Chill is a British digital radio station dedicated to chill out, ambient and trip-hop music.

The station

Chill is broadcast on DAB in Scotland, the Midlands, South England, South West England and South Wales, across the UK on Sky Digital and cable (Sky and Cable until July 2007), and also online. The station's aim is to help listeners relax. It is owned by Gcap Media.

It broadcasts 24 hours a day and, as of September 2006, features no news bulletins or commercials, although there is some sponsored programming. Chill originally had no presenters, interspersing tracks with pre-recorded links featuring messages that reinforced the laidback atmosphere of the station. One of these memorably described the station as "Tai Chi for your ears".

In August 2006, the station launched its first regular programmes on weekday evenings, 'The Garden of Delights', presented by Pete Lawrence and 'The Deep End', presented by Paul Noble, two of the organisers of The Big Chill festival. It also introduced a nightly programme made up of listener requests, and inherited the Chiller Cabinet sequence from its sister station Classic FM, which plays "ambient soundscapes, movie soundtracks and classically inspired chillout music".

The station encourages interaction between itself and its listeners, who suggest new songs and artists for the playlist, as well as relaxation techniques, via the Chill website and MySpace page. It currently reaches 115,000 listeners per week.

History

The station was launched by in early 2005, as a means of filling empty slots on DAB multiplexes owned by GWR prior to its merger with Capital Radio. Group Corporate Development Director Gregory Watson and Programme Director Bern Leckie devised a format for a relaxing, ambient station, aimed at 18-35 year olds.

On the station website, the founders claim, "We used to make compilation tapes for ourselves and friends to chill out to. That's where the idea for our station came from, and we make it the same way we made the tapes - listening to lots of music, swapping ideas, seeing what happens."

In June 2006, Chill bid for its first analogue licence, for Bristol, citing the city's record in producing trip-hop artists such as Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky in support of its application. However, in September 2006, OFCOM awarded the licence to CanWest and its Original 106 format. It is not currently known if Global Radio will bid for any more analogue licences with the Chill format.

Late 2006, Chill upgraded from a 32kb/s internet stream to a 128kb/s stream, offering internet listeners the same quality as the cable and satellite viewers.

The station left Sky Digital and Virgin Media on 3 July 2007, with other GCap stations Capital Disney, Core (radio station) and Classic Gold Digital Network. It is speculated that this is connected with cost cutting measures under previous owners GCap. In July 2008 Bern Leckie was made redundant (along with many others) by new owners Global Radio.

Music

The Chill playlist is largely drawn from the mainstream end of chill out and ambient music, mixed with downtempo rock, vocal jazz and lounge tracks, film scores and the occasional classical piece.

Artists heard on Chill

• Air
• Badly Drawn Boy
• Beth Orton
• Corinne Bailey Rae
• Fatboy Slim
• Faithless
• Goldfrapp
• Groove Armada
• Jack Johnson
• Lemon Jelly
• Moby
• Morcheeba
• Mylo
• Norah Jones
• Nouvelle Vague
• Portishead
• Radiohead
• Röyksopp
• Sigur Rós
• Ulrich Schnauss
• Urban Myth Club
• Zero 7

Programmes

• The 02 Chillout Room (weeknights, 7pm)
• The Garden Of Delights with Pete Lawrence (Monday, 8pm)
• The Deep End with Paul Noble (Wednesday, 10pm)
• The Chiller Cabinet (Saturday and Sunday, 2am, repeated Tuesday and Thursday 10pm)

DAB multiplexes

• NOW Wiltshire (Bath and West Wiltshire)
• Birmingham
• Bournemouth
• Bristol and Bath
• Cambridge
• Cardiff and Newport
• NOW Cornwall
• Coventry
• Exeter and Torbay
• London
• Norwich
• NOW Peterborough
• NOW Plymouth
• Reading and Basingstoke
• Southend and Chelmsford
• NOW Sussex Coast
• NOW Swindon
• Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury and Telford
• NOW Nottingham
• NOW Leicester

External links

• Chill
• Chill on MySpace
• GCap Media
• Direct link to listen online in Windows Media format