Northants 96 began broadcasting to Northamptonshire in November 1986 and Horizon Radio launched in north Buckinghamshire in October 1989.

[1] The new station began broadcasting from Dunstable on Friday 16 July 2010 and moved to new studios in Milton Keynes on 6 September 2011.

[2] On 26 February 2019, Global announced that Heart Four Counties would be merged with three sister stations in Cambridgeshire, Essex and East Anglia.

[3] Since 3 June 2019, local output has consisted of a three-hour regional Drivetime show on weekdays, alongside localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising.

Heart East began broadcasting regional programming from the Milton Keynes studios on 3 June 2019.