Capital North West & Wales facts for kids

Capital North West and Wales is a popular radio station that plays today's hit music. It's owned by a company called Global and is part of the big Capital radio network. This station broadcasts to places like Cheshire, the Wirral area, and North Wales. You can listen to it from its studios in Gwersyllt, Wrexham.

This station used to be part of the Heart radio network. It started broadcasting as Heart on 2 July 2010. This happened when three smaller Heart stations joined together. These were Heart Cheshire and North East Wales, Heart Wirral, and Heart North Wales Coast. The station then changed its name to Capital on 6 May 2014.

How the Station Started

The radio station you hear today actually started as three separate stations.

• Marcher Sound began broadcasting in January 1983. It covered North East Wales and Cheshire.
• MFM 97.1 (later called Wirral's Buzz) started in March 1989. It served the Wirral and parts of Flintshire.
• Marcher Coast (later Coast 96.3) began in August 1993. It broadcast to the North Wales Coast.

These stations were owned by a company called the Marcher Radio Group. In 2000, a company called GWR Group bought them. Five years later, GWR Group joined with Capital Radio to form GCap Media, which later became Global Radio.

By 2008, the stations started to have less local programming. They only had a four-hour morning show and a regional afternoon show from Wrexham. Coast 96.3 kept a special section for Welsh language shows. A year later, in 2009, these stations all became part of the Heart network.

On 21 June 2010, Global Radio announced a big change. They decided to combine many Heart stations to make fewer, larger ones. The new combined station started broadcasting on 2 July 2010. This meant the studios in Bangor had to close.

The former North Wales Coast station still has a special feature. It broadcasts an hour-long Welsh language music show six days a week. It also has news updates in Welsh early in the morning.

On 6 February 2014, Global announced another change. Heart North West & Wales would become Capital FM. The license for Real Radio Wales in North Wales was sold. It became a new, separate Heart station for North and Mid Wales. The change to Capital happened on 6 May 2014.

On 26 February 2019, Global made more changes. They decided that the local morning and weekend shows would be replaced. Instead, shows from the main Capital network in London would be broadcast. The weekday afternoon show from Wrexham stayed. Local news, traffic updates, and adverts also remained. The sister station, Capital Cymru, which serves Anglesey and Gwynedd, kept all its local shows. This is because of rules about Welsh-language broadcasting.

How You Can Listen on Digital Radio

When Heart North West & Wales became Capital in 2014, the Wirral version (on 97.1 MHz) started broadcasting on digital radio (DAB) in Liverpool. Later, in 2016, a new station called Capital Liverpool took its place on Liverpool DAB. So, the Wirral service is no longer on digital radio there.

Since August 2016, you can listen to the Wrexham/Chester version of Capital (on 103.4 MHz) on a different DAB network. This network covers North East Wales and West Cheshire.

The North Wales Coast service (on 96.3 MHz) is available on another DAB network. This network started broadcasting at the end of 2014.

What's On the Radio

Most of the shows you hear on Capital North West and Wales come from Global's main studios in London. This includes the popular Capital Breakfast show.

However, some local shows are still made in the Wrexham studios.

• A local show is broadcast from 6-10 am on weekdays. It's presented by Ben Sheppard.
• There's also a special Welsh-language music show. It airs from 3-6 am on Sunday to Friday mornings. You can hear it on 96.3 MHz FM on the North Wales Coast. Alastair James presents this show.

News Updates

Global's Newsroom provides hourly local news updates. These are broadcast from 5 am to 7 pm on weekdays. On weekends, they are broadcast from 5 am to 1 pm.

Local news for the 96.3 MHz and 103.4 MHz FM frequencies comes from Global's studios in Wrexham and Cardiff Bay. Separate news updates for the Wirral (on 97.1 MHz FM) are made in Global's newsroom in Liverpool.