# 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.

## 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:-

### 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