City Manchester First air date 16 October 1994 | Branding 102 Capital | |
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Broadcast area Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire Slogan Manchester's No.1 Hit Music Station Frequency FM: 102.0 MHz
DAB:
11C (Manchester)
12A (Lancashire)
RDS: Capital Manc | ||
Capital Manchester is a local radio station owned and operated by the Global Radio as part of the Capital radio network. The station broadcasts from studios at Exchange Quay, Salford.
Contents
Technical
The transmitter is on top of the City Tower (the former Sunley Building) in Piccadilly in Manchester, the same place as 106.1 Real Radio XS and Radio X's transmitter and all 3 services share the same broadcast antenna system which is located on the centre tower and is illuminated with red Aircraft warning lights at night.
History
The 102 MHz frequency in Manchester has a chequered background, initially it was occupied by Sunset 102 which included regular shows from house music innovators 808 State and a Saturday evening rave show from Sammy B; both were cited by Dave Haslam in City Life to have been instrumental in reflecting and developing the early rave culture in the city. However, due to occasional threats of violence on air and other breaches of the licence the station was closed.
The licence was readvertised and quickly won by Faze FM who launched Kiss 102 on 16 October 1994. The licence win was spearheaded by Eugene Perera's Level Broadcast, aided by Mike Powell's Infinity Radio consultancy, and included shareholders UKRD, Eastern Counties Newspaper Group and 3i.
The station became a victim of its own success when months after opening a second station, the Yorkshire regional Kiss 105, the station's board accepted a £17.6 million takeover bid from the Chrysalis Group for a company that had cost just £600k to set up three years earlier.
Chrysalis rebranded the station as Galaxy, 11 days after transfer of ownership, as a direct result of EMAP, the Kiss brand owners, refusal to franchise the Kiss name to Chrysalis. The music policy was toned down, integrating R'n'B into the playlist and disspensing with many of the specialist programmes and presenters. Nevertheless, their investment in advertising and change of music policy was able to grow the audience further.
The station was rebranded as Capital on 3 January 2011 as part of a merger of Global Radio's Galaxy and Hit Music networks to form the nine-station Capital network.
Programming
Local programming is produced and broadcast from Capital's Salford studios from 6-10am and 4-7pm on weekdays and 12-4pm at weekends. All networked programming originates from Global Radio's London headquarters, including the syndicated Vodafone Big Top 40 on Sunday afternoons.
The station's local presenters are Rob Ellis, Rachel Burke-Davies and James 'Wingman' Wilson (Capital Breakfast), Adam Brown (weekday drivetime) and James Hall (weekend afternoons).
News
Capital Manchester broadcasts hourly local news updates from 6am-7pm on weekdays and 6am-12pm at weekends with headlines on the half-hour during Capital Breakfast on weekdays. The Salford newsroom also produces bulletins for Heart North West, Capital North West and Wales on the Wirral, Smooth North West and XS Manchester (owned by Communicorp).