was a
United Kingdom radio station, broadcasting to much of
Nottinghamshire ,
Derbyshire ,
Leicestershire ,
Rutland and
East Staffordshire from studios in
Dunstable . Regional news, weather, events and community information, local advertising (separate for Derby and Nottingham) and a four-hour live weekday regional programme came from a studio centre in
Nottingham , home also to
Trent FM .
The station, along with the rest of the
Classic Gold network, was replaced on August 3, 2007 by a new network called simply , the result of the merger of the
Classic Gold and
Capital Gold networks under one owner, GCap Media.
The station began as GEM-AM in 1988 (the letters GEM standing for Great East Midlands). It was one of the most well-regarded gold-formatted stations to come to the British airwaves in the late 1980s and was launched as a response to government disapproval of the simulcasting of radio companies' FM programming on their
Mediumwave frequencies. GEM was the offshoot of
Radio Trent , which began to cater for a younger audience and became known as ''Trent FM'' upon the frequency split, and the new AM service was launched to much fanfare with a team of Olympic style runners completing a marathon from Leicester to Derby and finally to Nottingham (the three main areas to which GEM was to broadcast).
GEM's mediumwave broadcasts to
Nottinghamshire on 999kHz and
Derbyshire on 945kHz were initially supplemented by transmissions on 1260kHz to
Leicestershire , but this last frequency was later given over to programming for
Leicester 's large Asian population (
Sunrise Radio later
Sabras Radio ).
In the mid 1990s, GEM was bought, along with its sister station Trent FM, by expanding radio company
GWR , which gradually networked the station's programming with that of other gold stations it had purchased elsewhere in the country. The station was subtly rebranded ''Classic Gold GEM'' and over time, it became more ''Classic Gold'' and less ''GEM'', until only four hours of local programming was left.
By the end of the 1990s, Classic Gold GEM and GWR's network of other medium wave ''Classic Gold'' stations across the country were sold to media company
UBC , in order for GWR to comply with government rules of the time, restricting how much share of listening one company could own. This and the other stations in the group became known as
Classic Gold Digital Network .
Former
Radio 1 presenter Tony Blackburn co-presented a national breakfast show on the network until 2007.
Presenters on the station included many who were already established personalities in the East Midlands region. Among them were
John Peters (who launched the station as he had done with Trent in 1975), Craig Strong (who drove the Trent outside broadcast van on the launch day of GEM, behind the "Olympic" runners),
Amanda Bowman , Andy Marriott,
Tony Lyman and Paul Robey. Many of these original presenters were later to be heard on a newer oldies and easy listening station broadcasting to the East Midlands, this time on FM. This was
Saga 106.6 FM , which came on air in 2003, and was later rebranded as
106.6 Smooth Radio after it was acquired by
GMG Radio . The spirit of GEM-AM lived on throughout the Saga era with many of Saga 106.6 FM's jingles making reference to the Great East Midlands.
In summer 2007, when ownership restrictions were relaxed, Classic Gold's original owners, now called
GCap Media after a merger, bought the network of stations back from UBC.
Having two gold networks on its hands, GCap decided to merge them. In early August 2007, the Classic Gold and Capital Gold networks were joined under the new name . To "streamline" the business even further, the last remaining live local programming on Classic Gold GEM was cut, and replaced with an automated daytime programme (where the presenter's links between the records are all pre-recorded but made to sound live), the bare minimum required to satisfy regulators
Ofcom . The decision resulted in the redundancy of long-time Classic Gold Gem presenter Geoff Hemming, as well as local presenters at Classic Gold stations nationwide.
- The station has 4% audience reach in Nottingham, 6% in Derby, in 1993 the reach was 24% in Nottingham, 23% in Derby. (---RAJAR ratings 1993/2006)
The dwindling audience tuning in to the station's crackly medium wave frequencies has in recent years been supplemented by those listening to a stream on the internet, and also on
DAB Digital Radio in Nottingham and Leicester. The bit rate for this broadcast was reduced in 2006 to accommodate more radio stations to the digital multiplex. The station will broadcast on DAB in Derbyshire too, in 2008. Regional news bulletins, recorded around 15 minutes before broadcast, are read from 6am to 6pm weekdays by GCap's news teams in
Nottingham and
Derby . Outside of these times, national news is read live on the hour from London by the IRN180 service of
Independent Radio News .
After nineteen years broadcasting from the basement 'Studio B' at Radio Trent's Castle Gate headquarters, Classic Gold's Nottingham studios moved, along with Trent's, to the sixth floor of Chapel Quarter, an office building on the corner of Mount Street and Chapel Bar, in January 2007.
