Original 106, the new regional radio station for the Solent area has launch today at 11am. The station is 95 per cent owned by CanWest Global Communications Corp, Canada's largest media company. The company won the licence in September 2005, after beating off competition from 13 other groups.
Breakfast presenters Simon James and Hill launched the station by talking about which song they should play first. They couldn't decide, so proceeded to play the suggested songs mixed together.
Sat in his new office over-looking the A33 in Southampton, Programme Director John Evington told RadioToday.co.uk: "I've spent the last few months building our music database from scratch, making sure we stick to our unique format which promises a no more than 35% of our music being current or past Top 20 chart hits".
Station jingles have been custom produced by London-based Wise Buddah, and all contain the station 7-note logo melody. Online streaming is now live and is one of the few stations in the UK to stream at 128k stereo. The station website is also now live at [link=http://wwww.original106.com]original106.com[/link]
In their application for the Solent licence, Original said: "Our clocks will ensure that 40% of daytime songs are Adult Rock in character, and 20% each of Soul/R’n’B/Blues, Mellow and Eclectic genres.