It was one of the most well-regarded gold-formatted stations to come to the British airwaves in the late 1980s and was launched as a response to government disapproval of the simulcasting of radio companies' FM programming on their mediumwave frequencies.
GEM was the offshoot of Radio Trent, which began to cater for a younger audience and became known as Trent FM upon the frequency split, and the new AM service was launched to much fanfare with a team of Olympic style runners completing a marathon from Leicester to Derby and finally to Nottingham (the three main areas to which GEM was to broadcast).
By the end of the 1990s, Classic Gold GEM and GWR's network of other medium wave Classic Gold stations across the country were sold to media company UBC, in order for GWR to comply with government rules of the time, restricting how much share of listening one company could own.
(*RAJAR ratings 1993/2006) The dwindling audience tuning into the station's medium wave frequencies has in recent years been supplemented by those listening to a stream on the internet, and also on DAB Digital Radio in Nottingham and Leicester.
The bit rate for this broadcast was reduced in 2006 to accommodate more radio stations to the digital multiplex, but was later increased back to stereo.
After nineteen years broadcasting from the basement 'Studio B' at Radio Trent's Castle Gate headquarters, Classic Gold's Nottingham studios moved, along with Trent's, to the sixth floor of Chapel Quarter, an office building on the corner of Mount Street and Chapel Bar, in January 2007.
On 4 November 2012, the internet radio station Solid Gold Gem AM was launched following the original GEM-AM format.