Heat Radio


Heat Radio is a British digital radio station, broadcasting online to the UK and previously via the Freeview platform.

History

Heat Radio launched in 2003 as a non-stop music station broadcasting from London, where it was located alongside the sister magazine.
In 2007 the station re-launched with presenters and showbiz news throughout the day.
In 2009, Heat moved to Bauer Radio's studios in Castlefield, Manchester, as part of a cost-cutting programme, to be based alongside sister radio stations Key 103 and The Hits Radio, where music and entertainment news output would be sourced. That same year, the station, along with The Hits Radio, Smash Hits Radio, Q Radio and Kerrang Radio, were removed from Sky, Virgin Media and UPC Ireland, due to cost-cutting measures with Bauer Radio, BSkyB and Liberty Global.
In January 2015, heat moved back to London be based with Bauer's other national brands at One Golden Square.
In early 2016 the station, along with Kisstory, migrated from being provided on local-layer DAB multiplexes to instead being transmitted over the Sound Digital national multiplex, in which Bauer is a shareholder. Some of the local-level capacity previously used by Heat and Kisstory has been reallocated to KissFresh.
The station has been appearing in Heat magazine, with regular adverts, shared content and joint campaigns like a recent promotion with Channel 4's Hollyoaks, and ITV2's The Only Way Is Essex.
In its early years, Heat generally broadcast at 64 kbit/s in mono on DAB. Following the 2007 relaunch, the service was boosted to 112 kbit/s in stereo where possible More recently, the heat service switched back to mono, generally at 80 kbit/s, and this bitrate carried over when heat migrated to SDL National.
On 1 February 2019, Heat Radio became an online only non-stop music station as it was taken off the Sound Digital national multiplex but remained on Freeview until June 2020 when it was replaced by Greatest Hits Radio. On 27th July 2020, it returned to be broadcast via DAB via local radio in Inverness.

Notable Presenters