Heart North Lancashire & Cumbria (formerly The Bay) 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 radi ...

owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the

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 to t ...

network. It broadcast to north

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

and south

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

from studios in Lancaster.

History

The Bay

The station's original name, The Bay, derived from the sand banks of

Morecambe Bay Morecambe Bay is a large estuary in northwest England, just to the south of the Lake District National Park. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom, covering a total area of . In 1974, the second larges ...

, above which the main 96.9 MHz transmitter is located. Relay transmitters are located near the Lake District towns of

Windermere Windermere (sometimes tautologically called Windermere Lake to distinguish it from the nearby town of Windermere) is the largest natural lake in England. More than 11 miles (18 km) in length, and almost 1 mile (1.5 km) at its wides ...

(102.3 MHz) and Kendal (103.2 MHz), near the A684. The station served a potential audience of around 292,000 people, including the key centres of

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...

, Kendal, Lancaster, Morecambe and

, where the service area overlaps with sister station Smooth Lake District. Under previous owners, The Bay was nominated for and won several industry awards, including the Station of the Year at the 2010 Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards, and more recently, Arqiva's Breakfast Show of the Year in 2012.

Sale and rebrand

On 20 November 2017, CN Group announced The Bay would be sold to

Global Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

along with sister station Lakeland Radio - the sale was finalised by 1 December 2017. Global later announced The Bay would join the

network. The Bay's brand and programming was phased out during February 2018 and following a transition period, the station was relaunched as Heart North Lancashire and Cumbria at 6am on Monday 5 March 2018.

Closure

On 26 February 2019, Global announced the station would be merged with

Heart North West Heart North West is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to North West England from studios in the Spinningfields area of Manchester city centre. Overview Century Radio (1998–2009) ...

. From 3 June 2019, local output will consist of a three-hour regional Drivetime show on weekdays, alongside local news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising.Amanda Holden to join Jamie Theakston for Heart UK Breakfast
Radio Today, 29 April 2019 Heart North Lancashire & Cumbria's studios in Lancaster closed with operations moving to Manchester. Local breakfast and weekend shows were replaced with network programming from London. The station ceased local programming on 31 May 2019.

References

External links