Magic Radio

This station was called Melody FM ("Your relaxation station" and "the stress-free way to spend your day"). It started broadcasting on 9 July 1990. On 15 June 1998 EMAP took over Melody. Then over a period of months the name was changed through presenters saying "Melody - the magic of London" and then "London's Magic 105.4 Melody FM" - they then dropped the Melody part at the end of December 1998. Middle-of-the-road relaxing music, competes with BBC Radio 2, plays similar but more modern music, typically from someone like Paul Simon or James Blunt. After the take over the music became slightly more modern, but the station still has a sound which is different to anything else available in London - to its credit. The presenters are given little room for ad-libbing and often they can be heard simply identifying the station between tracks. Calming music to drive to, especially recommended when sitting in a Monday-morning traffic jam! Melody had moved frequency from 104.9 (now used by XFM) in 1996 after complaining that listeners in south-west London suffered from interference, apparently from BBC Southern Counties. Presenters include the excellent Graham Dene in the evening - Capital's breakfast DJ in the 1980's. Another ex-Capital DJ also features - Neil "Doctor" Fox is the morning presenter, a strange move since he was associated with more modern pop music at Capital and presented the top 40 on independent stations on Sunday afternoons. In the late evening the shows are normally automated. There are still no jingles, just as there weren't any on Melody. EMAP, the station's owners, are a large radio group owning many stations in the North East of England. They own a series of stations called Magic (playing "long sweeps of easy favourites"). Their web site was slow off the mark (still being under construction in September 2001).