followed by a station identification jingle and a welcome message from the then Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire and the first song to be played was "I Can Hear Music" by The Beach Boys.

Northants 96 was essentially part of a regional collective of commercial stations which included Chiltern Radio, based in Dunstable and Bedford.

The result was that programmes were syndicated from Chiltern headquarters in Dunstable during the day, consisting of popular middle of the road music whilst 'opting out' for hourly local news bulletins.

In 1988, the Home Office declared that the independent local radio industry was able to support a permanent split in AM-FM broadcasting and decided to enforce this rule through the IBA.

Both the classic and contemporary FM and the oldies AM stations were rated very highly, consistently beating its local competitor BBC Radio Northampton.

Programming-wise Northants Radio underwent a subtle shift towards more upbeat contemporary and chart hits and less in the way of talk.

A past slogan voiced by Eddy Temple-Morris claimed that "other radio stations talked over the end of songs, whilst we didn't- That's the Northants 96 difference".

Heart's Northampton base in the town centre were closed as early as March 2011,[6] with the station expected to be broadcast from new premises in Milton Keynes.