Takeover Radio 103.2 began broadcasting across Leicester in March 2002.

But the station's history began well before the 21st Century.

Infact the station began as a Programme on a Market Harborough short term radio station (RSL) called Valley FM back in 1997.

For 2 hours on a Saturday Night, Ellie (15), Sam (12) and Rayne (10) Menzies took over Philip Solo's show by "bursting in and tying him up" - they would only if the "Radio Police" paid the ransom of delicious pizza.

The show format continued on other RSL's in the Leicester area, including stations WOW in Wigston, The Big Dial (pictured left).

After appearing on The Big Dial in 1998, the show moved to The Wall 95.1 in January 1999 and new young recruits were needed. So an advert was placed into the Leicester Mercury newspaper and membership grew from just 13 to 100!

Auditions were then held for the young people to find the ones that would help the station in an on air capacity, and the rest kindly offered to help promote the station via handing out leaflets and other free promotion.

For the next few months, training was done and in May, the new young recruits were ready to present their first Takeover Radio shows on the RSL station The Wall 95.1 - this took place on Sunday 2nd May 1999 and was a huge success.

By August 2000, the Takeover Radio shows had grown in popularity and membership so much that a radio station of our own was needed and this began on Saturday 19th August 2000 for 9 days, from 9am til 9pm.

Throughout the first ever on air broadcast of Takeover Radio across Leicester for those 9 days, there were interviews with bands, artists, local figures and popular TV presenter Stephen Mullhern.

Following the success of the 9-Day RSL, it was decided that Takeover Radio should become a full-time radio station and the long hard journey was started out by those who wanted to make it happen as in September 1999, a full-time headquarters was starting to be built and work was set out to create the Takeover Radio charity.

In July 2001, Takeover Radio Childrens Media Trust was granted Charity Status by the Charity's Commision and The Radio Authority chose the station was 1 of 15 to be handpicked to trial out a new Pilot radio licence called the "Access Radio Scheme" - this meant Takeover Radio's dreams had come true and for 5 years, Takeover could now broadcast full time on air!!

After almost 9 months of preparing everything, setting up and promotion - The UK's first full-time broadcasting Children's Radio station finally went live on air on Tuesday 5th March 2002.

As you can imagine, this became such massive news with all sorts of news agencies around the country, both printed and televisual, reporting on the story of our launch. Takeover Radio 103.2 was now on air until at least 2006!

In 2004, The Radio Authority became Ofcom and they announced the new Community Radio Licence programme. Takeover Radio applied and in 2005 were awarded a new 5-year licence that came into place on 1st January 2006.

The new licence meant that Takeover Radio would now be broadcasting across Leicester on 103.2 FM until 31st December 2010.

Over this period of Licencing activity, Takeover Radio had moved from it's previous location of Vaughn Way which was being demolished to make way for the new Shires Shopping Centre Extension (later to be called Highcross Shopping Centre). The new location was within the historic St.John's Business Park that housed the former Chorar's Building.

On air, the station continued to grow and grow in terms of listeners and a fan base thanks to it's musical output and unique presentation style.

Off air, the young people organised many events to boost PR for the station and also raise vital funds to help keep Takeover Radio on air.

In 2005, Andy May and Jim Gray co-organised a football tournament with other radio stations in the area - it was eventually won by a local RSL, but Takeover did happen to finish as runners up.

In 2006, Takeover Radio ran its first ever "Karaoke Kontest" that saw hundreds of local youngsters battling it out to become Leicester's Number 1 Karaoke Star.

In 2010, the station continued to move forward even further as Crazy Jay and Dave Show (pictured right) began organising clubbing events on behalf of the station that would go on to see Number 1 acts such as Tinie Tempah performing exclusively live in person.

Takeover Radio also moved to it's new home within the historic Abbey Park after almost 5 years at St.John's Business Park.

And Ofcom announced that there would be an announcement regarding the renewel of Takeover Radio's community licence, therfore possibly keeping the station for another 5 years until at least December 2015!