History
The station began as GEM-AM in 1988 (the letters GEM standing for Great East Midlands). It was one of the most well-regarded gold-formatted stations to come to the British airwaves in the late 1980s and was launched as a response to government disapproval of the simulcasting of radio companies' FM programming on their mediumwave frequencies. GEM was the offshoot of Radio Trent, which began to cater for a younger audience and became known as Trent FM upon the frequency split, and the new AM service was launched to much fanfare with a team of Olympic style runners completing a marathon from Leicester to Derby and finally to Nottingham (the three main areas to which GEM was to broadcast).
GEM's mediumwave broadcasts to Nottinghamshire on 999 kHz and Derbyshire on 945 kHz were initially supplemented by transmissions on 1260 kHz to Leicestershire, but this last frequency was later given over to programming for Leicester's large Asian population (Sunrise Radio later Sabras Radio).
In the mid 1990s, GEM's owners Midland Radio plc were bought, by expanding radio company GWR, which gradually networked the station's programming with that of other gold stations it had purchased elsewhere in the country. The station was subtly rebranded Classic Gold GEM and over time, it became more Classic Gold and less GEM, until only four hours of local programming was left.
By the end of the 1990s, Classic Gold GEM and GWR's network of other medium wave Classic Gold stations across the country were sold to media company UBC, in order for GWR to comply with government rules of the time, restricting how much share of listening one company could own. This and the other stations in the group became known as Classic Gold Digital Network.
Former Radio 1 presenter Tony Blackburn co-presented a national breakfast show on the network until 2007.
Read more about this topic: Classic Gold GEM
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