Faze FM Radio Ltd was the owner of two dance music radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

s in the North of England.

It operated Kiss 102

Kiss 102

-History:The frequency was originally issued to Sunset 102 Radio - The Kickin FM but that suffered some financial problems. In May 1993, the Radio Authority made a decision to prematurely terminate Sunset's licence, apparently accusing the station of providing inaccurate information about its...

 in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 and Kiss 105

Kiss 105

Kiss 105 was an dance music radio station based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. It was part of a new breed of regional radio stations as opposed to independent local radio.-History:...

 in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 from 1994 to 1997 before being taken over by a larger group.

History

Faze FM Radio Ltd was incorporated in 1993 by Eugene Perera's Level Broadcast Ltd. A licence application for the Manchester ILR with shareholders Level Broadcast, Mike Powell's UKRD, Eastern Counties Newspaper Group and 3i was successful and Faze FM Radio Ltd launched as Kiss 102 in November 1994. At launch, Guy Hornsby was Managing Director, Mike Gray, Programme Controller, Julian Martin, Sales Controller and Eugene Perera, Marketing Director. A further successful licence application for the Yorkshire regional licence resulted in the launch of Kiss 105 in 1996. Initially the group employed just 17 staff, but this grew to over 120 individuals working full and part time in programming, sales, marketing, administration, finance and engineering.

The Kiss 102/105 dance music format was the brainchild of two highly-experienced UK radio programmers, Mike Gray and Guy Hornsby, who first worked together at the original BBC Radio London where they produced the station's leading DJ presenters Robbie Vincent

Robbie Vincent

Robbie Vincent is an English radio broadcaster and DJ whose catch phrase for many years was "If it moves, Funk it"He started life as a journalist although Robbie Vincent's broadcasting career began as one of the pioneers on BBC Radio London in early 1974 during the miners' strike and Three-day week...

 and Tony Blackburn

Tony Blackburn

Tony Blackburn is an English disc jockey, who broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1967. In 2002 he was the winner of the ITV reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity.....

.

Despite staying true to its roots and playing "thumping dance music" at breakfast time, a move perceived of in the radio industry at the time as unlikely to be popular, the station achieved a 10% share of the total available audience, and its yellow oblong car stickers could be seen proudly displayed by an enthusiastic audience across the entire region.

Following approaches by most of the country's key media players, Faze FM was purchased by the Chrysalis Group

Chrysalis Group

Chrysalis Group is a UK media company. It was founded by Chris Wright, who remains chairman and was listed the 1,000th richest person in the UK in The Times Rich List 2009...

 (now Global Radio

Global Radio

Global Radio UK Ltd. is a British commercial radio company, the largest in the country following acquisitions of Chrysalis Radio and GCap Media.The company's Chief Executive Officer is Stephen Miron, while the Group Chairman is Charles Allen...

) for £17.6m just over four years after the company had been founded with an initial investment of £600k. The stations were renamed as Galaxy after the purchase, and in 2011 Global Radio re-branded them both 102 Capital FM Manchester and 105 Capital FM Yorkshire as part of the new Capital FM Network.

Branding

Faze licenced the "Kiss" brand from Kiss 100

Kiss 100 London

Kiss is a UK radio station broadcasting on FM and Digital Radio, specialising in hip hop, R&B, urban and electronic dance music. It also broadcasts on DAB Digital Radio around the UK & nationally on Freeview, Sky and TalkTalk TV...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and commissioned radio ident company Alfasound

Alfasound

Alfasound was a radio jingle production company based in Manchester from late 1970s to mid 1990s founded by Alan Fawkes and ex-Piccadilly Radio DJ Steve England....

to make their jingles. Two custom packages were made, the first was called "Danceman" and the follow-up was called "Music is Life".