Heart 96.3 (formerly GWR FM Bristol) is a radio station serving

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Glouces ...

and surrounding areas and broadcasting on 96.3 MHz in Bristol and

Weston-super-Mare Weston-super-Mare, also known simply as Weston, is a seaside town in North Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. It includes the suburbs of Mead Vale, Milton, Oldmix ...

. Launched in 1981 as Radio West, it was merged with neighbouring

Wiltshire Radio Heart Wiltshire (formerly GWR FM Wiltshire) was a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcast to north and west Wiltshire. The station was rebranded to Heart in March 2009 in line with Globa ...

and relaunched under the name GWR in 1985, retaining the name through several changes of ownership until rebranding in March 2009. Heart Bristol merged with sister stations in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

and

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

to form

Heart West Country Heart West Country was a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network, broadcasting to Bristol and Somerset. It launched on 16 July 2010 as a result of a merger between Heart Bristol (formerly GWR FM) ...

History

Radio West

Radio West began broadcasting on Tuesday 27 October 1981, eleven years after the region's first local radio station

BBC Radio Bristol BBC Radio Bristol is the BBC's local radio station serving Bristol, Bath and North & North East Somerset. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at Broadcasting House in Bristol. According to RAJAR, the stati ...

launched. The station started a full service commercial radio station on 96.3 MHz FM and 1260 kHz AM (238 metres medium wave) – the culmination of a merger between two companies bidding for the Bristol and Bath radio licence (Radio Avonside and Bristol Channel) awarded by the then

Independent Broadcasting Authority The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television ( ITV and Channel 4 and limited satellite television regulation – cable television was the responsibility of the Cable Author ...

. The choice of on-air name proved to be simple when the BBC aired a series called ''

Shoestring Shoelaces, also called shoestrings (US English) or bootlaces (UK English), are a system commonly used to secure shoes, boots, and other footwear. They typically consist of a pair of strings or cords, one for each shoe, finished off at both end ...

'' complete with the fictitious Radio West. Headquartered in expensive studio premises in the Watershed complex on Bristol's Harbourside, by 1983 the station had suffered losses of £300,000. The original senior management team left the station, with John Bradford moving from Radio Tees to take over as managing director and news editor Mike Stewart appointed programme controller. This resulted in considerable changes to the programme output and presentation line-up, including

Roger Day Roger "Twiggy" Day (born Roger Thomas in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire England; 29 March 1945) is a radio broadcaster and DJ who began his career in offshore radio, and was a key pioneer in commercial radio. He later presented on BBC Local Radio ...

(ex Caroline,

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Cour ...

, and

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 ...

) being brought in to host the breakfast show. By October 1983, the station was closing each evening at 7:30pm, but as the station became more mainstream, it was able to broadcast throughout the evening and also late night by the end of the following year. Although the station was broadcasting programmes of a high quality (including award-nominated computer show Datarama), listeners remained loyal to the BBC's Radio Bristol, already established as the radio station for the area. Financially, commercial radio struggled to make any money as the 1980s economy in Britain was hampered by union strikes. Radio West had not made any profit since it started and looked set to close, when the neighbouring local station Wiltshire Radio, based in

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population ...

made an approach to merge the two stations, creating a station covering from

in the west to

and

Hungerford Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, northeast of Salisbury and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The Kennet and Avon Canal passes through the town alongside the ...

in the east, with opt out programming for the two areas. This merger was approved by the

and was completed in September 1985. The history of Radio West formed part of 'Eddie Shoestring's Bristol', a documentary presented by Xander Brett for

Burst Radio Bristol University's Radio Station (Burst) is a radio station run by students of the University of Bristol, UK. Its studios are located within the University of Bristol Students’ Union building and it broadcasts online.Ralph Bernard, and former Radio West presenter

Johnnie Walker (DJ) Johnnie Walker, MBE (born Peter Waters Dingley; 30 March 1945) is an English radio disc jockey and broadcaster. He began his career on pirate radio, most notably on Radio Caroline. He joined BBC Radio 1 in 1969. He joined BBC Radio 2 in 1998 ...

GWR launch

Radio West formally closed at just after midnight on Monday 9 September 1985 with a special final programme hosted by Trevor Fry and the final closedown announcement from Mark Seaman (the station's programme organiser). Test transmissions for GWR commenced the next day before it launched as a 24-hour full service station at 6am on Monday 1 October 1985. The new station aired separate output for Bristol and Wiltshire at breakfast and mid-morning. All other programmes came from the Wooton Bassett studios at the Lime Kiln. New disc jockeys were brought in, however the station still sounded like competitor Radio Bristol with its mix of music, news and talk (as was the trend in British commercial radio at the time due to needletime restrictions) and listening figures were not improving.

Split services

GWR Radio began splitting frequencies as required by the government – which declared its desire to end

simulcasting 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 ...

on both FM and AM. GWR Radio launched Brunel Radio on 15 November 1988, a "golden oldies" station on 1260 kHz in Bristol, and 936/1161 kHz AM in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

. In the early 1990s Brunel started networking programming to 2CR Radio in

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the English ...

and

Radio 210 Heart Berkshire (formerly 2-Ten FM) was an Independent Local Radio station, serving Berkshire and North Hampshire from studios in Reading. About Launched as Radio 210 (Two-One-Oh), the station commenced broadcasting in March 1976 on its mediu ...

Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway serve the town. Reading is east ...

. Each station had Classic Gold appended to the end of their names (e.g. Brunel Classic Gold, 210 Classic Gold). Local news and shows were combined with networked programmes in each of its areas. After the lifting on sanctions restricting the time spent playing music (so-called 'needle time') in 1988, GWR FM became more and more music-led, playing Top 40 chart music during the daytime, and specialist music (big band music, rock, rap etc.) was gradually phased out. The local element of the station, especially its news coverage, had progressively become briefer and reduced in length, then moved onto Brunel Classic Gold, before being dropped altogether. GWR FM at last become popular, with the rise in listening figures confirming this. A Bath ILR licence was awarded by the IBA in 1986. GWR Radio Bath debuted on 22 May 1987, as a separate station, later known as Bath's GWR FM and

Heart Bath Heart 103 (formerly GWR FM Bath) was an independent radio station serving Bath in Somerset, England, broadcasting on 103 MHz FM, on DAB Digital radio and online. History In 1986, a Bath ILR licence was awarded by the IBA. GWR Radio Bath ...

. All programming being shared from GWR Bristol, local output was provided for a time at breakfast only. However, for official licensing purposes, GWR Bath and Bristol were listed as one station and audience figures from

RAJAR Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR) was established in 1992 to operate a single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom. RAJAR is jointly owned by the BBC and RadioCentre. RAJAR's predecessor was call ...

were combined with GWR Swindon. All programming for GWR Bath were broadcast from Bristol, but there was a small 'GWR Bath' office in Avon Street at one time.

The Mix Network

In 1992, a re-launch of the station saw ''The New GWR-FM'' become the hub of what was ''The Mix Network'', a network of radio stations owned by the

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. O ...

(latterly

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. O ...

) covering southern England and Wales. The radio station's (and the group's) long held philosophy of heavily researching the average person's listening habits and tastes led by group chairman Ralph Bernard created a tightly formatted sound where popular Top 40 chart hits ex-Top 40 songs are blended in with older hits. This led to a ''Better Music Mix'' format which spread to other radio stations within the GWR Group, including

Essex FM Heart Essex (formerly Essex Radio and then Essex FM) is a British commercial radio station. It was launched on 12 September 1981, broadcasting from Southend-on-Sea and since 27 October 2004 from Chelmsford, both in Essex. History Heart began a ...

Trent FM Trent FM was an Independent Local Radio station which broadcast to Nottinghamshire. The station merged with two other East Midlands stations, Leicester Sound and Ram FM to form Capital FM East Midlands (part of Global's Capital FM Network) on ...

and Beacon Radio creating a mini national network. The practice for the Mix Network stations was for each station to play a centrally produced playlist (from GWR FM itself). Songs were broadcast at the same time as neighbouring group stations and each station adopted the ''Better Music Mix'' tagline, to be said by local disc jockeys in between songs. Fans of the previous guises of some stations bought by the GWR Group, notably ''

'' and '' Beacon Radio'' were unhappy at the sudden re-branding of the stations, accusing the new management of reducing local output such as news bulletins and replacing local programming with networked shows such as ''Late Night Love'' and ''The Request Fest'', which originated from the Bristol studios. Despite protests from outside Bristol, GWR FM continued to be popular with RAJAR listening figures showing an average 14% listening share of all radio broadcast in the area.

Licence renewal

In 2002 the

Radio Authority Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

renewed GWR FM's licence. It was due to expire in October 2009, but will now expire on 28 October 2013, according to GWR FM licensees page. However it is expected to be automatically renewed because it provides a

DAB DAB, dab, dabs, or dabbing may refer to: Dictionaries * '' Dictionary of American Biography'', published under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies * ''Dictionary of Australian Biography'', published since 1949 Places * Dą ...

simulcast signal. This is the same scenario applies to its sister stations GWR FM Bath and Classic Gold 1260.

Weston-super-Mare relay

In late 2007, GWR FM launched a relay of their Bristol service to the Weston-super-Mare area on 103.0 MHz FM, as for many years Weston had been officially covered by the station, but had suffered from a poor 96.3 MHz FM signal in many parts of the town. The programming on this relay was identical to the Bristol service, aside from jingles and sweepers that stated 'GWR Weston', and had separate advertisements for

North Somerset North Somerset is a unitary district in Somerset, South West England. Whilst its area covers part of the ceremonial county of Somerset, it is administered independently of the non-metropolitan county. Its administrative headquarters is in the ...

listeners. This led to the somewhat confusing situation that although the station branding said 'GWR Weston', all DJ links reference 'GWR Bristol' and feature Bristol oriented news, event guides and competitions.

Ofcom yellow card

On 13 March 2009,

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 ...

issued GWR Bristol with a "yellow card" after a content sampling report showed that only 47% of GWR Bristol's music was from the past 2 years, much lower than its minimum 75%. Ofcom are now planning to monitor the station again soon after its rebrand to Heart.

Network restructuring

On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced plans to merge Heart Bristol with

Heart Somerset Heart Somerset (formerly Somerset's Orchard FM) was an Independent Local Radio station serving Somerset, England. Originally owned by (and officially remains licensed to) Orchard Media Ltd, the company was purchased by GWR Group in 1999, and ...

and

as part of plans to reduce the Heart network of stations from 33 to 16. The new station, ''

'', began broadcasting from Bristol on 16 July 2010.Heart slims but strengthens
, RadioToday, 21 June 2010

GWR acronym

The initials GWR have an association with the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

especially in the South West of England, and there is a popular misconception with listeners that the station stands for Great Western Radio. Indeed, neighbouring GWR Wiltshire was called Wiltshire Radio (WR) before its merger with Radio West. However, according to group management, the letters GWR did not stand for anything. In fact the station management at the time did try to secure the name Great Western Radio, however it was already the trading name of a Bristol electronics shop, who refused to relinquish the title. It should also be noted that GWR's oldies service was originally called Brunel Classic Gold, after the Great Western Railway's founding father

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "on ...

GWR Group

The company which formerly owned GWR, the

, expanded from the late 1980s / early 1990s onwards to purchase other stations throughout the country. Many UK stations now follow the GWR format. It became the largest radio company in the UK, before merging with its competitor

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. ...

to become

on 9 May 2005.

Premises

*1982–2001: Watershed Centre, Canons Road, Bristol *2001–2021: Passage Street, Bristol *2021–present: Temple Quay, Bristol