ContactMercia Sound, Mercia FM
"Mercia - the first FM..."
Mercia Sound, Mercia FM
Mercia Sound, Mercia FM
September 1st 1979: Chief Executive John Bradford was charged with creating a new radio station. Pre-launch publicity material advised listeners that this was their local radio station, encouraging them to 'use it'.
Coventry's Mercia Sound was Britain's 21st commercial radio station, launched by Programme Controller Ian Rufus at 6:58am on the morning of Friday 23rd May 1980, using 220metres 1359kHz Medium Wave, and 95.9 vhf FM Stereo beamed from a transmitter at Shilton near Ansty in Leicestershire. 'Everything you need to know on 220...'. It was designed to cover Coventry, Warwickshire & South West Leicestershire.
After a news bulletin had concluded at 7:05, the first record on-air was Dan Hartman's 'This Is It' played from their studios at Hertford Place in Coventry by the first presenter, Gordon Astley. Greeting the stattion, were 24 children from Class 1 at Walsgrave Junior School, who were actually at school for the launch. Preparing their breakfasts in the school's kitchen, they broadcast a welcome message for the station staff. The reason for this was that they wanted to make the launch a special occasion and felt it was 'living history'.
The station was set up as Midland Community Radio Ltd at a cost of £350,000 - a phenomenal amount back then. The company behind the station said music would predominate at first with a planned move to balance music against other on-air features. The concept of being an on-air juke box was firmly rejected. Children's and women's programming was planned as well as coverage of community schools in Coventry and Warwickshire and educational features. Even at such an early stage, the management of the station were making plans to broadcast 24hours a day as soon as was viably possible. Two station newspapers were released - one at the launch and another 18 months later. To celebrate it's 1st birthday, a listener's party was held at Tiffany's Nightclub in Coventry on 21st May 1981, with Chas & Dave headlining.
Novel, ground breaking interactive elements operated by the station were the Voteline, which gave listeners chance to ring in to air their views on a wide variety of subjects, and on the 24th May 1982, the Radioline began, which gave listeners the chance to listen to the station when they weren't near a radio, by dialling 8069. This formed part of a British Telecom 'Guideline' service, which was also in place for radio stations in Manchester and Liverpool. Mercia's Radioline recieved 10,000 calls when HMS Coventry sank during the Falklands War and 5,500 called when Prince William was born - there was an average of 3,000 calls made to the number by locals per week.
Amongst well known presenters from the station's past, there's Ian Rufus, Tony Gilham, Jeff Harris, Annie Othen, Ted Elliott, Mike Salisbury, Sara Blizzard (now a BBC weather presenter!), Bernie Keith, Mark Keen and Marc Silk, to name but a few. As far as normal schedules were concerned, early programmes lasted for 19 hours a day, starting at 5:00am Monday to Saturday and 7:00am on Sundays with regular news bulletins every half hour throughout the day until 7:00pm. Programming ceased at 1:00am the following day. Specialist programming included elements for the Asian Community, Jazz, Bandstand and Concert Hall, Afro-Carribean, Disco, and a programme whose initials would return to haunt them in later years: 'The Great Western Radio Show' which featured the best in Country Music hence the referral to 'Western'.
As time progressed, Mercia FM moved frequencies to 97.0 & 102.9 - it's AM frequency of 1359khz became XTRA-AM on 4th April 1989 - by this time, it had become part of Midlands Radio plc, which included Nottingham & Derby's Trent FM, Leicester Sound, BRMB (Birmingham) plus GEM-AM too.
The Mercia Mix & Power Mix was a non-presenter led programme of exclusively re-mixed dance and chart music produced by Kevin Sykes. It broadcast on Mercia FM (Mercia Mix) and Leicester Sound FM (The Power Mix). Originally the programme began broadcasting on Mercia FM (only) on September 8th 1990 as an hour long pilot show, the following week (September 15th) the show began in earnest starting at 8:00 pm on Saturday night through until 10:00pm. The Radio Authority rulings only allowed a maximum of 15 minutes airplay of a single track, so most tracks came out around 10 minutes of duration.
On January 25th 1992 Leicester Sound began broadcasting the show (The Power Mix) as a simulcast from Mercia's studios, and later on July 6th 1992 a weekday evening slot started Monday - Thursday on Mercia FM between 6:20pm - 7:00pm. Eventually on March 6th 1993 the show came to an end albeit the ratings being better than those programmes either side of its scheduled times.
In 1994, the station's owners Midlands Radio plc sold the entire group to a group called GWR - who disposed of the XTRA AM 1152 and BRMB service to Capital Radio plc, relaunching the stations with the straplines '...the new...' and '....today's better music mix'. It was then that the jingles of old were disposed of - the same levels of personality and localness were changed for ever, and a targeted playlist was put out. It was not uncommon to hear the same record being played at the same time on Mercia, Ram-FM (Derby), Leicester Sound, & Trent FM in Nottingham, which was then followed by the same situation for the next track. Proof if ever it was needed that the stations would never be quite the same again. (The 1359 AM frequency was retained post sale of other stations to Capital, by GWR who rolled out Classic Gold in it's place. It was first launched as Mercia Classic Gold in 1994.)
Ten years after the launch, the station invited the original presenters back to reminisce and chat about the station. There was an off-air reunion in 1991 to mark the station's 21st birthday, and a further reunion in 2002. Mercia continues to broadcast on the same two frequencies, 97.0 & 102.9 FM, from the Hertford Place studios in Coventry and is currently licenced until 31st December 2009.
Mercia Sound Jingles
- Mercia Sound Launch - 23rd May 1980 and Coventry's new commercial radio station arrives