The smallest ILR station in Britain during its existence,[1] it struggled to overcome initial debts and a slowdown in the radio advertising market.
Isca's director, Richard Harris, cautioned that the new station would not be "a licence to print money", serving an estimated 224,000 people.
[11] The IBA transmitter site—co-located for medium wave and FM—was above a farm in the village of Christchurch;[12] its service did not reach some areas of Gwent, particularly in the north.
Primary competition for ILR listeners included Radio Wyvern from Worcester and Severn Sound of Gloucester, whose signals reached part of the Newport area.
[13] The station went on the air in spite of its financial shortfall, despite IBA contract specifications that required new franchisees to be "fully and adequately capitalised".
[14] To save money, tape players that were known to struggle to meet IBA broadcast standards were modified to resolve problems.
[16] Within a week in June 1984, the station lost chairman Mike Hughes[17] and programme director Mike Joseph[1] alongside the news editor, the chief engineer and the music librarian; the departure of Joseph was particularly surprising as the station had achieved an audience share of 36%, seen by Broadcast as "respectable".
While Gwent had made money in its opening months, high interest rates increased the cost of debt servicing on the loans it had to take out to sign on;[18] advertising trading figures began to decline in January 1984 and did not meet sales targets again.
Half of its voting rights, though only two per cent of its financial stake, was held by the Cardiff Radio Trust, in which shares were sold for 3p each.
[23] With the merger pending, several of the councils cut the interest rates on their loans to give Gwent Broadcasting additional financial flexibility.
[24] Other problems included the structure of the merger, which at one point was understood to require every single one of the 350 CBC shareholders to assent under the government scheme by which both firms had been set up.
[30] At 11 am on 24 April 1985, GB Radio closed down with the same song it had started with in 1983, "Good Day Sunshine": the Western Daily Press reported that it was followed by the Welsh national anthem, but that claim was later negated by the station's final announcer, Colin Briggs.