Radio: 106 Century FM re-branding to 106 Heart FM

Following the merger of GWR and the Capital Radio Group, 106 Century FM has been sold to Chrysalis Radio for around £29 million.

Chrysalis are getting rid of the Century 106 name, and re-branding it as Heart FM, to tie in with their other two Heart radio stations, in the West Midlands and London.

Can anyone tell me what Chrysalis are like? Are they good radio stations or are they a bit rubbish?

I must say I like Century as it is and I'm a bit concerned about the re-branding and the takeover and everything. Hope they don't get rid of the football element that century has at present - it's what makes it good.

By the way: The other Century stations will carry on as usual, under GCap Media, the GWR and Capital hybrid.

Well the original Century Radio in the North East was fine from 1994-2000, then when Border Television sold them off to Capital Radio it went downhill pretty quickly and became just a copy of Metro FM.

I think Heart FM is far better so its good one area thats had the messed up Century since Capital took over are about to get something better. Shame it wasn't the North East one though. All the commercial stations here are copycat, apart from the BBC.

I love radio but this is a tv forum why not go to http://www.heartfm.co.uk or www.heart1062.co.uk to find out what the station will sound like.

Metro used to be good until emap took them over. they did a tyne tees mind and were stubbornly independant for a while but now they're jsut another clone. shame really.

I glad Heart got Century 106. I was hoping Celedors new radio department wouldn't get it. Real Radio could have also been good for Century.

Well Century was at its best when it was owned by Border Television, so you might say Border may not be fantastic with TV, but they were exellent with radio. It does tie in with television if anyone remembers the "Trouble at the Top" series on BBC2, there was one edition which followed then MD John Myres turning Radio 106 into Century 106.

I think actually 106fm is the only Century that was rebranded from a old station, 100-102 and 105.4 were launched as new.

Thanks for that, but I had already already been there. and judging by the rubbish websites, I'm not looking forward to this rebrand at all.

And there is no other place in these forums for this type of thread, which is why I have named this topic as 'Radio:' It's still media related, and i thought it might be of some interest to people here.

It depends what you like really, Heart is a mixture isn't it. Century was designed originally to be a personality station with music as a secondary thing, playing the best from the 1960s to the current chart.

Century Radio / Century 106 / Century 105 were all turned into a Capital FM / Capital Gold mixture and have been very dull since. Having heard Heart FM I'd rather have that than recent Century FM.

i would personally prefer to have brmb (or another capital) along side heart, rather than a capital-ised century station competing with a GWR/capital station - makes for more variety.

Heart East Mids could well be very diffrent to the others, Century has a much higher speech content and I assume this would have to be kept unless the license terms are changed.

Chryalis aren't that bad, they've done mostly a good job with LBC since they bought it and they seem to have a good attitude and commitment to radio

Now you see I don't mind Century FM in the North West, it does have a fair mix of music, discussion and Sport, well mainly a huge bias towards Manchester United, but it's better than some of the stuff in the area.