The One Network was the collective name for thirty-eight regional

Independent Local Radio Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to 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 Communications Act 2003, ...

licences operated by

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. ...

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 North ...

. It was formed from the combination of GWR Group's 'The Mix Network' and Capital Radio Group's 'The Capital Radio Network' when the companies merged in 2005. Its main regional radio network rival was the Big City Network, owned by

Bauer Group BAUER Aktiengesellschaft is a stock-market-listed construction and machinery manufacturing concern based in Schrobenhausen in Upper Bavaria, Germany. The core business is the manufacture of complex excavation pits, foundations and vertical se ...

. It was announced in September 2008 that most of The One Network would be re-branded '

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 ...

', this being completed by June 2009 with seven retaining their name as a new Hit Music Network, and Power FM becoming

Galaxy South Coast Capital South Coast was a regional radio station owned by operated by Global Radio as part of the Capital radio network. It broadcast to Hampshire from studios in Segensworth, Fareham. In 2019, Capital South Coast was replaced by Capital So ...

, as part of the Galaxy Network. The One Network was subsequently folded into 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 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 ...

, both owned by Global, and programming aligned accordingly. In January 2011, the last remaining "heritage" radio stations owned by Global and operating as The Hit Music Network were merged with

The Galaxy Network Galaxy was a radio network owned by Global Radio and broadcast across the British Isles on FM in regional areas of England and Scotland, through the digital platform with Sky and DAB and online respectively. Stations included stations: Galaxy Bi ...

and rebranded under the Capital FM name becoming

The Capital FM Network Capital is a network of twelve independent contemporary hit radio stations in the United Kingdom, broadcasting a mix of local and networked programming. Nine of the stations are owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment, while the oth ...

. Only a handful of the original One Network stations in the

English Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...

, sold to

Orion Media Orion Media was a UK commercial radio group, founded in 2009 after a management buy-in, with backing from Lloyds Development Capital. It was created from the enforced sale of several radio stations in the English Midlands previously owned by Gl ...

, remained (see below) until they were merged to create Free Radio.

History

The origin of The One Network stemmed from the merger of

GWR Group 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. ...

's The Mix Network 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 ...

's Capital FM Network. On 1 August 2007 there was a change to the logo and sound of ex-Capital stations to harmonise with former GWR stations. The One Network (previously 'The Mix Network') was created by

in attempt to create a national radio network on minimal cost by

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

ing the same programmes across all stations at off-peak times of day. All of GWR's networked stations used the same

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

ing and presentation design, alongside similar

slogan A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan, political slogan, political, Advertising slogan, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the publi ...

s, initially "today's better music mix", later "today's best mix" and "the best mix of the 80s, 90s and today." All centrally produced programming and playlists were broadcast from

GWR FM Bristol Heart 96.3 (formerly GWR FM Bristol) is a radio station serving Bristol and surrounding areas and broadcasting on 96.3 MHz in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare. Launched in 1981 as Radio West, it was merged with neighbouring Wiltshire Radio a ...

(later Leicester Square, London at Capital FM's studios), and songs were broadcast simultaneously as neighbouring group stations, albeit with the exception of

advertisements Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

and local station identities/slogans, pre-recorded weather and brief social action or What's On inserts. Many avid listeners were disappointed by GWR's approach to networking programmes and reducing local content, but GWR felt that networking was the way forward and as a result, GWR gained much financial success, mainly due to the group's long held philosophy of heavily researching the average person's listening habits and tastes. Such practices were led by Group chairman Ralph Bernard, who oversaw the creation of the tightly formatted sound where popular Top 40 chart hits and ex-Top 40 songs are blended in with older hits. Despite the changes of schedule and management, the stations continued to be commercial market leader in the areas in which they operated. To increase the listener's perception of each station's local output, GWR came up with 'The Black Thunders', often Mitsubishi

4x4 Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

s that travel around local events promoting the station they were allocated to. The Mix also ran for a short while as a station on its own nationally on Sky Digital taking the same format as the other stations, but was unsuccessful even though it was promoted on the FM stations. A similar concept of syndicating programmes across local radio stations had previously been used by the

Marcher Radio Group Marcher Radio Group Ltd, previously Marcher Sound Ltd, was a British media organisation which operated several radio stations in north Wales and northwest England. The company, now owned by Global Radio (but legally still existing,) founded the ...

bouquet of stations, which eventually became part of The One Network. In addition to The One Network's networked programmes from Bristol, the Marcher stations simulcast many of its sub-regional programming throughout its four local licences.

Capital FM Network

Capital FM Network was the collective brand name of local radio stations owned by

, all purchased between 1993 and 1998. The stations were roughly based around the format of the company's London based station Capital FM and were linked by sharing the same logo. Stations under the brand were Fox FM (Oxfordshire),

Red Dragon FM Capital South Wales is a regional radio station owned by Communicorp UK and operated by Global as part of the Capital network. It broadcasts to Cardiff and Newport and the surrounding areas from studios in Cardiff Bay. History The statio ...

(South Wales),

Power FM Capital South Coast was a regional radio station owned by operated by Global Radio as part of the Capital radio network. It broadcast to Hampshire from studios in Segensworth, Fareham. In 2019, Capital South Coast was replaced by Capital So ...

(South Coast), Southern FM (Sussex), Beat 106 (Central Scotland),

BRMB Free Radio Birmingham is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Birmingham and the West Midlands. As of September 2022, the station has a ...

(Birmingham) and

Invicta FM Heart Kent (previously Invicta FM) was a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcast to Kent from studios at John Wilson Business Park in Whitstable. History Invicta in the 80s Originall ...

(Kent). The stations still used these logos until September 2007 and were closely linked until 2005. Due to falling listening figures Capital FM was removed from the network and re-branded Capital 95.8. The other stations then fell under the hands of the One Network. The One Network's logo was initially an amalgamation of the two original logos, utilising the Mix Network's symbol and the Capital FM Network font. In July 2007, a unified look for all the One Network stations was adopted, covering everything from car stickers and on-stage branding to letterheads and screensavers, based on a visual identity of green and pink bubbles. The One Network's logo was then adapted to become the logo for the new, but now defunct "Hit Music Network"

Reformat of the station sound

Ahead of the breakup of the network and rebranding of its stations, the One Network stations were split up into three groups: ''Network One'' - Stations that were to become Heart; these carried the slogan "More Music Variety" and adopted AC/Hot AC formats more similar in tone to Heart services. (Most stations in the network, e.g. Fox FM, GWR FM, Invicta FM, Beacon Radio Shropshire*) ''Network Two'' - Stations which retained a CHR format, and used the slogan "(TSA's) Hit Music Station" - these would go on to form the Hit Music Network after the other stations converted to Heart in 2009. Some of these were made Heart in July 2010 (Mercury Herts, Mercury 102.7, Ten-17) The rest of the stations (including Trent FM, Leicester Sound, Red Dragon FM) are now part of the Capital network. ''Network Three'' - A group of stations in the West Midlands that went on to be bought by Orion Media after competition issues required their divestment - these stations were initially part of Network Two from Nottingham, but on being split off for sale, the network feed for these stations (Beacon Radio, Mercia, Wyvern) came from BRMB in Birmingham - These stations ceased carrying Global content and are now known as Free Radio as of March 2012. *Beacon Radio Shropshire was, at a time, separate to the West Midlands station. It broadcast Local breakfast and drive, taking the Network One feed. Beacon Radio West Midlands broadcast local breakfast and drive, taking the Network Three feed. Beacon Radio Shropshire did not go on to become Heart - the Beacon services were ultimately sold to Orion and became Free Radio.

Programmes

Main syndicated programmes across the network included: * The Big Top 40 Show (Sunday 4pm to 7pm) presented by Richard Clarke and Kat Shoob - now on

* Kevin Hughes (formerly Music Control - Weekdays 7pm to 10pm) presented by Kevin Hughes. The 'Music Control' name was dropped on 30 June 2008. * The Wind Down (2008-2009). Love songs & dedications presented by

Northants 96 Heart Northants (formerly Northants 96) was a local commercial radio station serving Northamptonshire. The station broadcast on 96.6 FM from studios in Northampton town centre, via the transmitter located in the Kingsthorpe area. As of August ...

presenter Cat James. Occupying the 10pm to 1am slot that "Late Night Love" used. *

Pat Sharp Patrick Sharpin, known professionally as Pat Sharp (born 25 October 1961), is an English radio presenter, television presenter and DJ. In the UK, he is known mainly for his work on the children's ITV programme ''Fun House'', and his extensive ...

(2008-2009)- Saturdays 12.00pm to 3.00pm. (Replaced The

Jeremy Kyle Jeremy Kyle (born 7 July 1965) is an English broadcaster and writer. He is known for hosting the tabloid talk show ''The Jeremy Kyle Show'' on ITV from 2005 to 2019. He also hosted a US version of his eponymous show, which ran for two seas ...

Show) * Music On Demand (every night 1am to 6am Sun-Fri, 1am to 7am Sat) presented by Dan Wood or Andy Henly * Philippa Collins (2008-2009) - network presenter for the majority of One Network stations at 10.00am to 1pm. * Club Classics (Friday and Saturday 7pm to 12am) presented by Gaz Wesley * Sunday Night with

Jason Donovan Jason Sean Donovan (born 1 June 1968) is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap ''Neighbours'', playing Scott Robinson, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 mi ...

(Sunday 7pm to 10pm) presented by

- now on

* The Entertainment Edge (2007-2008) presented by

Ryan Seacrest Ryan John Seacrest (born December 24, 1974) is an American media personality and producer. He is the co-host of ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'', as well as the host of multiple media shows including ''American Idol'', ''American Top 40'', and '' ...

. * Late Night Love (1995-2008) a phone-in show presented by

Graham Torrington Graham Torrington (born 1960) is a British radio presenter and broadcaster. Radio work Romantica After starting out as a hospital radio presenter, Torrington joined Birmingham's BRMB in the 1980s to cover an overnight programme for Steve Denn ...

. * The

Show (2007-2008) On Friday and Saturday evenings the network formerly split in some areas, with two shows being sent simultaneously. The local stations could choose which programme they wished to broadcast depending upon their audience. The shows on the split networks were: * Non-Stop Party (Friday 10pm to 1am) presented by Toni Phillips * School Daze (Friday 10pm to 1am) presented by Trevor Marshal * Hairbrush Divas (Saturday 7pm to 10pm) presented by Sally Bailey * Party Friday/Saturday (Friday and Saturday evenings) presented by Howard Ritchie

Slogans

*1994 ''A mix of the 70s, 80s and the best of today'' *1995 Station name - ''A better music mix - from the 70s, 80s and today'' *1997 ''Today's better music mix'' *2001 Station name - "Today's best mix" *2004 "Today's best mix, today's best variety" - "More music, less talk" - "The best mix of the 80s, 90s and today" *2007 On-air "Today's best mix" and "Haven't you heard?" The additional tagline of "Haven't you heard?", used on website and advertising only - not used on air, appears to have disappeared from the individual station's websites as of March 2008. *2008 "TSA's Hit Music Station" - As of 2009 stations within the Hit Music Network have adopted this slogan. *2008 "More Music Variety" - A majority of One Network stations adopted this slogan in June 2008 and it was then adapted for the wider Heart network, along with "this is Heart" ("London's Heart" in the capital).

Content delivery

On the previous Mix Network, stations were traditionally supplied syndicated content using a dedicated satellite network, which proved costly and relatively inflexible. Network show presenters would have to travel to the

head office in Passage Street,

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

to broadcast across the network. In 2004, the GWR Group commissioned

Thus Thus was a telecommunications provider operating in the United Kingdom based in Glasgow, Scotland. The company was once listed on the London Stock Exchange and became a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW). Following the acquisition of ...

to design and implement an upgrade to allow broadcasts across The Mix Network to be delivered using an

MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identif ...

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

meaning that content could not only be delivered from any station in the group to the whole network, but also to individual groups of stations excluding the rest of the network if desired. Content was delivered around their IP network using a system designed in-house by GWR Group, called BLAST. BLAST can automatically adjust to any problems during broadcast; it would drop an audio stream from stereo to mono to save bandwidth if it realises contention and if a packet is dropped BLAST will stretch the audio stream by 26 milliseconds to fill. The network shows for all the "More Music Variety" One Network stations were broadcast from GCap Media studios, Leicester Square, London (now the studio used for Gold network programming).

Stations

The One Network consisted of thirty eight regional contractors, previously owned by GWR and Capital Radio, and prior to that, mostly independent. All of the stations in the network broadcast the same programming in off-peak times, with most local programming allotted in daytime hours. On air, there was no reference to a national network (except during some competitions); just plainly the regional name. Besides advertisements, slogans, and ten second pre-recorded weather and What's On/social action inserts (to satisfy the demands of regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

), weekday networked programmes were identical across all stations. On Saturday evenings, stations either broadcast 'Hairbrush Divas' or 'Party Anthems' dependent on the target audience. All of the thirty-eight stations used the same generic imaging, with exception of the sung station-names. These were produced by Music4.

Former GWR Group stations

Former Capital Group stations

The end of The One Network

Rebranded stations

Following Global Radio's takeover of GCap, it was announced that One Network stations will be integrated into Global's

and Galaxy Network brands.

Hit Music Network

The only One Network stations to survive the Heart/Galaxy re-brand were Mercury FM, Red Dragon FM, RAM FM, Ten 17, Trent FM and Leicester Sound, which joined Capital 95.8 to become the Hit Music network. This is because all these stations apart from Red Dragon served areas where Heart was already available on FM or are in a major urban area. Red Dragon and Capital produced all of their own programming, while Mercury, RAM, Ten-17 and Leicester Sound took networked programming from Trent FM's studios when not carrying their own locally split output.. In 2010, Ten-17 and Mercury FM were rebranded Heart as part of the reorganisation of the 33 local Heart stations into a network of 15 larger regional services; as a result the HMN consisted of Capital, Red Dragon and the three stations in the East Midlands; Trent, RAM FM and Leicester Sound. In January 2011, these stations were merged with

and rebranded under the Capital FM name becoming

Sold stations

The West Midlands stations BRMB, Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern, which also serve an area where Heart is already available, were sold because Global already owns Heart and Galaxy in this region. However, it has also been said that these stations would be sold because the newly merged company (Global and GCap) would have too much control in the West Midlands area. It was announced in April 2009 that Bauer Radio were interested in the stations, however, in May 2009, the stations were sold to Orion Media, a company backed by

Lloyds Development Capital Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Limited (LDC), is a mid-market private equity house and subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group, established in 1981 as Lloyds Development Capital Limited. From 1999 to 2011, it was known as Lloyds TSB Developme ...

and

Phil Riley Phil Riley was Chief Executive of Chrysalis Radio from June 1999 to July 2007, having played a major role in establishing Chrysalis Radio as one of the leading new entrants in the UK radio industry. Phil resigned his post after leading the successfu ...

References

External links

Global Radio

Announcement regarding new Networked Show
{{DEFAULTSORT:One Global Radio Daily Mail and General Trust Contemporary hit radio stations in the United Kingdom Former British radio networks