NOW Leicester

Now Leicester
Licensed area	Leicestershire and Rutland
Frequency	11B (218.64 MHz)
Air date	December 6, 2002
Owner	Now Digital (East Midlands)
Website	www.now-digital.com
Coverage Map	from www.now-digital.com
Transmitters	Copt Oak (Loughborough) Houghton on the Hill (Leicester)

NOW Leicester is a local commercial digital radio multiplex in the United Kingdom, which serves Leicestershire and Rutland. It commenced broadcasts on December 6, 2002 and is operated by NOW Digital on behalf of Now Digital East Midlands Ltd. The launch was delayed by the UK firemen's strike in autumn 2002, which restricted access to transmitter sites.

Original plans

NOW Digital originally proposed to use transmitters at Copt Oak and Waltham with Skeffington to follow within two years of launch. However on awarding the application the Radio Authority identified that coverage in Leicester itself may not be as good as listeners would expect, and accordingly asked Now Digital to "re-examine its transmission plans in order to address this concern" ^[1], resulting in the adoption of Houghton on the Hill instead of Waltham. In their original application NOW Digital also identified two additional transmitter sites at Boundary water tower and Empingham, and their introduction would be reviewed during the licence period. Both transmitters carrying the NOW Leicester ensemble also carry the national commercial ensemble Digital One, but not BBC National DAB

Stations carried

The following channels are receivable on any digital-equipped DAB radio in the Leicestershire area:

Station Name	Bitrate	Audio Channels	Description	Analogue Availability
Asian Plus	64kbit/s	Mono	Broadcasts Hindu Sanskar Radio. Owned by Sabras Radio
BBC Leicester	128kbit/s	Joint Stereo	BBC local radio station for Leicestershire and Rutland	104.9FM
96-105 Capital FM East Midlands	128kbit/s	Joint Stereo	Contemporary Hit music	96.2, 105.4FM
Gold	128kbit/s	Joint Stereo	Oldies station owned by Global Radio (Simulcast of Gold Nottingham)	999MW in Nottinghamshire
Gem 106	128kbit/s	Joint Stereo	80s 90s and current adult contemporary music	106.0FM
Heart London	128kbit/s	Joint Stereo	Adult Contemporary - London version
Sabras Sound	64kbit/s	Mono	Asian	1260MW
Traffic Radio	48kbit/s	Mono LSF	Midlands version of rolling traffic news service, operated by the Highways Agency
XFM London	128kbit/s	Joint Stereo	Alternative Indie/Rock music led station

None of Lincs FM group's two stations in the area are on the multiplex.

Former Services

Services previously carried on the multiplex include

• Capital Disney (Ceased June 30, 2007, replaced by Traffic Radio)
• Saga 106.6 (Re-branded Smooth Radio March 27, 2007)
• The Storm (Ceased January 24, 2006, replaced by XFM UK)
• Century 106 (Re-branded Heart 106 September 2, 2005)
• Chill (Ceased March 21, 2009, required by Office of Fair Trading ruling after GCap/Global merger)
• Heart 106 (Re-branded GEM 106 December 31 2010)
• Galaxy (Ceased December 31 2010) - Normal branding ceased December 19 2010 in advance of the launch of Capital. This service was replaced replaced by Heart London.
• Leicester Sound (Ceased January 3 2011) - Replaced by Capital FM East Midlands

Original Proposals

Now Digital and EMAP competed for the licence, the services proposed by both applicants were as follows:-

Copt Oak transmitter next to the M1 motorway

Now Digital

• 105.4 Leicester Sound
• Sabras Sound
• 106 Century FM (Now Heart 106)
• The second East Midlands regional station from launch - awarded to Saga 106.6FM (now Smooth Radio)
• The Arrow - Rock Music
• tba - Pop Hits
• Cube - Children's Music (Launched as Capital Disney)
• Asian Plus - Asian youth

EMAP

• 105.4 Leicester Sound
• Sabras Sound
• 106 Century FM (Now Heart 106)
• The second East Midlands regional station from launch - awarded to Saga 106.6FM (now Smooth Radio)
• 107 Oak FM - Local radio station for Loughborough
• TAP - Asian youth
• tba - Oldies
• XFM - Indie, Alternative Rock
• KISS - Dance
• tba - Jazz and Soul

Additionally EMAP proposed that the following services would be broadcast on a part time basis

• 103.2 Takeover Radio - Children's radio, Saturdays 07:00-14:00
• Leicester Sports Radio - Local sport, Weekend afternoons.
• Demon FM - Leicester student radio, Saturdays 18:00-24:00

See also

• Waltham transmitting station - carries NOW Nottingham

References

1. ^ Radio Authority publishes assessment of the local digital multiplex licence award for Leicester

External links

• Copt Oak transmitter
• Houghton on the Hill transmitter
• Coverage map
• Award of licence in February 2002
• Application for the licence