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Gem 106, previously known as "Heart East Midlands", is a regional radio station broadcasting to the East Midlands, owned and operated by Orion Media.

History

Based in Nottingham on the City link in the Sneinton area of the city centre, the station was launched on 23 September 1997 as Radio 106, with the first programme presented by Dickie Dodd at 6:00am. A year later, John Myers took control over the station and it was rebranded by then owners Border Radio Holdings into Century. The station was relaunched again as Heart 106 on 29 August 2005.

It is transmitted from the Copt Oak transmitter close to the M1 north of Leicester in the National Forest.

Audience

According to RAJAR figures up to September 2010, the station was listened to by 453,000 people (out of a possible 2,154,000 listeners) every week. Each listener listened for an average of 8.2 hours every single week.

Ownership changes

The station has changed hands several times: Border Radio Holdings was sold to the Capital Group, who then merged with GWR Group in 2004 forming GCap Media. GCap were required to sell the East Midlands station (as the combined firm also owned a number of other stations in the region), and thus Century 106 was sold to Chrysalis, owners of Heart in London and the West Midlands; Century 106 was rebranded as Heart 106. (GCap retained the other Century stations for a time, later selling them to Guardian Media Group; these stations now broadcast as Real Radio).

On the 25 June 2007 it was announced that Heart along with its sister stations The Arrow, LBC and Galaxy were to be sold for £170 million to Global Radio from the Chrysalis Group.

Following Global Radio's takeover of GCap Media, the Office of Fair Trading ordered Global to sell five of its Midlands stations including BRMB, Mercia FM, Wyvern FM, Heart 106 and Beacon Radio. In May 2009, the stations were sold to Orion Media, a company backed by Lloyds TSB Development Capital and Phil Riley. Orion ran Heart East Midlands as a franchise operation under an agreement with Global Radio.

Station rebrand

On 9 November 2010, Orion Media announced that Heart 106 would be relaunched and renamed as 'Gem 106' from January 2011. Under the rebrand, the station ended its franchise agreement with Global Radio which allowed it to use the Heart identity and carry networked programming from London.

Gem 106 was launched at midnight on Saturday 1st January 2011 with a special programme presented by Orion's director of programming and marketing David Lloyd.

Presenters

News staff

References

1. Chrysalis sells three radio stations
2. Radio Today
3. Gem to replace Heart East Mids
4. Heart 106 to become a local Gem, Nottingham Evening Post, 9 November 2010

External links

• Gem 106 official website
• History of local radio in Leicestershire
• Launch of Gem 106
• RAJAR

52°56′56″N 1°08′03″W / 52.94881°N 1.13418°W / 52.94881; -1.13418

• Radio stations in Nottinghamshire
• Radio stations established in 1997
• Media in Nottingham
• Former Heart Network stations