Radio Mercury

On this day exactly (because it was a Bank Holiday) in 1992 one of radio's infamous merger's took to the air when Radio Mercury and County Sound merged together to provide a single service over Surrey, parts of Hampshire and parts of Sussex.

And yes, they did use the pun from Star Wars.

That pretty much makes it the ideal time to reminisce about both stations through their jingles, starting off with Radio Mercury which turns 25 in October this year.

Fondly remembered by many radio fans in the UK, Radio Mercury was designed to serve the Surrey and Sussex area with a distinctive sounding station, aware that other commercial stations could be recieved so John Wellington who had succesfully set up Essex Radio earlier in the decade brought in a line up consisting of some of the finest and familiar presenters.

These included ex Capital jocks Tony Myatt and Peter Young on Breakfast and Drive respectively, Ed "Stewpot" Stewart on mornings, Pat Sharpe fresh from Radio 1 to present the evening show for the teens, and Wellington's star from Essex Radio Tim Loyd or "Timbo" as he was known who presented the popular night time show on weeknights on both Mercury and Southern Sound.

With the now ironic tagline "The Heart Of The South" the station was lucky to broadcast from the picturesque location of Broadfield House which overlooked a delightful field and tennis court and to top it all they had a superb jingle package produced by David Arnold and Paul Hart with the Royal Philarmonic orchestra of which the main theme can be heard here.

Many have have thought that parts bear a resemblance to "Music" by John Miles which in turn sounds like the theme to "Blakes 7". To be honest I reckon Danny Elfman should have received a lawsuit when a similar melody appeared in his theme to the Batman movies.

Anyway, back to Mercury and the jingles were based around one of David's earlier packages for Marcher Sound with newer cuts introduced with the extra notes added to the beginning of Mercury's melody logo.

But rather than go on about them, it would be better just to hear them.

1984 Jingles - David Arnold Music

The station went on air on Saturday the 20th of October 1984 where each presenter would do a show for an hour. The first presenter was Ed Stewart but in reality he wasn't actually live in the studio as he had organised a charity golf tournament in Spain, months before the launch was announced so he had to pre-record his part.

A few classic airchecks from aorund the time of the launch can be heard courtesy of Sean Saunders old site featuring Pat Sharpe and Peter Young. It's probably the only time I've heard a presenter acknowledge the IRN newsreader by their name.

At the beginning, the station broadcast on 1521 AM and 103.6 on FM but due to regulations stating that frequencies from 103.5 to 105 were reserved for the BBC, the station on FM moved to 102.7 where it remains today.

The station did special strands such as "The Weekend Of A Thousand Hits"
which would take up a whole weekend with little chat from the presenters not even breaking for the Network Chart as up to the early 90s at least neither
Radio Mercury or Southern Sound broadcast the programme.

More airchecks can be heard here, where at the beginning the presenter fades up IRN too soon so we hear end of the LBC news intro.
Back in those days the IRN feed was a direct link to LBC's on air transmission which remained until 1989 when Satellite technology allowed a single feed from the IRN studio.

In 1991 Radio Mercury merged with County Sound Radio in deeper Surrey and North East Hampshire to form Allied Radio. Radio Mercury took fuller control and on the fourth of May 1992 took over County Sound's FM service and Delta Radio on 97.1 and relaunched them as Radio Mercury.

On 1521, the County Sound name was adapted with a mixture of presenters from both Mercury and County Sound including the late Simon Cummings, Peter Gordon, and newcomer Peter Stewart who presented "The South Tonight" news magazine.

The jingles on AM were resings of the Century 21 WMXJ jingle as used on 210 FM, whilst on FM David Arnold produced some additional cuts with Dallas vocals, to be used alongside the original jingles with the tagline "Your Kind Of Music.

A selection of them and shorter variants of the 1984 package can be heard here courtesy of Neal Bowden.

By the mid 90s the AM station had re-branded to "Mercury Extra AM" whilst on FM the presenters had began to start referring to the station as "Mercury FM".
Some more airchecks from this era can be heard here.

In 1995 Mercury lost the license for Surrey and Hampshire which was brought back by UKRD and County Sound, so Mercury decided to make a fresh start and after 11 years they brought a brand new jingle package consiting of a range of JAM jingles with Alfasound vocals.

The selection ranged from "Brite And Sunny", "Skywave" and my favourite JAM package "Fresh KIIS" amongst others, as well as resings of the Alfasound news and traffic cuts for Lincs FM back in 1992.

Mercury FM 1995 Jingles - Alfasound/JAM Creative Productions

Mercury Extra also recieved new jingles on AM which was a superb selection of cuts from "Hi-Qume", "Sky Trax" and "Digital Mix".

Mercury Extra 1995 Jingles - Alfasound/JAM Creative Productions

It was more than evident that things weren't really working on AM so another rebrand took place shortly after with the name "Fame 1521".

ALFA and JAM were once again brought in to provide another jingle package, this time from the "American Mix" package orginally for WBLI and I think the UK singers gave it a good go.

Fame 1521 1996 Jingles - ALFA/JAM

In the late 90s the Mercury stations were brought by The Essex Radio Group who in turn were also brought by the Daily Mail. Mercury FM was re-branded as
"The Hotter And Fresher Mercury FM" and although the sung jingles disapeared, the enthuasism and wide/uptempo selection of music remained.

AM had yet another re-brand as the station became Breeze on 1521 sharing programmes with the long established AM station for Essex FM.

By the end of the decade the Mercury brand name was stretching out further than Surrey and Sussex as it was adapted for KFM in Tonbridge, Oasis FM in Watford and Ten 17 in Harlow. However with the exception of Watford, most of them dropped the name after a couple of years.

In July 2000 The Daily Mail decided to pull out of radio operations (although thankfully they had sense not to take control of running their stations) and sold the Essex Radio group to GWR and the worse was yet to come.

The relaunch took place in October where breakfast presenter Paul Wisdom was sacked and replaced by Essex FM drivetime presenter Paul Lovett, and an unknown girl called Emma which represented you typical experienced jock/bimbo presenter duo, dominant with GWR's "Morning Crews".

Despite networked programming becoming more dominant, there were still old hands within the station such as Simon Osbourne and Chris Oxlade, and it was down to them that in October 2002 they celebrated the station's 18th birthday in style with a special anniversary show.

The programme can be heard here which contains interviews with many of the old presenters and of course some of the funny stories from over the years such as Richard Branson's ever contrived UFO April Fool's stunt.

You also get a really good sense of the time the programme was transmitted as a result of some of the records played such as Nelly and Kelly, Busted's debut "What I Go To School For" and Pop Idol contestant Sarah Whatmore with "When I Lost You", who didn't get in the final 10 but was proposed to by Simon Cowell on the show.

Mercury for the time being won't be affected by the rebrand but if they did, at least it would mean that the "Heart Of The South" strapline could possibly make a reappearance.

Thanks to Sean Saunders, Neal Bowden, Stacey Harris, Chris Stevens and David Furness.