Invicta FM

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Invicta FM
Broadcast area	Maidstone, Medway, East & West Kent
First air date	October 1, 1984
Frequency	95.9 MHz, 102.8 MHz, 96.1 MHz, 97.0 MHz and 103.1 MHz
Format	Contemporary
Owner	GCap Media
Website	www.invictafm.com

Contents 1 Overview 2 History 2.1 Early history 3 Station split 3.1 Invicta Supergold 3.2 Group expansion and a Geezer 3.3 The Morning Zoo 3.4 Supergold becomes Capital Gold 4 Today's Best Mix for Kent (2005-present) 5 Trivia 6 Presenters 7 Past presenters 8 Past newsreaders 9 Station Straplines 10 Programme Controllers 11 External links

[edit] Overview

Invicta FM is a local commercial station which broadcasts to the county of Kent in South East England. It is owned by GCap Media and plays commercial, chart-oriented popular music. Broadcast from studios on an industrial estate just outside Whitstable, the station plays a mix of pop, rock, RnB and old school with the Tag Line being Today's Best Mix.

The station broadcasts local shows during the day and a number of syndicated "networked" shows, which do not originate from Kent. These are hit40uk, a weekly chart that is broadcast from sister station 95.8 Capital Radio and heard on around 100 stations across the UK (including stations operated by rival media groups); Late Night Love, a nightly music/talk show originates from BRMB in Birmingham and Entertainment Weekly, a weekly showbiz show, that again comes from the Capital Radio studios in Leicester Square, London. Both of these shows are broadcast on other stations in GCap Media's local radio portfolio, called The One Network, of which Invicta FM is a part of.

The word "Invicta" is the county of Kent's Latin motto and means "unconquered".

[edit] History

[edit] Early history

In the early eighties, two different companies won the right to run radio radio stations in Kent. East Kent was going to be served by Network East Kent while West Kent was to get Northdown Radio. Following problems before launch possibly brought on by the 1984 recession, The Independent Broadcasting Authority agreed to the two companies merging. The new company acquired an unsuccessful applicant for the East Kent licence, Radio Invicta Ltd, which owned the lease on a building in Canterbury which was to become the company's headquarters. The newly created company was known as Invicta Sound plc and was independently owned by a number of private shareholders. The station went to air as Invicta Sound on 1st October 1984. The station output was said to have featured a mix of middle-of-the-road music couple with a prominent news schedule where a news bulletin would last at least 9 minutes [1].

The station's heavy news output - possibly as a way of stealing listeners from rival BBC Radio Kent was recognised by station staff as unsuccessful, losing a lot of listeners. After this disappointing start after the first few months, the station was relaunched as Invicta Radio in October 1985.

The company's studios were based in an old warehouse at 15 Station Road East in Canterbury, with a second, smaller base at 37 Earl Street in Maidstone. Originally, presenters generally had the option of choosing where to present their show from, depending on where they lived. Plus in the very early days, there was some separate programming for East and West Kent.

In 1985 a general reorganisation of radio frequencies in Britain forced Invicta into changing a number of its broadcast numbers:

• 103.8 MHz (West Kent) became 103.1 MHz
• 95.1 MHz (East Kent) became 102.8 MHz
• 96.3 MHz (Ashford) became 96.1 MHz
• 95.9 MHz (Folkestone and Dover) and 97.0 MHz (Thanet) remained unchanged.

A lack of a general, high-powered frequency for the east of the county was due to frequency international clearance as any signal could potentially be received across the English Channel. Instead three low-powered transmitters were installed in Ashford, Folkestone/Dover and Thanet. This subsequently doesn't affect BBC national and local radio, which use a high-powered site in Swingate [2]

A few years after the rebranding of the station to Invicta Radio, the station became known as Invicta FM. Soon after, separate breakfast shows started to be broadcast to the following areas:

• East Kent / West Kent (from 15 Station Road East, Canterbury, and later from Whitstable)
• Ashford (initially from the Ashford International Hotel, Ashford, then from Canterbury, and later from Whitstable)
• Thanet (from 15 Station Road East, Canterbury, and later from Whitstable)

[edit] Station split

[edit] Invicta Supergold

As required by the Home Office to end simulcasting on FM and AM, in 1989, Invicta Radio became Invicta FM and a sister station, Coast AM begun broadcasting on Invicta's AM frequencies and was an AOR/soft rock station. Eammon Kelly was the station's first breakfast host. Renamed "Coast Classics" a few months after launch, the service begun playing more and more 'oldies' and had become a fully fledged 'Golden Oldies' radio station by 1990. Throughout this period, Coast was a 24-hour local, live station for a couple of years but in 1991 started taking an "sustaining service" from Chiltern Radio's expaning AM 'Gold' service, SuperGold. As a result of this change, as well as the fact that research had shown that listeners never fully got used to the station's name (many still calling it 'Invicta'!), the station was renamed Invicta Supergold. A near-identical set of jingles from JAM were simply re-sung with the station's new name, and there were no major schedule changes. However, just before this change took place, and for most of Summer 1991, presenters at the station were instructed to call the station "Coast Classics Invicta Supergold" on air, to enable listeners to get used to the change. It became a highly popular station and once achieved a 17% reach in a JICRAR survey, much to the disgust of its Southern Radio bosses who preferred their AM stations to hover around the 9% mark.

[edit] Group expansion and a Geezer

Meanwhile, back at Invicta FM, controversy was sparked as one of the famous DJs, Chris Ryder (aka Caesar the Boogieman or Caesar the Geezer), was terminated from his job with Invicta FM in 1991 over criminal charges related to theft from charity. He was ultimately found not guilty on these charges, but was convicted of intent to defraud.

Also in 1991, the Maidstone studios and offices closed and a few months later, the entire company ("The Invicta Radio Group") moved to a brand new - larger - building just outside Whitstable. This was due to the company getting too big for its Canterbury home having started to expand its radio operations beyond Kent. By now it had acquired a radio station in Frinton, Essex called Mellow 1557, now known as Dream 100, as well as a stake in a radio station in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, which it had relaunched as Continental Invicta FM.

Shortly after moving to its current base, the station was acquired by Southern Radio plc which, in turn, was swallowed up by Capital Radio plc in May 1994. (Mellow 1557 was sold by Southern Radio plc a few months after it took control of the Invicta Radio Group.)

[edit] The Morning Zoo

For some time the station ran four breakfast shows from Whitstable - Invicta Supergold, Invicta FM (102.8 and 103.1 and in Dover on 97.0) Invicta FM Ashford (96.1) and Invicta FM Thanet (95.9). The different programmes all took the same news and sports bulletins but had different presenters. This made it difficult for Invicta FM to promote its breakfast programme, as there were three different presenters broadcasting to different parts of Kent.

The split FM breakfast was abolished with the launch of The Invicta FM Morning Zoo in 1995 - with Neil Francis, Simon Beale, Kirsty Long on travel and Stuart Thomas newsreading. The Morning Zoo was the brainchild of then Programme Controller Sandy Beech.

Commercials continued to be split four ways on Invicta FM, with East, West, Thanet and Ashford as the different broadcast regions.

The Morning Zoo was a fixture of the Invicta FM schedule for many years. Neil Francis was one of the co-presenters of the show until 2000, later partnered with Sam Hughes. Since 2000, James Heming has been the lead presenter of the Morning Zoo following the departure of Neil Francis. James has had a variety of co-presenters on breakfast - his current sidekick is Ali Wheeler. The last Morning Zoo was broadcast on Friday 22nd December 2006. The breakfast show was rebranded James and Ali in the morning at the beginning of 2007, to reflect the move away from the 'zoo' style of a handful of people interacting with each other at once.

[edit] Supergold becomes Capital Gold

See also Capital Gold

When Chiltern closed its SuperGold sustaining service, Invicta FM and Invicta Supergold began sharing a single programme overnight (the presenter simply called it "Invicta" and used split jingles on FM and AM). This usually ran from midnight or 1am till 6am, although the later launch of an "early breakfast" programme on Invicta FM meant the overnight presenter would do the last hour on Supergold alone.

Invicta Supergold closed down March 1998, to be replaced by the mainly networked Capital Gold. A local breakfast show, however, was retained. This was ahead of the rolling out of the station across other AM stations owned by the company and the Kent site acted as a test station (due to its close proximity to Capital Gold in London), to ensure syndication worked OK, and to iron out any problems. By September, Capital Gold could also be heard in Birmingham, Sussex, Hampshire and, not long after, South Wales. To this day, a local breakfast show survives, as does local news, travel and commercials. All other output in now produced at the Capital Gold studios at Leicester Square in London.

[edit] Today's Best Mix for Kent (2005-present)

Capital Radio plc acquired GWR Group plc in 2005 and on May 1st of that year, the newly enlarged group was renamed GCap Media plc. The first effects of the GCap merger were felt by Invicta FM soon afterwards. New boss Craig Boddy, assisted by GCap management, undertook a radical resturcture of the station in September 2005, in response to falling listening figures and mounting overheads. Boddy changed Invicta from the style influenced by nearby Capital FM, to one which roughly resembled the old Mix Network.

The main thrust of changes occurred on Monday 19 September 2005, when Invicta listeners woke up to a very different sound. On-air talk was cut back dramatically across daytime and weekends, including all presenter's individual competitions, on-air interactivity with listeners, and local information guides. The old Capital FM style playlist- a female-targeted vibrant Hot AC and sung jingles, was replaced with a more relaxed AC playlist with 'dry' voiceovers. Commercial breaks were cut from four per hour to three per hour, meaning ad minuteage was reduced. Specialist weekend shows Party Invicta and Club Invicta were dropped, although 'Party Invicta' has been brought back since for a Saturday evening.

Networking was also introduced overnight during the week, from 10pm with 'Late Night Love', and from 1am with Music on Demand. Since January 2007, they also take Party Friday from 10pm. These programmes are carried by most 'One Network' stations. Has the current boss been successful in turning Invicta around? Well previous surveys failed to terminally halt the slide, however the recent figures for Q4/2006 have shown a mass increase in reach and hours, the best for nearly three years, partly through the new sound to Invicta and the numerous big money competitions.

[edit] Trivia

• Ex-presenter and now quite famous Daryl Denham once fell asleep during a show.
• Geoff Allan in the middle of his mid-morning show left to go home and get a pigeon out of his loft
• Neil Francis overslept and missed the start of the first ever "Morning Zoo" programme, presenting part of it by mobile phone from his car. The story made the front page of "Kent Today".
• Invicta Supergold breakfast presenters Dasher and Dawn (ex husband and wife Dave Asher and Caroline Martin) once went on "strike" because programme controller Sandy Beech removed their chairs. Story made front page of the Times
• Bob Mower and Tim Stewart both broadcast their shows live from Q101 in Chicago, and were joined by Q101's Murph in The Morning

[edit] Presenters

• James Clayton (Music On Demand - networked show)
• Ross Gilbert
• James Heming (Chief breakfast presenter since 2000 and the longest serving presenter, since 1997)

• Lucio (hit40uk - networked show)
• Neil Kefford (Drivetime and Saturday breakfast presenter)
• Claire Lawson (Morning Presenter)
• Ben Mundy (Hosts 'The Score' on Saturday afternoons, and reads travel at breakfast and Drive)
• Tony Shepherd (Entertainment Weekly - networked show)
• Stephen Sullivan (Presented popular Kent Evening Show 'The Fridge' since 2001)
• Graham Torrington (Late Night Love - networked show)
• Andy Walker (Afternoon presenter and fronts Party Invicta on Saturday nights)
• Ali Wheeler (James Heming's sidekick on breakfast)
• Tim Murphy (Sunday breakfast presenter)

[edit] Past presenters

• Geoff Allen(BBC Solent)
• Andy Archer (BBC Norfolk)
• Bam Bam later Kiss 100
• Adam Bridge(BRMB)
• Caesar the Boogieman (aka Chris Ryder)
• Dave Cash (BBC Kent)
• Roger Day (BBC Kent)
• Paul Deacon
• Daryl Denham later 100.7 Heart FM and Hallam FM
• Neil Faraday (KMFM)
• Caroline Feraday later LBC 97.3
• Chris Finn (KMFM)
• Nino Firetto later Super Channel
• Neil Francis (Virgin)
• Nigel Harris (Now KMFM)
• Tim Stewart (KMFM)
• Steve Harris
• Sam Hughes
• Jerry James (Coast AM now at BBC Leeds)
• Adrian John
• Duncan Johnson
• Kerry Juby (Deceased)
• Eamonn Kelly (Capital Gold, London)
• Jeremy Kyle (aka 'Jezza', later The Jeremy Kyle Show on ITV
• Simon Lee
• Bob LeRoi (ex Invicta Supergold)
• Johnny Lewis (AM/FM, now KMFM)
• Rod Lucas now at BBC Radio Five Live
• Justin Mannington (Record Librarian, Coast AM)
• Dan Marsh
• Bob Mower (Coast AM/Invicta Supergold now KMFM)
• Wendy Lloyd later LBC 97.3
• Dan Marsh
• Jonathan Miles
• Sarah Ollett
• John Osborne
• Simon Parkin later Real Radio
• Chris Pearson (BFBS)

Carl Patridge (Carter) (foemer Breakfast/Station Producer - now a writer)

• Richard Porter
• Lee Price (Producer, Virgin)
• Terry Purvis
• Rik "The Lovesponge" Scott (KMFM)
• Benedict Smith
• Neil Taylor (KMFM)
• Pete Tong now BBC Radio 1
• Glen Thompsett(Meridian TV etc)
• Simon West

[edit] Past newsreaders

• John Brunning (now Classic FM, a GCap sister station)
• Leon Robins
• Sue Flipping
• Stuart Thomas
• Jane Hill
• Jo Blake
• Richard Forest
• Tony Shepherd
• Alan Granville
• Jenny Barsby
• Paul King
• The Mousse

[edit] Station Straplines

1984 - The Sound of Kent

1985 - You've Got It Right and Right Across The County

1988 - Tune In And Rip The Knob Off

1989 - 60s, 70s & 80s

1990 - The Best Music

1994 - Betta... Brighta... Hotta... Stronga

1995 - Kent's Best Music

1996 - Kent's Best Music and More of It

1996 - Kent's Number One Hit Music Station

1998 - Today's Music For Kent

2000 - Today's Best Music For Kent

2003 - Kent's Radio Station

2005 - The Best Mix of the 80s, 90s and Today

2006 - Today's Best Mix

[edit] Programme Controllers

• 1984 - Roger Day
• 1989 - Kerry Juby
• 1990 - Roger Day
• 1991 - Neil Taylor
• 1992 - Johnny Lewis
• 1993 - Francis Currie
• 1995 - Sandy Beech
• 1996 - Paul Jackson
• 1997 - Clive Dickens (caretaker, assisted by Tim Stewart and Lee Price)
• 1997 - Andrew Phillips
• 1999 - Jeff O'Brien (caretaker, assisted by Tim Stewart and Lee Price)
• 1999 - Luis Clark
• 2000 - Mark Sadler (caretaker, assisted by Tony Fisher and Lee Price)
• 2000 - Mike Osborne
• 2002 - Rebecca Trbojevich
• 2004 - Max Hailey
• 2005 - Craig Boddy

[edit] External links

• Invicta FM Website
• GCap Media plc Corporate Website