The regional station originally broadcast as six separate stations - Plymouth Sound began broadcasting to Plymouth and surrounding areas in May 1975, Lantern Radio served North Devon from October 1992, Gemini FM broadcast separate services for East and South Devon from January 1995 onwards (DevonAir Radio served the dual-franchise area until losing its broadcast licence on New Year's Eve 1994) and South Hams Radio launched in the South Hams district of South Devon in December 1998.

In August 2012, Global Radio applied for a format change, to remove its commitment to speech content for the Heart Cornwall licence,[4] however on 16 October 2012 this was rejected by media regulator Ofcom.

[5] On 26 February 2019, Global announced Heart South West would be merged with three sister stations in Bristol and Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

[6] From 3 June 2019, local output will consist of a three-hour regional Drivetime show on weekdays, alongside localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising.

[7] Heart South West's studios in Exeter closed with operations moving to Bristol - the station ceased local programming on 31 May 2019.