Heart South Coast on 96.7 and 97.5 FM is a hit music station for Hampshire's Southampton, Portsmouth and Winchester and the neighbouring coast of West Sussex, playing adult contemporary pop and today's chart favourites. You can hear it live here on Radio Shuffle, and the frequencies behind it have one of the longest stories in southern England's commercial radio.
What Heart Plays on the South Coast
The format is the familiar Heart one: adult contemporary, with current hits mixed with well-known pop from recent decades, owned by Global Radio according to Wikipedia's entry on Heart Hampshire. The 96.7 signal covers Southampton and Winchester, while 97.5 serves Portsmouth and West Sussex, so this single stream stands in for two separate corners of the coast. Local news bulletins for the area have remained part of the mix, though most of the daytime shows now come from the network.
Radio Victory Opens the Door
The story starts in 1975, when Radio Victory became the first local commercial radio service in the south of England, with a small transmission area around Portsmouth. When the franchise was re-advertised to take in Southampton and Winchester as well, Victory lost out to a new consortium, Ocean Sound Ltd, and the older station closed in June 1986, according to Wikipedia.
Ocean Sound, Power FM and the Fareham Studios
Ocean Sound went on air on 12 October 1986 from purpose-built studios at Segensworth West, near Fareham, positioned between the two cities so that neither would feel favoured. It began as two services, with 97.5 for Portsmouth and 103.2 for Southampton, Winchester and the Isle of Wight. The Light FM appeared on 96.7 in December 1987, and Power FM launched in December 1988 to chase the chart audience of BBC Radio 1. In 1992 Ocean Sound and The Light FM merged into Ocean FM, and Capital Radio bought the group in 1994. The wider Ocean story also gave birth to a rival: Wave 105 was founded in 1998 by former Ocean Sound managing director David Lucas.
Becoming Heart
Ocean FM joined the Century FM network in 2000, then spent much of the 2000s trading on its tagline, "Classic Hits and the Best New Songs." On 22 June 2009 it was rebranded Heart Hampshire as part of Global Radio's One Network rebrand of 31 stations. A year later, on 30 July 2010, it merged with Heart Dorset and New Forest to form the station that Wikipedia lists as Heart Solent, running from Fareham on 96.7, 97.5 and 102.3 FM.
A Regional Voice Within a National Network
In June 2019, the station was folded into a larger regional service, Heart South, with only a three-hour weekday drivetime show and local news and traffic left of its own, as Wikipedia's history of Heart South records. That regional service ended in February 2025, after which programming came from Global's London headquarters. What remains on 96.7 and 97.5 is a voice with nearly four decades of history behind the frequencies, still serving the same stretch of coast.
Listen to Heart South Coast Free on Radio Shuffle
Tune in to Heart South Coast on Radio Shuffle. No account, no app, no fee. Press play for hit music from the Hampshire coast.