The Lincs FM Group was the parent company of several

Independent Local Radio Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to Commercial broadcasting, commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. As a result of the buyouts and mergers permitted by the Broadcasting Act 1990, and deregulation resulting from the ...

(ILR) stations. As of Q2 2019 the group had a combined audience of 524,000. It was based in

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

, in the UK.

History

The Lincs FM Group was formed in the early 1990s with the winning of the ILR licence for Lincolnshire. Lincs FM started broadcasting in 1992 and since then the Lincs FM Group has won and acquired licences to operate other local radio stations across the UK's Midlands and Yorkshire regions. The Lincs FM Group also had a 33% share in Ipswich 102 and a 51% share in the digital radio multiplexes operating DAB services in Lincolnshire and Suffolk. Lincs FM Group was purchased by Bauer Radio in February 2019; Bauer also purchased the stations of

Celador CPL Productions (formerly Celador) is a British entertainment company originally formed in the United Kingdom in 1981 as an independent television production company. It created and produced a number of popular light entertainment shows and is ...

Radio at the same time. KCFM was sold to

Nation Broadcasting Nation Broadcasting is a British media company headquartered in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. It currently owns and operates twelve Independent Local Radio stations across the United Kingdom. History Originally known as Town and Country Broa ...

due to overlapping with existing Bauer asset Viking FM; the other Lincs stations remained with Bauer. Due to further potential competition issues with Bauer's existing stations and their new purchases the group has been operating in 'hold separate' pending investigation of the sale by the Competition and Markets Authority.

Radio Stations

Lincs FM Lincs FM is an Independent Local Radio radio station serving Lincolnshire and Newark in Nottinghamshire. The station is owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio Network. As of September 2022, the station has a weekly audience of ...

(Lincolnshire & Newark) * Compass FM (North East Lincolnshire) *

Trax FM Trax FM was a local radio station serving Doncaster in South Yorkshire and the Bassetlaw district of north Nottinghamshire. The station was folded into Greatest Hits Radio Yorkshire, as part of a rebrand, on 1 September 2020. History The stati ...

(Doncaster & Bassetlaw) * Dearne FM (Barnsley, Penistone and the Dearne Valley) * Rutland Radio (Stamford & Rutland) * Ridings FM (the Wakefield district) * Rother FM (Rotherham) * Suffolk First (Suffolk)

Branding

Each station's logo is green and purple as these are the company colours; these logos feature heavily in each stations merchandise. The group runs three music formats across its stations. "Hits & Memories" stations are the staple of the group, playing a wide variety of popular music from the 1960s to the present day. "Music You Love" stations lean older, with a greater percentage of songs released pre-1990 played. "Country music and more" is the format of the digital-only station Suffolk First, which plays a mixture of country music and pop music. :Hits & Memories Brand :*

for

and Newark :* Dearne FM for

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

Penistone Penistone ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, which had a population of 22,909 at the 2011 census. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is west of Barnsley, ...

and the

Dearne Valley The Dearne Valley is an area of South Yorkshire, England, along the River Dearne. It encompasses the towns of Wombwell, Wath-upon-Dearne, Swinton, Conisbrough and Mexborough, the large villages of Ardsley, Bolton on Dearne, Goldthorpe, T ...

:* Rother FM for

Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...

and the surrounding area :*

for

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

, Bassetlaw and

Worksop Worksop ( ) is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is located east-south-east of Sheffield, close to Nottinghamshire's borders with South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, on the River Ryton and not far from the nor ...

(2 licences) :* Rutland Radio for

Rutland Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire. Its greatest l ...

and Stamford :The Music You Love Brand :* Compass FM for

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linc ...

Cleethorpes Cleethorpes () is a seaside town on the estuary of the Humber in North East Lincolnshire, England with a population of 38,372 in 2020. It has been permanently occupied since the 6th century, with fishing as its original industry, then develo ...

and

Immingham Immingham is a town, civil parish and ward in the North East Lincolnshire unitary authority of England. It is situated on the south-west bank of the Humber Estuary, and is north-west from Grimsby. The region was relatively unpopulated and und ...

:* Ridings FM for the

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

district

Acquisitions

Until October 2007 the group was unique in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Nor ...

in that it had grown organically through licence awards, rather than by acquisition of existing stations. As FM licences ceased advertising in the late 2000s, the group, with a desire to continue growing, made their first acquisition with Oak 107 FM in October 2007 (previously owned by the

CN Group CN Group Limited was formerly an independent local media business based in Carlisle, Cumbria, England, operating in print and radio. It is now owned by Newsquest and their newspapers are printed in Glasgow. The company was formerly known as t ...

). This station was sold on a few years later to rejoin its former network. This was followed by the acquisition of KCFM in June 2009, previously owned by Planet Broadcasting.

Disposals

* Oak FM, comprising the Hinckley and Loughborough licences, was sold to Quidem in 2012. It was rebranded as Fosse 107 following the insolvency of the station * KCFM was sold to Nation Broadcasting in February 2019

Licence bid failure

In 2006, the group made a bid to win the Hull licence along with six other groups. The format for the Lincs bid was the same of that of Compass FM; this is thought to be because Lincs FM already overlaps the

North East Lincolnshire North East Lincolnshire is a Unitary authority area with borough status in Lincolnshire, England. It borders the borough of North Lincolnshire and districts of West Lindsey and East Lindsey. The population of the district in the 2011 Census was ...

area. The station went under the working title of "White Rose Radio" to reflect the

white rose The White Rose (german: Weiße Rose, ) was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students (and one professor) at the University of Munich: Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmo ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

. The group did not win the licence and lost out to

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-eas ...

-based KCFM. However, KCFM became part of the Lincs FM Group in June 2009.radiotoday.co.uk

References

{{Reflist

External links

lincsfmgroup.co.uk
- Group website. Radio broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Lincoln, England Mass media in Lincolnshire Lincoln, England Mass media companies established in 1991 1991 establishments in England 2019 mergers and acquisitions Mass media companies disestablished in 2019 2019 disestablishments in England