ContactRadio Mercury
"The Heart of the South..."
Radio Mercury
Radio Mercury, Mercury Extra, Mercury FM
RADIO MERCURY / MERCURY EXTRA / FAME 1521 / BREEZE 1521 / CLASSIC GOLD BREEZE / CLASSIC GOLD / GOLD / MERCURY FM. Crickey!
On 20th October 1984, having won the radio licence for Reigate in Surrey, Radio Mercury owned by historic media mogul John Aumonier, began it's commercial radio service from Broadfield House in Crawley operating on both FM (103.6 for Reigate in Surrey & 97.5 for Crawley in Sussex) and AM (1521 / 197metres). The man who launched the station was Mr. Ed Stewart - however, other well known names to have worked at the station were Pat Sharp and Russ Williams.
For a time, programming was shared with listeners to Sussex station Southern Sound - predominantly evenings - this gave the stations the opportunity to swap presenters, something which happened on a couple of occassions in the early years. In November 1984, Mercury's owner John Aumonier served a writ on London pirate station Radio Jackie for taking audience from his station. A group claiming to be Radio Jackie reaped their revenge four years later when they hi-jacked transmission facilities of both Radio Mercury and Southern Sound.
Gary Johnson remembers the attempts to maintain continuity where commercial breaks were different: 'Hi Ian, great site by the way! When a commercial break used to come on during shared programming with Southern Sound, bits of music used to appear instead of commercials sometimes. I often used to wonder why and after my curiosity got the better of me, I found out! Both stations were airing their own commercials of course, and what with different booking schedules, one station used to finish their ads before the other - so they had to fill it. It didn't always work I seem to remember.... Also, I could never work out quite what the station's logo from the early days, had to do with the station's name. It was a jogger, running along huffing and puffing! Obscure!'
Thanks Gary. Having spent such a short time on 103.6, a frequency shake up in 1986, saw the station's Reigate frequency meander down the dial to it's present location 102.7. Radio Mercury Ltd merged with nearby station Delta FM 102 Wey Valley, which later became County Sound Delta FM 97.1, Mercury's AM service became County Sound Radio in the early part of 1991 - together the group would become known as Allied Radio. Poor AM results for County Sound saw the new branding of Mercury Extra. On 4th May 1992, Mercury Extra became Fame 1521, broadcasting from the same studios as Radio Mercury, with a service of hits of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s with local and national news and sport for a potential audience of 357,000 people.
Notably of course, Radio Mercury was based in the grand Broadfield House. Which was later sold for £1m. The Independent Radio Group (IRG) purchased Allied Radio for £4.5m in March 1996.
DMG Radio, the radio division of Daily Mail & General Trust, became the owners of what was then IRG's Essex Radio Group in November 1998 for £3.75m in cash. Subject to a Radio Authority public interest test, the deal was approved in March 2000. The station later became Breeze 1521, a DMG brand name. Breeze acted as a classic pop hit-led station targeted primarily at the over 35s in the Reigate and Crawley area, and incorporating ex-Top 30 hits taken from 15 to 40 year period prior to broadcast. Hits aged less than 10 years old only accounted for less than 35% of the daily output. Special themed music genre days also took place occasionally, taking a particular decade rather than a couple.
DMG disposed of their UK radio interests in 2000 - enter GWR Group plc. And therefore GCap Media plc.
Information amended from the excellent Aircheck UK webpage
Radio Mercury Jingles
- Mercury Extra AM - Alfasound and Jam package - 1991
- Fame 1521 - Alfasound and Jam package - 1992
- Mercury FM - Alfasound and Jam package - 1995