Mercury FM was a radio station in the

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. ...

and

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 ...

area of 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 North ...

that was founded on 20 October 1984 and closed on 25 July 2010. The station broadcast on FM 97.5 MHz in

Horsham Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

and 102.7 MHz in East Surrey and North Sussex and later merged with

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 ...

to form

Heart Sussex and Surrey Heart Sussex and Surrey was a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcast to Sussex and Surrey from studios in the Portslade area of Brighton. The station launched on Monday 26 July 2010 as ...

History

Radio Mercury was founded by John Aumonier and began airing on 20 October 1984, on 103.6 FM and 1521 AM focusing on Crawley but serving much of East Surrey and North Sussex. Two years later, the FM frequency changed to 102.7 as part of the UK-wide re-organisation of the VHF/FM band. 1985 saw a relay of the station added for the town of Horsham on 97.5. In 1991 the station took over most of

County Sound Radio County Sound Radio was an analogue commercial radio station covering Surrey and north-east Hampshire in the United Kingdom. One of its closing forms in 2012-2014 formed Eagle Extra occupying 1566 MW following an internal split between older and ...

in Guildford to form the

Allied Radio plc Allied Radio plc was a publicly listed radio company that operated, or held an interest in, several Independent Local Radio contractors in the UK during the 1990s. History Allied Radio plc was created when the Crawley-based Independent Local R ...

. Mercury then, having played a broad mix of music, became a mainly

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...

hits station. County Sound's AM frequency was later renamed "Extra AM" and then again was shortly renamed to "Mercury Extra AM" to make the connection between the two AM frequencies of both stations better known. It also became known as The Breeze, until the

Classic Gold Network Classic Gold Digital Network was one of the biggest 'gold' (oldies) formatted radio networks in the United Kingdom, with a potential audience of 47 million. Classic Gold was broadcast on analogue and DAB digital platforms, as well as Sky channel ...

took over the AM licence of 1521

kHz 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 on ...

. On 102.7 FM Mercury was renamed "Mercury FM" after the takeover of the group by GWR, later GCap Media. Before that Mercury lost the County Sound region again, and Eagle Radio took the Surrey 96.4 FM transmitter, and County Sound returned to 1476 AM. The station was incorporated into GCap's "One Network" of stations, until the merger between GCap and Chrysalis Radio, forming Global Radio. As part of this merger, many of the former One Network stations were rebranded and reformatted under the "Heart" network which still stands today.

Closure

In July 2010 Mercury FM 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 ...

. The final Mercury FM programme was broadcast on Sunday 25 July 2010, with the newly merged

launching the next day.

References

External links

{{coord missing, West Sussex The Hit Music Network Radio stations in Surrey Radio stations in Sussex Radio stations established in 1984