Local radio station Oak 107 went off air suddenly last night mid transfer to the Sky news centre for the 6pm bulletin.
No explanation has been given for the shutdown. The schedule broadcast as normal in the period beforehand until drive time presenter Craig Strong told listeners the song he had just played would be the last.
He said the station would be no more from 6pm and just as the programme was about to link to the news the airwaves went dead.
A message was put on Oak 107’s Facebook page and presenter Mark Rowley posted his own farewell.
He told Facebook friends and followers: “It’s with great sadness we have to tell you that as of 6pm tonight Oak 107 has ceased broadcasting. Thank you so much for being part of our station over the years.
“Myself and Twiggy tried really hard to give us a point of difference on the dial and hopefully we pulled that off. More than anything we are sorry we couldn’t say goodbye on the air, but it wasn’t to be.
“2016 has been a terrible year for so many reasons and we didn’t expect to add to it but there you are, you never know what is around the corner.
“We’ll always remember the happy times we shared, and for myself those go back to the original trials for Fosseway Radio as we used to be on 107.9 that’s some 20 years ago. So from all the full time staff and freelance presenters thank you for listening.”
Oak FM was sold by Kenilworth based Quidem, who run the Touch FM group of stations, 12 months ago to web and content services company ATR Media for an undisclosed sum.
No one at ATR Media was available today for comment on the closure.
Originally launched on Wednesday March 26 2008 Oak 107 was made up of two previous stations – Fosseway Radio in Hinckley and the original Oak FM.
Fosseway Radio was the original holder of the Hinckley licence, awarded to owners the Lincs FM Group by the Radio Authority in early 1998. It launched on the air in November that year.
The original Oak FM launched on February 14 1999. The station went through a number of rebrands and was eventually acquired by the CN Group in the early 2000s.
It was acquired by Lincs FM in 2007. According to a memo to Ofcom both stations never returned a profit in their first decade on air.
In a bid to turn this around both studios were moved to a new site near Coalville which opened in 2008.
Cuts in 2012-13 were not effective and the station was sold to Quidem in 2012. It was relaunched in 2014 with a more male-orientated rock format after a weekend of playing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody non-stop.
