History
Melody Radio launched on 9 July 1990 on 104.9 FM in Greater London with Tony Bennett's Strike Up The Band, as part of the Independent Broadcasting Authority's creation of seven capital-wide services at the time. Broadcasting from studios in Knightsbridge, the station was owned by the late Lord James Hanson, chairman of Hanson plc, who created Melody as a service he himself would wish to listen to, allegedly inspired by 'easy listening' formats that had become popular on the West Coast of the United States. Hanson was particularly keen on keeping speech to an absolute minimum; however, after the first few days of transmission, a large number of listener enquiries as to the identity of featured music persuaded him to slightly relax restrictions on presenter content.
In its early years, the music predominantly catered for those aged 50 and over; Frank Sinatra, who recorded a launch message for the station, and Annunzio Mantovani prime examples of the artists featured. Launch presenters included Bill Bingham, Steve Crozier, Dave Gillbee, Greg Bance and Peter Dickson, who spent four years as breakfast show presenter. The station achieved listening figures of over a million within its first six months of transmission. Other presenters included Gary Whitford, Allan King Tony Myatt and Jonothan Izzard.
In 1996, the station changed frequencies, moving to 105.4 FM, having received numerous complaints from listeners in South West London of interference from BBC Southern Counties Radio. The 104.9 frequency was, after technical corrections, reallocated to Xfm.
In its later years, Melody FM adopted a soft adult contemporary sound, aimed at a slightly younger audience, and newly marketed as 'London's relaxation station', the slogan which accompanied a television advertising campaign featuring Enya's Orinoco Flow. The Radio Authority permitted the sale of Melody FM to Emap in June 1998, who rebranded the station as Magic 105.4 in December that year, as part of the company's newly-created network of soft adult contemporary music stations, following the acquisition of several AM services in the north of England.
Read more about this topic: Melody 105.4 FM
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)