Heart Sussex and Surrey was a local

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 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 ...

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 broadcast to

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

and

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

from studios in the

Portslade Portslade is a western suburb of the city of Brighton and Hove, England. Portslade Village, the original settlement a mile inland to the north, was built up in the 16th century. The arrival of the railway from Brighton in 1840 encouraged rapid de ...

area of Brighton. The station launched on Monday 26 July 2010 as a result of a merger between

Heart Sussex Heart Sussex (previously Southern FM, also operating as Heart Sussex for Crawley & Surrey in Crawley and Surrey) was an Independent Local Radio station which was owned by Global Radio (formerly GCap Media) and played commercial, chart-oriented ...

(formerly Southern FM) and

Mercury FM Mercury FM was a radio station in the Surrey and Sussex area of the United Kingdom that was founded on 20 October 1984 and closed on 25 July 2010. The station broadcast on FM 97.5 MHz in Horsham and 102.7 MHz in East Surrey and Nor ...

History

The regional station originally broadcast as two separate stations - Southern Sound began broadcasting to Brighton and parts of West Sussex in August 1983 and Mercury FM broadcast to the Reigate and Crawley areas from October 1984 onwards. In addition, Southern Sound ran a separate broadcasting service for East Sussex from February 1989 until the Radio Authority merged the two licences for East and West Sussex to form one station. Under the ownership of Global Radio, Southern FM was rebranded as Heart Sussex on 22 June 2009 while Mercury FM retained its local identity and became part of

The Hit Music Network The Hit Music Network was a collection of five Independent Local Radio stations operating in the United Kingdom and owned by Global Radio. Created on 25 June 2008, the stations were formerly owned by GCap Media prior to its takeover by Global a ...

. By this time, both stations' local output had become restricted to breakfast and weekday drivetime programming only. On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced it would merge the two stations as part of plans to restructure 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 ...

. The new station began broadcasting from Brighton on Monday 26 July 2010, with a sales office and newsroom retained in Crawley.

Station merger

On 26 February 2019, Global announced Heart Sussex and Surrey would be merged with three sister stations in Hampshire and Dorset,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and the Thames Valley. From 3 June 2019, local output consisted of a three-hour regional drivetime show on weekdays, alongside localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising. Heart Sussex and Surrey's studios in Brighton closed with operations moving to

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 manufact ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

- the station ceased local programming on 31 May 2019. Local breakfast and weekend shows were replaced with network programming from London.

Heart South Heart South is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to the south and south east of England from studios in Fareham, Hampshire. The station launched on 3 June 2019 as a result of a mer ...

began broadcasting regional programming on 3 June 2019.Amanda Holden to join Jamie Theakston for Heart UK Breakfast
Radio Today, 29 April 2019

References

External links

Heart Sussex

Heart Crawley & Surrey
{{coord missing, East Sussex Sussex and Surrey Radio stations in Sussex Radio stations in Surrey Radio stations established in 2010 Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom