Oak FM - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For the original radio station broadcast on Oak FM's Hinckley transmitter from 1998-2008, see Fosseway Radio
Fosseway Radio
Fosseway Radio was a local commercial radio station based in Leicestershire, and owned by Lincs FM Group. It served the south-west of that county, as well as North Warwickshire. It was based on Castle Street in Hinckley. The name of the station referred to the nearby Fosse Way, which marks the...

.

Oak FM is a local radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

broadcasting across West Leicestershire

Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

as well as the town of Nuneaton

Nuneaton

Nuneaton is the largest town in the Borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth and in the English county of Warwickshire.Nuneaton is most famous for its associations with the 19th century author George Eliot, who was born on a farm on the Arbury Estate just outside Nuneaton in 1819 and lived in the town for...

in the English Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It is owned and operated by the Lincs FM Group

Lincs FM Group

The Lincs FM Group based in Lincolnshire, in the UK is the parent company of several Independent Local Radio stations.-History:The Lincs FM group started with just Lincs FM in Lincolnshire, UK but has won and acquired licences to operate other local radio stations across the UK's Midlands and...

History

Launching on Wednesday 26 March 2008, the station was born out of the merger of two existing stations which originally launched in the late 1990s: existing Lincs FM Group

Lincs FM Group

station Fosseway Radio

Fosseway Radio

Fosseway Radio was a local commercial radio station based in Leicestershire, and owned by Lincs FM Group. It served the south-west of that county, as well as North Warwickshire. It was based on Castle Street in Hinckley. The name of the station referred to the nearby Fosse Way, which marks the...

in Hinckley and the acquisition of Oak 107 FM

Oak 107 FM

Oak 107 FM was an Independent Local Radio station owned by the CN Group and based on Prince William Road in Loughborough, Leicestershire in the UK.-History:...

in Loughborough from the CN Group

CN Group

The CN Group Limited is an independent local media business based in Carlisle which operates in three different media fields.The company was formerly known as the Cumbrian Newspapers Group Ltd but changed its name to reflect the fact that is no longer primarily a newspaper publisher...

in October 2007.

Fosseway Radio

was the original holder of the Hinckley license, awarded to the Lincs FM Group

Lincs FM Group

by the Radio Authority in early 1998. It launched on the air on 1 November that year. The station achieved reasonable audience figures for the area it served.

Oak 107 FM

Oak FM, as it was originally known, launched on 14 February 1999. The station went through a number of rebrands and was eventually acquired by the CN Group

CN Group

in the early millennium. In 2003 the station supported the "Give The Luffs a Lease" campaign in favour of Loughborough Football Club's attempt to secure a long term lease for the site of its stadium. The Radio Authority ruled that this "was acceptable because the station was satisfied that the vast majority of its listeners would support it and the issue was not made into a political controversy." This license became Lincs FM's first-ever acquisition, in the Autumn of 2007.

Schedule

As revealed in a memorandum to Ofcom

Ofcom

Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...

, both stations have never turned a profit. To allow the station to become profitable, both studios were moved to a brand new site near Coalville

Coalville

Coalville is a town in North West Leicestershire, England, with a population estimated in 2003 to be almost 33,000. It is situated on the A511 trunk road between Leicester and Burton upon Trent, close to junction 22 of the M1 motorway where the A511 meets the A50 between Ashby-de-la-Zouch and...

generally equidistant between the two towns. This set the precedent for a long-term direction at the group to reduce the number of studio sites they operated, with a number of their stations later following suit.

Following a temporary co-location at the Hinckley

Hinckley

Hinckley is a town in southwest Leicestershire, England. It has a population of 43,246 . It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council...

studios, the new studios opened in the Summer of 2008. There were originally separate breakfast shows, along with localised specialist programmes on Sunday evening. Outside of this time, the two services were identical but retained split advertising, allowing clients the opportunity to buy one, the other, or both transmitters if they wished.

Due to cost-cutting measures, the mid-morning programme became pre-recorded in 2008 but returned to live output in 2010. At the same time, deregulation from the Ofcom Digital Economy Bill saw a switch to 24-hour networking on Oak FM in June of that year. However, the weekend specialist shows remain.

External links

Leicestershire°N Warwickshire°W

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