NOW Leicester

NOW Leicester is a local commercial digital radio multiplex in the United Kingdom, which serves Leicestershire and Rutland. It commenced broadcasts on 6 December 2002 and is operated by NOW Digital on behalf of NOW Digital East Midlands Ltd, a consortium of Arqiva, Global Radio and Sabras Radio. The launch was delayed by the UK firemen's strike in autumn 2002, which restricted access to transmitter sites.

NOW Leicester

Licensed area	Leicestershire and Rutland
Frequency	11B (218.64 MHz)
Air date	6 December 2002
Owner	NOW Digital (East Midlands) Ltd (Arqiva, Global Radio, Sabras Radio)
Website	arqiva.com
Coverage map	[1]
Transmitters	Copt Oak (Loughborough) Houghton on the Hill (Leicester)

Original plans

NOW Digital originally proposed to use transmitters at Copt Oak and Waltham with Skeffington to follow within two years of launch. However, on awarding the application the Radio Authority identified that coverage in Leicester itself may not be as good as listeners would expect, and accordingly asked Now Digital to "re-examine its transmission plans in order to address this concern", resulting in the adoption of Houghton on the Hill instead of Waltham. In their original application NOW Digital also identified two additional transmitter sites at Boundary water tower and Empingham, and their introduction would be reviewed during the licence period. Both transmitters carrying the NOW Leicester ensemble also carry the national commercial ensemble Digital One, but not BBC National DAB

Stations carried

The following channels are receivable on any digital-equipped DAB radio in the Leicestershire area:

Service	Service ID	Bit rate	Audio channels	Description	Analogue availability
BBC Radio Leicester	C933	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	BBC local radio station for Leicestershire and Rutland	104.9 MHz
Capital East Midlands	C366	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Contemporary hit music	96.2 MHz (Nottingham) 96.5 (Mansfield) 102.8 (Derby) 105.4 (Leicester)
Smooth Chill	C1C3	128 kbit/s	Joint Stereo	Chill-out music	—
Gem	C3AB	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Contemporary hit music	106.0 MHz
Gold	C8D2	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Oldies music	—
Heart	C2D0	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Adult contemporary music	—
Hits Radio				Contemporary hit music
LRB Digital
Sabras Radio	C5CC	64 kbit/s	Mono	Asian music	91.0 MHz 1260 kHz
Sanskar Radio	C7CC	64 kbit/s	Mono	owned by Sabras Radio	—
Smooth East Midlands	C6CO	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Easy listening music	101.4 MHz (Derby) 106.6 MHz (East Midlands)
Pop Up Radio	CFCF	64 kbit/s	Mono LSF	Special events service	—
EPG Leicester	E1C000C3	8 kbit/s	Data	Hidden service, EPG data	—

Neither of Lincs FM group's two stations in the area are on the multiplex.

Former services

Services previously carried on the multiplex include:

Service	What happened
Capital Disney	Ceased broadcasting 30 June 2007, replaced by Traffic Radio
Century 106	Re-branded as Heart 106 on 2 September 2005
Galaxy Digital	Ceased broadcasting 31 December 2010, normal branding ceased 19 December in advance of the launch of Capital, replaced by Heart London
Heart East Midlands	Re-branded as Gem 106 on 31 December 2010
Leicester Sound	Ceased broadcasting 3 January 2011, replaced by Capital East Midlands
Saga 106.6	Re-branded as Smooth Radio on 27 March 2007
The Storm	Ceased broadcasting 24 January 2006, replaced by XFM
Traffic Radio	Ceased broadcasting 31 August 2011
Xfm	Launched nationally as Radio X on Digital One, replaced by Chill which returned to the multiplex six years since it had previously been removed following a ruling by the Office of Fair Trading following the GCap/Global merger

Original proposals

Now Digital and EMAP competed for the licence, the services proposed by both applicants were as follows:-

Copt Oak transmitter next to the M1 motorway

NOW Digital

• 105.4 Leicester Sound
• Sabras Sound
• 106 Century FM
• The second East Midlands regional station from launch - awarded to Saga 106.6FM (now Smooth Radio)
• The Arrow - rock music
• tba - pop hits
• Cube - children's music, launched as Capital Disney
• Asian Plus - Asian youth

EMAP

• 105.4 Leicester Sound
• Sabras Sound
• 106 Century FM (Now Heart 106)
• The second East Midlands regional station from launch - awarded to Saga 106.6FM (now Smooth Radio)
• 107 Oak FM - Local radio station for Loughborough
• TAP - Asian youth
• tba - Oldies
• XFM - Indie, Alternative Rock
• KISS - Dance
• tba - Jazz and Soul

Additionally EMAP proposed that the following services would be broadcast on a part-time basis:

• 103.2 Takeover Radio - Children's radio, Saturdays 07:00-14:00
• Leicester Sports Radio - Local sport, Weekend afternoons.
• Demon FM - Leicester student radio, Saturdays 18:00-24:00

See also

• Waltham transmitting station - carries NOW Nottingham

External links

• Copt Oak transmitter
• Houghton on the Hill transmitter
• Coverage map
• Award of licence in February 2002
• Application for the licence