History
The 102 MHz frequency in Manchester has a chequered background, initially it was occupied by Sunset 102 which included regular shows from house music innovators 808 state and a Saturday evening rave show from Sammy B; both were cited by Dave Haslam in City Life to have been instrumental in reflecting and developing the early rave culture in the city. However, due to occasional threats of violence on air and other breaches of the licence the station was closed.
The licence was readvertised and quickly won by Faze FM who launched Kiss 102 on 16 October 1994. The licence win was spearheaded by Eugene Perera's Level Broadcast, aided by Mike Powell's Infinity Radio consultancy, and included shareholders UKRD, Eastern Counties Newspaper Group and 3i.
The station became a victim of its own success when months after opening a second station, the Yorkshire regional Kiss 105, the station's board accepted a £17.6 million takeover bid from the Chrysalis Group for a company that had cost just £600k to set up three years earlier.
Chrysalis rebranded the station as Galaxy, 11 days after transfer of ownership, as a direct result of EMAP, the Kiss brand owners, refusal to franchise the Kiss name to Chrysalis. The music policy was toned down, integrating R'n'B into the playlist and disspensing with many of the specialist programmes and presenters. Nevertheless their investment in advertising and change of music policy was able to grow the audience further.
The station was rebranded as Capital on 3 January 2011 as part of a merger of Global Radio's Galaxy and Hit Music networks to form the nine-station Capital network.
Read more about this topic: Capital Manchester
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