Greatest Hits Radio South Wales
Greatest Hits Radio South Wales
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Greatest Hits Radio South Wales

Greatest Hits Radio South Wales (formerly Swansea Sound) is an Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Bauer Radio as part of the Greatest Hits Radio network. The station broadcasts to Swansea and South West Wales from studios in the Llansamlet area of Swansea on DAB.

Up until 2022, the station broadcast on 1170 kHz.

As of March 2024, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 136,000, according to RAJAR.

Swansea Sound began broadcasting at 6am, on Monday 30 September 1974. The first voice heard on air was its managing director, Charles Braham:

"Bore da. Good Morning. As managing director I am very proud to say for the very first time that this is Swansea Sound bringing independent radio to Wales, to entertain, to inform and above all give yourselves a real involvement in community matters..."

Chris Harper presented the station's first breakfast show, opening with MFSB's Love Is The Message. At its launch, it was the first and only commercial radio station in Wales and the seventh in the United Kingdom. It was also the first independent radio station to broadcast a bilingual service in the English and Welsh languages.

Originally, the station broadcast on 257 metres (1170 kHz) AM and 95.1 FM before moving its FM frequency to 96.4 in the early 1980s.

Until the early 1990s, FM adoption in the UK was relatively low, so it was common practice among stations to simulcast their programming on both AM and FM frequencies. Starting in the late 1980s, the UK government and the IBA required that ILR and BBC stations cease simulcasting and provide separate services on their AM and FM frequencies.

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