NOW Berkshire & North Hampshire

NOW Berkshire & North Hampshire
Licensed area	Berkshire, North Hampshire
Frequency	12D (229.072 MHz)
Air date	31 July 2004
Owner	Arqiva
Website	localdigitalradio.co.uk
Transmitters	Hannington, Hemdean, Basingstoke and Bracknell

NOW Berkshire & North Hampshire is the name of the DAB multiplex operator for the Reading & Basingstoke areas. It serves northern portions of Hampshire in the commuter belt and the Unitarian Authorities of Reading, Slough, West Berkshire and Wokingham.

The platform has always been known as NOW Digital which was a wholly owned subsidiary of GWR Group plc. GWR would merge with Capital Radio plc to form GCap Media although the platform name remained. Global Radio bought GCap in 2008 and subsequently sold the DAB businesses to transmitter company Arqiva, the current owner.

When the platform launched, it was originally only on three transmitters. The following year, a fourth was added at Basingstoke.

The service is currently carried on four transmitters and as required, has to carry the local BBC service BBC Radio Berkshire.

Current line-up of services

The stations currently carried on NOW Berkshire & North Hampshire are:^[1]

Service	Service ID	Bit rate	Audio channels	Description	Analogue availability
BBC Radio Berkshire	CD31	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	BBC Local service	94.6 MHz (Henley) 95.4 MHz (Windsor) 104.1 MHz (North Hampshire) 104.4 MHz (Reading)
Capital London	C9CC	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Contemporary pop station	95.8 MHz
Gold	CDD2	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Golden oldies	1431 kHz (Reading) 1485 kHz (Newbury)
Heart Thames Valley	C361	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Adult contemporary music	97.0 MHz (Reading) 102.9 MHz (North Hampshire) 103.4 MHz (Henley)
Kiss	C483	128 kbit/s		Dance & R&B music, networked from London	—
NME Radio	CEC1	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Alternative music	—
Pop-Up Radio	CFCF	64 kbit/s	Mono LSF	Part-time service for short-term and special-event stations	—
XFM London	C0B8	128 kbit/s	Joint stereo	Modern rock, networked from London	—
EPG Berks/Hants	E1C000BB	8 kbit/s	Data	Hidden service, EPG data	—

Transmitter sites

NOW Berkshire & North Hampshire currently broadcasts on the following sites:^[2]

Transmitter	kW	Area
Hannington	1	North West Hampshire (Andover)
Basingstoke	1	North East Hampshire (Basingstoke)
Hemdean	1	Reading & Henley-on-Thames
Coppid Beach	0.25	Wokingham

Former services

The following is a list of services which used to be carried on the multiplex.^[3][4]

Service	What happened
Absolute Classic Rock	Removed in 2010, replaced by NME Radio
Chill	Withdrawn in 2009
dabbl	Withdrawn in 2010, replaced by Absolute Radio 90s
Fun Radio	Withdrawn in 2009
Galaxy	Removed in November 2010, replaced by Capital London
ourkindofmusic	Withdrawn in 2009, replaced by dabbl on 4 December 2009
SBN	Service went bankrupt
The Storm	Replaced by XFM London after GWR merger with Capital
Traffic Radio	Ceased broadcasting 31 August 2011

References

1. ^ DAB in the UK
2. ^ Radio Listeners Guide 2010
3. ^ Radio Authority Pocket Guides 2000 - 2004
4. ^ CRCA Pocket Book 2006 - 2007