Radio Capital, later to become Capital London, was formed in early 1970 by Nicholas Vincent-Brown, David Maule-ffinch and one other friend Tony Parmiter with the intent to apply for London's Independent Local Radio general entertainment licence. In late 1970, future brothers-in-law Vincent-Brown and Maule-ffinch's father-in-law, Barclay Barclay-White, became involved. By the time the consortium applied to the IBA, Radio Capital's board also included Richard Attenborough, George Martin, Bryan Forbes and Peter Saunders (impresario).[1]
1973
February – Capital London is awarded the licence to provide London's general entertainment service. Michael Bukht is appointed programme controller, Aidan Day Head of Music and Ron Onions Head of News. The chief engineer is Gerry O'Reilly.
The IBA finally opens the station's permanent transmission facilities at Saffron Green which allows both LBC and Capital Radio to move up the dial. Capital moves to 1548 kHz medium wave (194 m).
Capital London launches the Flying Eye, a traffic spotting light aircraft, carrying live reports on traffic congestion on the streets of Central London.
Chris Tarrant joins the station to present a Sunday lunchtime show, before later moving to a late morning slot on weekdays.
June – Kenny Everett rejoins the station, reviving his Saturday lunchtime show.
30 September – The first edition of The Network Chart Show is broadcast. Aired on almost all of the UK's Independent Local Radio network, the programme is presented from Capital's Euston Tower studios by David Jensen who joins the station to present this programme and to take over as host of the station's mid-morning show.
October – Mike Allen launches the influential hip hop show.
30 December – Michael Aspel leaves. He had been presenting a short-lived Sunday show after ending his long-running mid-morning programme on 27 July.
Rod McKenzie leaves the station to join BBC Radio 1.
1985
No events.
1986
4 May – As part of an IBA experiment in split broadcasting on Independent Local Radio, Capital runs a Sunday daytime service called CFM, broadcasting a more contemporary mix of music than normally broadcast by the station.
July – The hip hop show ends as Mike Allen moves to LBC.
September – Neil Fox, Lynn Parsons, Tim Westwood, and Jackie Brambles join, and Nicky Campbell leaves the station to join BBC Radio 1. These presenter changes take place after new programme controller Richard Park oversees an overhaul of Capital's output from a full-service station to a music-intensive CHR format, which proves highly successful. The revamp is underlined by a new on-air imaging package, known as 'Music Power'.[3]
Clive Warren joins, presenting an overnight slot as well as covering other shows. He later presented the early weekend morning show and also the weekday overnight slots.
The Capital Gold network relaunches with the new slogan of ‘’The Greatest Hits of the 60s, 70s and 80s.’’
Chris Brooks joins the station to host a new Weekend Breakfast Show.[8]
After two years at Virgin Radio, Steve Penk rejoins to present a networked late evening show. However, he only stays for a short period returning to Key 103 in Manchester in the New Year.
5 April – Johnny Vaughan replaces Chris Tarrant as host of the breakfast show. Initially, the show's weekly RAJAR ratings fall from 1.3 million to 980,000 listeners.[10]
5 September – Jeremy Kyle joins the station to present a weeknight late evening show Capital Confessions.
May – Capital Radio Group and GWR Group merge to form GCap Media.
DAB station Life is relaunched as Capital Life with a full presenter line-up. The station had dropped presenters outside breakfast in the New Year.
December – In an attempt to win back listeners, shorter commercial breaks (two adverts per break) are introduced, although there are more as a result. The policy is dropped after a few months.
2006
9 January – Capital is relaunched under its original name Capital Radio, with a modified line-up of presenters and a slightly tweaked music format.
September – Following an unsuccessful relaunch in January, a new programme controller, Scott Muller joins from the Nova group in Australia, and the station sees another tweak in style and brands itself as "London's Hit Music Station".
December – Jeremy Kyle leaves the station to rejoin ITV.
2007
Dave Berry joins the station, presenting the Saturday afternoon show.
12 March – The station is rebranded once again as Capital 95.8 – together with a new slogan, The Sound of London.
3 August – All stations in the Classic Gold and Capital Gold networks are replaced by a new network called simply Gold, the result of the merger of the Classic Gold and Capital Gold networks under one owner, GCap Media.
10 December – Capital 95.8 slips down to fourth in the listening charts in London. London's Hit Music Network is reintroduced as the slogan and Greg Burns becomes drivetime presenter. Lucio moves to the evening show, replacing the departing Bam Bam.
October – the flagship breakfast show becomes the most popular breakfast show in London with a weekly audience of 862,000 listeners.[16]
31 October – Global Radio officially takes control of all GCap Media and its brands, giving it ownership of The One Network. The GCap Media name is dropped at this time.
13 September – Global announces plans to scrap the Galaxy Network in order to create a nationwide Capital FM. The plans will also include the closure of four further stations, with the new network going live in early 2011.[18]
Capital London launches nationally and becomes a part of The Capital FM Network as part of a merger of Global Radio's Hit Music and Galaxy networks to form the nine-station 'Capital Network'.[19] Other than daily breakfast and weekday drivetime shows, the majority of Capital's London-based output is now networked.[20]
1 July – Global Radio requests changes to the formats of Capital Birmingham and Capital Scotland, which had inherited obligations from previous owners. This was to enable format consistency within all nine Capital stations.[21] On 17 November 2011, Ofcom approved both format change requests.[22]
18 November – After more than seven years hosting the London breakfast show, Johnny Vaughan abruptly leaves Capital. The show's audience had increased to over a million listeners.[23]
7 October – Capital XTRA launches. It is a rebrand of urban music station Choice FM, broadcasting on FM in London on 96.9 and 107.1 MHz and nationally on the Digital OneDAB multiplex[27] and among the presenters is Tim Westwood who rejoins the station.[28]
2014
6 February – Global Radio announces it will sell two Capital stations – in Scotland and South Wales – to Communicorp. Capital's network programming and brand name is still used by both stations under contract.[29]
13 November – Lisa Snowdon announces her departure from Capital Breakfast and the station at the end of the year. She was the programme's co-host since August 2008.[31]
18 December – Lisa Snowdon leaves.
2016
18 January – Following Global Radio's purchase of Liverpool station Juice 107.6, the station is relaunched as Capital Liverpool.[32]
2 August – After Global's purchase of Brighton and Hove station Juice 107.2 earlier in the year, Global announces the service will be relaunched as Capital Brighton from Monday 3 September.[33]
11 October – After six years on the air, Capital TV ceases broadcasting.[34]
2019
26 February – Following further deregulation, Global Radio announces plans to replace the local breakfast shows on Capital, Heart and Smooth with a single national breakfast show for each network. Local weekend output is also axed.[35]
5 April – The final editions of Capital's local breakfast shows air. Two stations in Brighton and the East Midlands cease broadcasting.
8 April
Capital London's breakfast show goes national, replacing most of the network's local breakfast shows, except for Capital Cymru, which also retains local programming at weekends. All Capital stations continue to air weekday Drivetime shows, local news bulletins and traffic updates.[36]
23 May – Capital Cymru drops all networked programming and launches a full 24-hour schedule of local output, including additional Welsh language daytime shows and an automated off-peak service of bilingual music. The station continues to air Global's The Official Big Top 40 on Sundays.[39]
2 September – Capital XTRA Reloaded launches as a full-time station.[40]
2 December – Capital becomes available on FM in the south east Midlands when it replaces six local stations owned by Quidem. The six stations operate as a single network called Capital Mid Counties, sharing all programmes with the Capital network apart from a local weekday drivetime show.[41]
2020s
2020
21 February – Vick Hope leaves Capital Breakfast, and the station ten months after the London-based show went national.[42]