History

Heart London is a regional

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission 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 radio ...

owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the

Heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide t ...

network. It broadcasts a

hot adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

. Across

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and its neighbouring counties, it can be heard on 106.2

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

. In 1994 Chrysalis Radio was awarded a London-wide licence to broadcast "soft AC" music, winning the licence as "Crystal FM". The name was changed to Heart 106.2 which began test transmissions in August 1995, prior to the station launch on 5 September. This included live broadcasts of

WPLJ WPLJ (95.5 FM) is a non-commercial Christian adult contemporary music radio station licensed to New York City. It is owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF) and broadcasts EMF's flagship programming service, K-Love. WPLJ's transmitte ...

from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In 1996 the Heart programming format saw the "soft AC" music replaced with a generally more neutral rock "n" roll playlist. Chrysalis' radio holdings were sold to Global Radio in 2007 to

Global Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

. On 28 April 2008, Heart London began simulcasting most of its programmes on

Heart West Midlands Heart West Midlands is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to the West Midlands from studios in Birmingham. History Heart began broadcasting to the West Midlands on Tuesday 6 Septe ...

, thereby beginning a roll-out of Heart London to other stations and by 2010, local programming was reduced to seven hours on weekdays and four hours on Saturday and Sunday.

Availability

In addition to FM, the station is available on DAB digital radio in London, and across the UK on

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Digital UK. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. Free ...

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...

Freeview Freeview may refer to: * Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia * Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), ...

TalkTalk TV TalkTalk TV is a UK-based consumer television and video on demand service, operated by the TalkTalk Group that originally launched in 2000. In September 2012, the current TalkTalk TV was launched in partnership with YouView. Its television an ...

and

Virgin Media Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, Cable television, television and Internet access, internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, Berkshire, Reading, Engla ...

. The station is also available on MXR regional DAB multiplexes in the North West, North East, the Severn Estuary and Yorkshire, as well as on Switch Digital in central Scotland, having replaced Heart Digital. Until April 2006, the station could also be listened to worldwide through its Internet stream. However, according to the website, the station has withdrawn this facility outside the UK due to licensing laws.

Current Notable Presenters

Amanda Holden Amanda Louise Holden (born 16 February 1971) is an English actress, media personality, and singer. Since 2007, she has been a judge on the television talent show competition ''Britain's Got Talent'' on ITV. She also co-hosts the ''Heart Brea ...

Jamie Theakston James Paul Theakston (born 21 December 1970) is an English television presenter, producer, and actor. He co-presented the former Saturday morning BBC One children's show ''Live & Kicking'', alongside Zoe Ball between 1996 and 1999. He co-hosted ...

Ashley Roberts Ashley Allyn Roberts (born September 14, 1981) is an American singer, dancer, and media personality. She is a member of the pop/ R&B girl group and dance ensemble The Pussycat Dolls. Roberts released her debut solo studio album, ''Butterfly E ...

Kelly Brook Kelly Ann Parsons (born 23 November 1979), known professionally as Kelly Brook, is an English model, actress, and media personality. She is known for her modelling work in the UK, and in the US for her role as Prudence on the NBC sitcom ''One ...

* Jason King *

Dev Griffin Devin Joseph Jordan Griffin (born 23 December 1984) is a British radio presenter, DJ and actor, who is most commonly known for his former weekend afternoon shows on BBC Radio 1. Since 2 January 2021, he has presented a weekend show on Heart. ...

Toby Anstis Toby Anstis (born 14 December 1970) is an English radio and television presenter. He is a presenter on Heart (radio network), Heart and spin-off station Heart Dance. Early life Originally from Northampton, Anstis was educated at Desborough Co ...

Lindsey Russell Lindsey Russell (born 25 September 1990) is a British television presenter. She is best known for being the thirty-sixth presenter of the long running British BBC television programme '' Blue Peter'', which she co-hosted from 2013 to 2021 with Ba ...

Zoe Hardman Zoe Kristi Hardman (born 16 November 1982) is a British television presenter and actress. She first appeared on TV in Channel 4's reality game show '' Playing It Straight'' in 2005. Career Hardman was born in Kent, England. She was a present ...

* Mark Wright *

Yasmin Evans Yasmin Evans (born 27 October 1990) is an English television and radio presenter. She is best known for presenting on BBC Radio 1Xtra (2012–2021). She's also known for presenting on CBBC's '' Saturday Mash-Up!'' (2017–2019), Heart Radio (fr ...

Emma Bunton Emma Lee Bunton (born 21 January 1976) is an English singer, songwriter, actress, and media personality. She rose to fame in the 1990s as a member of the girl group Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Baby Spice. With over 100 million recor ...

Lucy Horobin Lucy Clare Horobin (born 17 October 1979 in Canterbury, Kent) is a British radio presenter well-known for presenting Heart London Drivetime with Jason King. She attended Nottingham Trent University where she achieved a BA (Hons) in Broadcast ...

Scarlette Douglas Charlotte Patricia Louise Douglas (born 17 March 1987), known professionally as Scarlette Douglas, is an English television presenter, singer, dancer and television property expert. She is known for being one of presenters on the Channel 4 serie ...

News

Global's London headquarters broadcasts hourly news bulletins 24 hours a day, including local news bulletins from 0600 to 1900 on weekdays and 0600 to noon at weekends. During off peak hours, the hourly bulletins are from the national network, except during ''

The Official Big Top 40 ''The Sky VIP Official Big Top 40 from Global'' is a radio chart show broadcast every Sunday from 4 to 7pm on Global's Capital and Heart networks, presented by Will Manning. It was started in May 2009 but the show is the descendant of ''The Net ...

''.Public File – London
heart.co.uk, 1 June 2019

Sale to Global Radio

On 25 June 2007,

Chrysalis Records Chrysalis Records () is a British record label that was founded in 1968. The name is both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders' names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis. It started as the Ellis-Wright Ag ...

announced that

along with its

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

s The Arrow,

Sky News Radio Sky News Radio is the radio arm of Sky News, owned by Sky UK. It has been operating since June 1999, providing a news bulletin service for UK commercial radio stations operators across the UK and for a number of English-speaking radio stations ar ...

LBC LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadca ...

and

Galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

were to be sold for £170 million to Global Radio.Chrysalis sells three radio stations
/ref>

References

External links

* {{coords, 51.5102, -0.1286, display=title Adult contemporary radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio stations in London Radio stations established in 1995