Heart Four Counties 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 Chrys ...

as part of the

Heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), 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 ca ...

network. It broadcast to

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For gov ...

and

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It ...

. The station launched on Friday 16 July 2010 as a result of a merger between Heart Milton Keynes (formerly Horizon Radio), Heart Northants (formerly Northants 96), Heart Dunstable (formerly 97.6 Chiltern FM) and Heart Bedford (formerly 96.9 Chiltern Radio).

History

The regional station originally broadcast as four separate stations - Chiltern Radio began broadcasting to Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in October 1981 and launched a separate Bedford station in June 1982. Northants 96 began broadcasting to Northamptonshire in November 1986 and Horizon Radio launched in north Buckinghamshire in October 1989. These stations were owned and operated by the

Chiltern Radio Group Chiltern Radio Network (also known as Chiltern Radio Group) was the parent group of several independent local radio stations in the 1980s and 1990s. These were divided across two networks: ''The Hot FM'' and ''SuperGold''. History Chiltern Radi ...

, which was sold off to the GWR Group in 1995. Subsequently, the GWR Group merged with

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. ...

in 2005 to form

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 ...

, which was subsequently bought out by Global Radio in 2008. On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced it would merge the four stations as part of plans to reduce the

network of stations from 33 separate stations to 16 co-located 'broadcast centres'. The new station began broadcasting from Dunstable on Friday 16 July 2010 and moved to new studios in

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

on 6 September 2011.

Station merger

On 26 February 2019, Global announced Heart Four Counties would be merged with three sister stations in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to t ...

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

and

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

. From 3 June 2019, local output will consist of a three-hour regional Drivetime show on weekdays, alongside localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising. Local breakfast and weekend shows were replaced with network programming from London. Heart East will begin broadcasting regional programming from the Milton Keynes studios on 3 June 2019.

Former presenters

* Stuart Miles * Katy Hill

References

External links

Heart Four Counties
{{coord, 51.8903, -0.5298, display=title, region:GB_scale:5000 Four Counties Radio stations established in 2010 Radio stations in Northamptonshire Radio stations in Bedfordshire Radio stations in Buckinghamshire Radio stations in Hertfordshire Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom