Xtra AM
former British radio station
Xtra AM was an Independent Local Radio station which was on the air between 1989 and 1998. It was broadcast to much of Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire and was the 'oldies' station which took over the mediumwave frequencies of both BRMB (serving Birmingham) and Mercia FM (Coventry and Warwickshire). The programming came from the BRMB studios in Aston, Birmingham, and the signal was relayed from the Langley Mill transmitter (Birmingham) and Shilton (Coventry). The Coventry station was acquired in 1993 by GWR Group and replaced by Classic Gold, while the Birmingham station continued until 1998 when it was replaced by Capital Gold.
History
The station was launched on the morning of 4 April 1989, as a response to government disapproval of the simulcasting of programming on FM and medium wave. Xtra AM became a 'gold' station and targeted listeners in the 35 to 50 age range, while BRMB and Mercia both began to cater for a younger audience. The new AM service was launched to much fanfare with its inaugural host, Les Ross, conducting a spoof interview with Elvis Presley as part of its publicity.
Xtra AM quickly became popular with its audience and was soon rivalling its FM counterparts. Despite this, however, BRMB maintained the larger proportion of the audience share. One of the key ingredients in this success was the appointment of Les Ross as the station's breakfast host: a well liked and respected broadcaster in the region, when Ross left BRMB to move to Xtra AM, he took many of his listeners with him.
The public source identifies “Xtra AM” as former British radio station. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Xtra, former and British.
Why this record matters
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8045044. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1998 and 1993.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Xtra AM” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.