announced that Mercia would be rebranded as a Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire from April 2012, along with its sister West Midlands stations Beacon, BRMB and Wyvern. The Mercia brand was phased out on Wednesday 21 March 2012 in preparation for the rebrand, which took place at 7pm on Monday 26 March 2012. On 6 May 2016, the station's owners, Orion, announced they had been brought by Bauer for an undisclosed fee, reportedly between £40 and £50 million. In May 2019, following OFCOM's decision to relax local content obligations from commercial radio, Bauer announced Free Radio's Coventry & Warwickshire breakfast show would be shared with the sister station in Herefordshire and Worcestershire from 8 July 2019, presented by John Dalziel and Roisin McCourt. The localised weekday drivetime shows were initially replaced by a single regional show, presented by Andy Goulding. Regional weekend afternoon shows were axed in favour of additional network programming. As of 2 September 2019, further networked output replaced the weekday drivetime show. On 23 November 2021, Bauer announced the station's Hits at Breakfast show, presented by John Dalziel and Roisin McCourt, would broadcast across all four Free Radio licences. The move was permitted under OFCOM's local content guidelines. The Coventry and Warwickshire station retains opt-outs for local news, traffic updates and advertising. Programming All networked programming originates from Bauer’s Manchester studios. Regional programming, under the Hits at Breakfast banner, is produced and broadcast from Bauer’s Birmingham studios weekdays from 6-10am, presented by John Dalziel and Roisin McCourt. News Bauer's Birmingham newsroom broadcasts local news bulletins for Coventry and Warwickshire hourly from 6am-7pm on weekdays, from 7am-1pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Headlines are broadcast on the half-hour during weekday breakfast and drivetime shows, alongside traffic bulletins. National bulletins from Sky News Radio are carried overnight with bespoke networked bulletins on weekend afternoons, usually originating from Bauer's Leeds newsroom. Previous logos References External links Free Bauer Radio Hits Radio Radio stations in the West Midlands (region) Coventry Radio stations in Warwickshire Radio stations established in 1980