Marcher Sound

Infobox Radio Station
name = Marcher Sound


city = Wrexham
area = North East Wales and Cheshire
branding =
slogan = "More Music Variety"
airdate = 5 September 1983
frequency = 103.4 MHz
share = 7.3%
share as of = June 2008
share source = [http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php]
format = Music, news, travel
power = 1.2KW
erp =
class =
callsign_meaning =
owner = Global Radio
website = [http://www.marchersound.co.uk Marcher Sound]

Marcher Sound (formerly MFM 103.4) is a radio station broadcasting to north east Wales and north west England from its Mold Road studios in Gwersyllt, Wrexham, also shared with Gold and Buzz 97.1 [ [http://www.gcapmedia.com/index.php?id=103 Names and addresses of GCap's Welsh, Northern and Scottish radio stations] ] . The station is owned by GCap Media after GWR Group purchased Marcher Radio Group in October 2000, and subsequently GWR merged with Capital Radio Group creating GCap Media. Despite this, Marcher Radio Group Ltd remains the official licensee.

It is broadcast from the Wrexham-Rhos Relay, situated just above Moss Village near Wrexham, and although it officially broadcasts to Wrexham and Chester, it can be heard much further afield, in towns such as St Helens and Warrington where reception is surprisingly good. It is part of GCap's The One Network, and brings the network's national programming to its broadcast area. Its sister radio station is Wrexham and Chester Gold.

Its current on-air slogan is "From the heart of Wrexham and Chester, we're bringing you More Music Variety on Marcher Sound FM 103.4".

History

The station went on air in 1983 [The "Guinness Book of Answers" erroneously claims Marcher Sound was launched in early 1982] , on 95.4Mhz VHF and 238m MW/1260Khz AM under the name Marcher Sound,'Your Station,Your Sound' nicknamed Radio Redundo because the original management were made redundant by the steel industry. Investments were made with their redundancy money, local businessmen, and grants from The Welsh Development Agency. Initially they broadcast 0600-1800 and relayed Radio City, from Liverpool, outside of these times. They increased their local hours to 2200, then midnight before a full 24hr service in 1987. After a frequency review, it moved to 103.4 FM on the Wrexham-Rhos transmitter (for Wrexham and Chester) and a relay on 97.1 to the Moel-y-Parc transmitter for transmission to the NE Wales coastal area.

It remained as "Marcher Sound" until 1989 when the FM and AM frequencies were split into two separate services, MFM 103.4 and initially, Marcher Sound,(later Marcher Gold) which remained the name of their AM service, broadcasting on 238m/1260Khz.

When it became apparent that the 97.1 relay was listenable on The Wirral they further utilised this presence to provide a separate breakfast show for The Wirral, and the relay became MFM 97.1, but broadcast from Wrexham. In 1993 MFM 97.1 introduced more separate programming, broadcast from a studio in Claughton Rd., Birkenhead , until 1999 when the 97.1 transmitter was relocated to the Storeton site on the Wirral , just prior to the re-branding of MFM 97.1 to The Buzz 97.1, it's output tailored to provide a Wirral focus, which launched on February 14th 1999. The station was rebadged slightly again in 2001 after GWR bought The Marcher Group, to 'Wirral's Buzz 97.1 ,in line with GWR's policy of prefixing their FM services with a localisation, while the medium wave, 1260 (AM) frequency became Classic Gold Marcher and more recently Gold due to the merger of GWR's Gold services and Capital Gold 's services.In November 2005 it was announced that the Marcher Group's radio stations, including Marcher, were to be sold, but only as part of a package which included some of GWR's South West stations. However, in March 2006, despite a number of offers GCap called off the sale. [http://www.gcapmedia.com/assets/dynamic/92/files/station_disposals_announcement_final.pdf] .

On Monday 25 September 2006, the station rebranded as 103.4 Marcher Sound, reverting to their original name, after to a survey conducted by listeners confirmed the name "Marcher Sound" was more appropriate [ [http://www.mymfm.co.uk/aboutus/article/2d235dd1-3404-4530-95a8-40e4f5e6b091 From marchersound.co.uk] ] . This also quite conveniently fell in with Gcap's decision to gradually errode the FM term from all it's FM services.

In September 2008, it was confirmed that current station owners Global Radio plan to rebrand the station as Heart 103.4, ignoring the listener survey of two years previously suggesting that the listeners preferred the station's original name.

References

External links

* [http://www.marchersound.co.uk/ Official site]
* [http://audio.musicradio.com/player.asp?show=54 Listen to Marcher Sound]
* [http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/music-radio-stations/mfm-103-4 DooYoo Review]
* [http://www.geocities.com/thehotw/aircheck_UKCheshire.htm History of local radio in Cheshire]
* [http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/wrexham-rhos.asp Wrexham-Rhos transmitter]