Today, the 15th of June 2010 marks a historic day for radio broadcasting, and it all happened here in Essex. Many Southenders will remember the birth of the first local radio station for Southend-on-Sea as Essex Radio, back in September 1981, broadcasting from Clifftown Road, but the first real radio station from Essex, was MZX, [...]

Today, Monday the 22nd June 2009, Essex FM was replaced by “Heart”, taking the total of Heart-branded stations in the UK to 33, and adding networked daytime programming from London. The station re-launched at 6am – first track was Janet Jackson, The Best Things in Life are Free. Here’s a short extract from today’s 6am [...]

From Monday the 22nd June, Essex FM vanishes from our local airwaves, to be replaced by “Heart” As we’ve reported before, Essex FM is owned by the largest commercial radio group in the UK, Global Radio. Their three-phase plan to rebrand over 30 stations with a local identity to “Heart”. For the last couple of [...]

Global Radio, the largest player in UK commercial radio, is set to re-brand local station Essex FM to “Heart” this June. This UK-wide re-branding of stations to the “Heart” umbrella started in January 2009, and Essex FM will be one of the last stations to change its name. Once complete, 33 local radio stations will [...]

Listeners to Essex FM at the start of this week were surprised to hear a message that morning presenter Martin Day, plus studio cohort Su Harrison had been taken off-air after comments about boy scouts in a recent show. Within a few hours, listeners started springing up on Facebook trying to “Save Martin and Su”, [...]

Essex FM, owned by the massive UK radio group Global Radio is set to be re-branded. Global Radio has plans to re-brand 29 of their UK commercial radio stations either to “Heart” or to “Galaxy”, and Essex FM will reportedly be rebranded to be “Heart”. Also set to go, is Kent radio station “Invicta FM”. [...]

Local radio station BBC Essex, is set to reduce its live commentary of both Southend United and Colchester United’s games for the forthcoming 2008/9 football season. Southender Gary Bullock told us: “From a Southend perspective, last season’s home gate averaged over 8,000. With travelling fans averaging a creditable few hundred, that leaves over 7,000 avid [...]

The new local radio for Southend-on-Sea launched this morning. The station broadcasts on 105.1FM, from studios next to the Adventure Island Theme Park, close to Southend Pier. The new station is staffed by a number of names from former Southend-based radio station Essex FM, including Mike Porter, Tracie Young, Ben Payne, Tracy Cooper, Nick Hull [...]

Southend Radio has started test transmissions on 105.1FM today. The tests consist of various Southend-related noises, plus an announcement of the station’s name. The on-air date for the station is understood to be 28th March 2008

FM radio station licence for Southend-on-sea awarded to "Southend Radio Ltd" (supported by Adventure Island). More

Details of the four bidders for Southend radio station announced. More

Local radio station licence for Southend announced. More.

Essex FM moves from Radio House in Southend to Chelmsford, ending 23 years of local radio in Southend. More on local radio on our Southend Radio section.