East Anglian Radio was a company based in Norwich that operated radio stations in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex in the UK.
The stations owned by the group were:
*
Radio Broadland
Radio Broadland (later Heart Norwich) was an Independent Local Radio station for Norfolk and North Suffolk, including Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, until early 2009. The station, now part of the national Heart Network, is owned and operate ...
in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
.
*
SGR FM
Heart Ipswich (formerly SGR FM) was a radio station that evolved from Suffolk Group Radio, which was the parent company for two Independent radio stations serving the county of Suffolk in England.
Overview
The older of the radio stations was Radi ...
in
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
&
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
(originally, Radio Orwell in Ipswich and Saxon Radio in Bury St Edmunds).
*
SGR Colchester
Heart Colchester (formerly SGR Colchester) was a radio station broadcasting to Colchester and the surrounding areas. The station was launched in 1993 as SGR Colchester by the East Anglian Radio group, which also operated the Ipswich-based SGR-FM, ...
in
Colchester
Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...
.
*
Amber Radio
Amber Radio was a classic hits/gold radio station operating from studios in both Norwich and Ipswich, in the region of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
It was the AM sister station of Radio Broadland and SGR and served Norfolk and Suffolk, ...
in
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
and
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
.
History
East Anglian Radio was set up in 1990, following Radio Broadland's takeover of
Suffolk Group Radio
Suffolk Group Radio was the parent company for two Independent Local Radio stations serving the county of Suffolk in England.
The Stations
Radio Orwell began transmissions from Electric House, Ipswich on 28 October 1975. It was one of the origin ...
, which was broadcasting at the time as Radio Orwell and Saxon Radio. The Suffolk group had made an unsuccessful offer to take over Broadland the year before.
Orwell was one of the early independent radio stations launched in the UK in 1975, followed by Saxon in 1982. Broadland went on air later in 1984, but quickly established itself as market leader in its area, with some of the highest-ever listening figures for an ILR station (50% audience reach and an average of over 17 hours a week per listener in 1989 and 1990).
The management team that had successfully launched Broadland in Norfolk and North Suffolk took over the running of the new larger group, with Russell Stuart as Managing Director, Mike Stewart as Programme Director, and Robb Young as Sales Director. Bob Norman became Finance Director.
The Suffolk stations were re-vamped and re-branded as SGR in 1992, resulting in the closure of the Bury St Edmunds studios and a move to new, modern studios opened in Ipswich in 1993. The same year, the group successfully applied for the ILR licence for Colchester, launching SGR Colchester in the town later that year.
In 1995, a decision was made by the EAR Group to make better use of its AM frequencies in Norfolk and Suffolk (Colchester was an FM-only service) by creating a new station. Amber Radio was launched to focus mainly on music from the 60's and 70's, leaving Broadland and SGR on FM to play more recent and current chart hits. Amber had split programming at peak times for each area, but programmes were shared at other times, emanating from both the Norwich and Ipswich studios. By the mid-90s, the three FM services were each market leader and the Amber service had one of the highest audience reaches for an AM output in the country.
In 1996, GWR Group, which had been acquiring large numbers of radio companies for about seven years, made a successful bid of about £25 million for East Anglian Radio. The takeover saw major changes later in the year, with the EAR stations gradually assimilated into the GWR set-up as individual operations and EAR management moving internally to different roles. Stuart became Regional Managing Director for the East stations of GWR and later MD of GWR Digital, Stewart was MD of the SGR group, Norman was MD of Broadland and Young became Sales Director for the East stations.
By 2003, only Norman remained of the original EAR team. Mike Stewart and Russell Stuart helped to form the locally-based Norwich Radio Group, which narrowly failed to win a new ILR licence for Norwich, advertised in 2005. Stewart later became a director of Park Radio, a community radio group which eventually launched a Diss-based station for South Norfolk and Mid Suffolk, in November 2017. After leaving GWR, Norman worked for the former Orion group and later Bauer as a station director.
A merger between GWR and
Capital Radio
Capital London is a radio station owned and operated by the Global media company as part of its national Capital FM Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Britain's first two commercial radio stations. I ...
(
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 in May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. ...
) followed in 2005 and then a further take-over of GCAP 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 Chrysa ...
.
The SGR stations and Broadland had by then lost considerable local input, broadcasting more networked programming with a shared new strapline of ''Today's Better Music Mix'' and similar logos. Eventually, they lost their heritage names and became part of the
Heart Network
Heart is a British radio network and brand of 13 adult contemporary music, adult contemporary Independent Local Radio, local stations operated by Global Media & Entertainment, Global throughout the United Kingdom, broadcasting a mix of local an ...
of stations, sometimes referred to as
Heart Norwich
Radio Broadland (later Heart Norwich) was an Independent Local Radio station for Norfolk and North Suffolk, including Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, until early 2009. The station, now part of the national Heart Network, is owned and ope ...
,
Heart Colchester
Heart Colchester (formerly SGR Colchester) was a radio station broadcasting to Colchester and the surrounding areas. The station was launched in 1993 as SGR Colchester by the East Anglian Radio group, which also operated the Ipswich-based SGR-FM, ...
and
Heart Ipswich
Heart Ipswich (formerly SGR FM) was a radio station that evolved from Suffolk Group Radio, which was the parent company for two Independent radio stations serving the county of Suffolk in England.
Overview
The older of the radio stations was Radi ...
, before Global eventually decided to close down the Ipswich and Colchester studios in 2010.
Amber Radio
Amber Radio was a classic hits/gold radio station operating from studios in both Norwich and Ipswich, in the region of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
It was the AM sister station of Radio Broadland and SGR and served Norfolk and Suffolk, ...
became Classic Gold Amber in 1998, then
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 Yo ...
, then simply
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
.
[{{cite web , url = http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/cs_es/cs/forums/2/985494/ShowPost.aspx , title = Discussion on Amber Radio/Classic Gold name change , accessdate = 1 August 2010 , url-status = dead , archiveurl = https://archive.today/20070615065545/http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/cs_es/cs/forums/2/985494/ShowPost.aspx , archivedate = 15 June 2007 , df = dmy-all ]
The East Anglian Radio Group had no involvement in East Anglian Radio Services, a Lowestoft-based business operating in theatrical production since the mid-1980s.
References
External links
list of old station names
Former British radio networks
Radio broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom
Radio stations in England