City Wrexham Branding This is Heart First air date 4 January 2011 | Broadcast area North and Mid Wales Slogan Turn up the Feel Good! | |
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Frequency FM:
88.0 MHz (Wrexham)
102.0–107.0 MHz (North Wales)
RDS: Heart
DAB: 10D | ||
Heart North Wales is a local radio station owned by Communicorp and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcasts to North and Mid Wales from studios in Gwersyllt, near Wrexham.
Contents
The new Heart North Wales station launched at 6am on Tuesday 6 May 2014, replacing the former Heart North West and Wales station. The rebrand coincided with the relaunch of Heart Wales - meaning a fully separate North and Mid Wales licence, effectively restoring a regional service to South and West Wales.
History
In December 2008, GMG Media was awarded an FM licence to launch a new Real Radio station serving North and Mid Wales. Initially, the company pledged to produce separate local programming and news bulletins for the region in addition to off-peak pan-Wales output. Following an agreed format change request, the existing service covering south and west Wales was instead expanded to form a national service with no opt-outs. Real Radio Wales began broadcasting to the area at 8am on Tuesday 4 January 2011.
On 6 February 2014, Global Radio reached an agreement to sell the Northern licence for Real Radio Wales and seven other stations across the UK to Communicorp. The adjoining South and West Wales licence remains under Global's ownership. Under OFCOM rules, the sale required the then all-Wales station to be split into two with separate Heart stations launched under separate owners.
The new Heart North Wales station launched at 6am on Tuesday 6 May 2014. The move coincided with the rebrand and relaunch of Heart's North West and Wales and Cymru stations as part of the Capital network. The Heart and Capital stations share facilities at Global's studios in Gwersyllt, near Wrexham..
Programming
Local programming is produced and broadcast from Heart's Wrexham studios from 6-10am and 4-7pm on weekdays, 1-5pm on Saturdays and 12pm-4pm on Sundays. 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 include Spence Macdonald and Rachael Howarth (Heart Breakfast) and Oli Kemp.
News
Heart North Wales broadcasts hourly regional news bulletins from 6am-7pm on weekdays and 6am-12pm at weekends - including two ten-minute weekday programmes, Heart Morning News at 6am and Heart Nightly News at 6.45pm - and headlines on the half hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows.
National news updates air hourly from Global's London headquarters at all other times. Regional bulletins are jointly produced from Global's newsrooms in Wrexham and Cardiff Bay.