Bournemouth And Dorset's Heart Attack - 2CR

Moving down South and a look back at a selection of the jingles used by
Two Counties Radio to give them their full name, which broadcast to Dorset
and parts of West Hampshire.

Had the Heart rebrand not taken place, they would be celebrating 30 years on air in 2010.

The earliest audio I have from them comes from around 1980/1981 courtesy of Sean Martin with jingles from an unknown company.

2CR Early 80s Airchecks

1985 saw a new package produced by composer David Reilly which managed to fit it well sounding contemporary for the time.

1985 Jingles - David Reilly

I love this package because the jingles and their vibrancy remind me of local adverts for car dealers you would get on television and radio around the same time. Definitely a nice change in comparison for the rather syrupy jingles produced by Alfasound at the time.

There's also the main theme that can be heard here.

In 1990 2CR went to Alfasound nontheless and brought a package consisting of JAM jingles mainly from the KOST packages but also from the "Non Stop Power" package as used by the Yorkshire Radio Network.

1990 Jingles - Alfasound/JAM Creative Productions

A very well chosen selection, especially the extended beds from the KOST 103 jingles.

There were also custom cuts produced by Alfasound with JAM vocals as well as a custom made news intro.

Around this time 2CR had been brought by Consolidated Radio Holdings which also owned 210 FM in Reading and Berkshire.

This coincided with the station splitting it's frequencies where AM became 2CR Classic Gold with a package also used by 210 and Brunel on AM resung from TM's "Synchronism" package.

For some reason they decided to put extra reverb onto the backing tracks which may have been to make them sound more sharper on AM.

The jingles can be heard below courtesy of Neal Bowden at Jinglemad.

2CR Classic Gold 1990 Jingles - TM Productions

2CR on FM meanwhile brought a more uptempo package from TM Century mainly containing resings from the Proton package.

I used to have a montage of the package but after it went missing through a memory crash, the person who sent it to me originally wouldn't send a replacement but that's another story altogether.

Sadly the package didn't last on air for too long as around 1992 2CR and 210 had been taken over by GWR and were relaunched under the "No Rap, Less Chat" strapline, removing what was a really good station for a really lovely part of the country.

Then again, it hasn't put me off from visting the area althogether.

Thanks to Sean Martin, David Barras, Neal Bowden, and Aston McNeil for the usual extra audio and info.