History

Under the control of Ron Coles, Midlands Radio plc was floated on the full stock market in 1990. Following the introduction of the Broadcasting Act of 1990, a number of major groups began to lead a consolidation of the market. This led to Midlands Radio plc being purchased by for 18 million by

Capital Radio plc 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 ...

, who then sold Trent, Leicester Sound, and Mercia Sound to GWR in 1993, but kept hold of BRMB. As Mercia and its medium wave frequency were sold in the bundle, GWR announced that 1359 kHz would be rebranded as

Classic Gold Classic Gold was a network of three "Gold" music formatted stations which broadcast on AM in Bradford, Hull and Sheffield. They were the sister stations of Pennine Radio, Viking Radio and Radio Hallam respectively and they were part of the ...

. This meant Xtra AM would only continue in Birmingham, and due to the presenters urging Coventry listeners to retune to the Birmingham frequency GWR pulled the plug on Xtra AM in Coventry earlier than provisionally agreed. Under the new ownership, the FM stations were re-launched under GWR's ''Better Music Mix'' uniformed format. GEM continued to be live and local 24 hours a day until 1997, when Tony Lyman's programme was networked from 12 midday – 3 p.m. across most of the Midlands and the Home Counties on the Classic Gold network, and at this point the name of the station was changed to Classic Gold GEM. More shared programming was heard and the name GEM finally disappeared on Friday 3 August 2007 at 7.00 p.m., when Classic Gold GEM became part of the Gold Network, following the merger of Classic Gold and Capital Gold. The only remaining local programme (12-4pm weekdays) was pre-recorded. GWR later merged with Capital Radio to form

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 ...

, and GCap was then acquired by

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 Chrysal ...

based in Leicester Square, London{{cite web, url=http://media.europages.co.uk/business-directory-europe/did-media22/hc-21687H/cc-GBR/United-Kingdom/Radio-production-and-distribution.html , title=Details of current company address , accessdate=2010-06-02 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821013348/http://media.europages.co.uk/business-directory-europe/did-media22/hc-21687H/cc-GBR/United-Kingdom/Radio-production-and-distribution.html , archivedate=21 August 2011 with the FM stations adopting national brands such as Heart and Capital.

References

External links

History of Trent FM (including ownership)
Former British radio networks Radio broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom Radio stations in Leicestershire Radio stations in Birmingham, West Midlands Mass media in the East Midlands Radio stations in Derbyshire