Wave 105 was an Independent Regional Radio station based in

Fareham Fareham ( ) is a market town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour, between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton in south east Hampshire, England. It gives its name to the Borough of Fareham. It was historically an important manufac ...

, England, owned and operated by Bauer. It broadcast to

South Hampshire South Hampshire is a term used mainly to refer to the conurbation formed by the city of Portsmouth, city of Southampton and the non-metropolitan boroughs of Gosport, Fareham, Havant and Eastleigh in southern Hampshire, South East England. The ...

, the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, and

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

. As of December 2023, the station had a weekly audience of 405,000 listeners according to

RAJAR Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR; ) was established in 1992 to operate a single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom. RAJAR is jointly owned by the BBC and Radiocentre. RAJAR's predecessor was c ...

and over 5 million listening hours, making it one of the most listened to regional radio stations in the UK and the most popular station in its transmission area. In February 2024, Bauer Media announced that the station would be rebranded as Greatest Hits Radio on 28 March 2024, and be merged with

Greatest Hits Radio South Greatest Hits Radio South is a regional radio station broadcasting across the South of England, as part of Bauer Radio, Bauer’s Greatest Hits Radio network. Coverage The seven local stations broadcast to Salisbury, Dorset, West Sussex, North Ha ...

. It will retain opt outs for breakfast in the interim. Most former Wave 105 presenters including Steve Power, Mark Collins, Tony Shepherd, Andy Jackson, Gary Parker, Tim Allen, Selina Ross and Kate Weston can be heard on Nation Radio South.

History

Wave 105 began broadcasting on 14 June 1998. It was based in a studio complex at Segensworth East, on the outskirts of

, and broadcast on 105.2 MHz (South Hampshire, Isle of Wight, West Sussex, East Dorset and Wiltshire), as well as on DAB digital radio via the South Hampshire and Dorset multiplexes, and

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity, and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed as "on lin ...

. News was provided by Wave 105's in-house local newsroom in conjunction with Sky News Radio. In recent years, the station shared a music playlist and many features with

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

-based sister station Pirate FM. On 19 September 2022, the Bournemouth and Poole relay of Wave 105 on 105.8 FM was replaced by a relay of Greatest Hits Radio Dorset, following approval from the broadcast regular OFCOM.

Greatest Hits Radio rebrand

On 27 February 2024, station owners Bauer announced Wave 105 would be rebranded as Greatest Hits Radio South Coast from March 2024, as part of a wider relaunch involving 17 local radio stations in England and Wales. Most of the station's local programming was replaced with networked output - including weekday shows with Ken Bruce and Simon Mayo - although Greatest Hits Radio retains regional breakfast and afternoon shows, hosted by Rick Jackson and Mark Collins, alongside hourly local news bulletins throughout the day - and travel updates, provided on breakfast and drivetime shows by

INRIX INRIX, Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Kirkland, Washington, US. It provides location-based data and software-as-a-service analytics—such as real-time and historical traffic conditions, road safety, and parking availability� ...

. However, the regional shows only lasted six months and by Christmas 2024, both Rick Jackson and Mark Collins were moving on with Bauer preferring a GHR national feed across the frequencies. Jackson moved to BBC Radio Solent and Collins joined the majority of his ex-Wave 105 colleagues at Nation Radio South, which had itself re-branded to an all regional format with local presenters and travel information. These shows are broadcast on the current DAB multiplexes and to match this area on FM, will also be broadcast on 105.2FM, 105.8FM (Poole), 97.2FM (Dorchester & Weymouth), 96FM (Bridport), 97.4FM (Shaftesbury) and 96.6FM (Blandford Forum). Under the current licence conditions, revised in August 2022, the station is required to produce a minimum of three hours of local programming on weekdays and can share all programming with sister stations in the South of England. The rebrand led to a number of redundancies and all presenters' freelance contracts were placed under review. Wave 105 ended regular broadcasting at 10pm on Thursday 28 March 2024, following a short tribute programme produced by the station's head of production Tim Allen. The final song played under the brand was '' Say Hello Wave Goodbye'' by

Soft Cell Soft Cell are an English synth-pop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball (electronic musician), David Ball. The band are primarily known for their 1981 hit versio ...

. The station was formally relaunched as Greatest Hits Radio at 10am the following morning.

Ownership

Owned by media company Bauer, Wave 105 was initially created by a group of private investors under the name of

The Radio Partnership The Radio Partnership was a media company which operated radio stations in the UK. About Initially, the Metro Radio Group which owned TFM Radio, TFM, Metro FM and Great North Radio, bought Viking FM, Hallam FM, Pennine FM (later rebranded as The ...

. The station was then sold to Kelvin MacKenzie's

Wireless Group News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or telev ...

. The Wireless Group eventually sold Wave 105 to Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) who were acquired by

EMAP Ascential (formerly EMAP) was a British-headquartered global company, specialising in events, intelligence and advisory services for the marketing and financial technology industries. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was ac ...

in 2005.

Awards

In 2023, Wave 105 was nominated for "Station of the Year" at the ARIAS, the leading radio industry awards in the UK. In 2004, Wave 105 won the NTL Commercial Radio Station of the Year award in the category for stations with a potential audience of over one million listeners.

Transmitters

Analogue (FM)

Digital (DAB)

References

External links

*
Wave 105 Memories
{{Bauer Bauer Radio Radio stations established in 1998 Radio stations disestablished in 2024 Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio stations in the Isle of Wight