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Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

The majority of its acquisitions last year (May 2020)

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AS
Ash101


The biggest problem it has is its breakfast show, he's a decent enough DJ and apparently popular in Liverpool but it just seems a bit poor. It's not good enough to replace all the local stations shows in a few months. With all the big names the station has I can see it changing before the roll out - possibly Andy Crane at breakfast?


I’m pretty sure Andy Crane was on at Breakfast before they rebranded as Greatest Hits (when it was a selection of ‘2m’ stations). Always striked me as strange that they removed him then.
OM
Omnipresent
I can see the argument that national brands are easier to market and more attractive to advertisers, but OFCOM has made a hash of regulation to maintain local content.

To maintain "localness" on the former GWR stations in the East Midlands (Leicester Sound, Ram FM, Trent FM) which are now Capital, it has a drive time show presented from Birmingham. For residents of the East Midlands, Birmingham is barely more local than London.

You can't fault the quality of execution by Global and their investment in brands and studios (videos of interviews on BBC Radio 4 and Five Live are embarrassing by comparison).

On the other hand, Bauer's rebranding of Key 103 as The Hits has been a disaster - a remarkable fall for what was once a formidable force in local radio.
NW
nwtv2003
On the other hand, Bauer's rebranding of Key 103 as The Hits has been a disaster - a remarkable fall for what was once a formidable force in local radio.


It’s amazing how much of a downfall Key 103 had in the space of a few years, in my opinion they left it the same for too long and allowed others to take their audience, I certainly think Capital Manchester and Real changing to Heart certainly caused by the most damage to the station. Rebranding to Hits Radio, whilst great that a National station was coming from Manchester, the rebrand of the station just felt a bit half arsed and that they’d given up.

Which I feel is odd because when you look around the Bauer Group, branding for Absolute, Kiss, Magic and Scala is on top form.
AP
AndrewPSSP
Each to their own but I like it. I find it very striking and it's refreshing to have something graphical which isn't just plain text. The perspective is different on all 3 letters which is clearly part of the design and I don't think it looks wrong at all.
Personally it reminds me of the 2007 CBBC logo.
AS
Ash101
On the other hand, Bauer's rebranding of Key 103 as The Hits has been a disaster - a remarkable fall for what was once a formidable force in local radio.


It’s amazing how much of a downfall Key 103 had in the space of a few years, in my opinion they left it the same for too long and allowed others to take their audience, I certainly think Capital Manchester and Real changing to Heart certainly caused by the most damage to the station. Rebranding to Hits Radio, whilst great that a National station was coming from Manchester, the rebrand of the station just felt a bit half arsed and that they’d given up.

Which I feel is odd because when you look around the Bauer Group, branding for Absolute, Kiss, Magic and Scala is on top form.


Wasn’t the whole “national station from Manchester” just some incredible PR spin?

It was already providing the spine to a Bauer City 1 Network across the North outside of local Breakfast & Drive shows. All it being ‘national’ did was mean it wasn’t very Manchester.

That seems to be a big question in these new changes. All the local stations that are Hits Network, but keep local branding, are having a local breakfast show. But the one on the South Coast, owned by Nation & being branded Hits, is taking a local drive. Meaning it’ll be the only “Hits Network” station to take the Manchester Breakfast Show.

How does this help? It can’t be local for Manchester & if it’s ‘national’ you’re only really on air in 2 markets. Surely they’d be better off having local breakfast everywhere (Manchester included) and a national network outside of that.
JJ
Juicy Joe Founding member
This news is a great shame. My local radio station Signal 1 has broadcast networked programmes for a few years now, notably Total Access and Danny Mylo's House Party and evening/overnight shows. Signal 2 also has some longstanding local presenters. Questions over whether the 1 will be dropped the name when it's sister station rebrands to Greatest Hits Radio. However, it did rebrand to The Big 1170AM for a number of years before reverting back to Signal 2 under different ownership. So I hope the Signal 1 name is retained. However, it will be upsetting that there will only be a local breakfast show hopefully keeping Foxy & Matilda and the rest of the time, generic programmes played out from across the country and the rest of the local presenters possibly dropped.
DV
dvboy
I have never worked out why Lincs gets such a pasting on certain forums.
When I have heard it it sounds fine and obviously appeals to the local area well.
Not every station has to sound the same - although the commercial radio industry is slowly moving down that road.

Having lived in Lincoln for six years it's amazing how Lincs FM is so ingrained into the local population, it's on in pretty much every home, shop and workplace in the area during daytime. The main alternative is Radio 2 and I feel a lot of people don't have that on at work because there is too much speech content during the day. They've only had local DAB since 2015 so take-up will have been slower than in other areas, and Global's stations were only added to it last summer.

Compare this to a big city like Birmingham where there is a plethora of similar sounding stations that have all been around competing with each other long before Lincs FM existed.
MA
Markymark
dvboy posted:
I have never worked out why Lincs gets such a pasting on certain forums.
When I have heard it it sounds fine and obviously appeals to the local area well.
Not every station has to sound the same - although the commercial radio industry is slowly moving down that road.

Having lived in Lincoln for six years it's amazing how Lincs FM is so ingrained into the local population, it's on in pretty much every home, shop and workplace in the area during daytime. The main alternative is Radio 2 and I feel a lot of people don't have that on at work because there is too much speech content during the day.


I often work in a variety of workshops, or installation sites, so I'm exposed to the 'site radio'. Radio 2 is very popular, but only up until Noon, when Vine comes on. Since Zoe Ball started on Breakfast, it's not consumed much before 09:30 either ! Absolute and Planet Rock are the popular alternatives. YMMV.

Lincs FM is interesting, it's just like the 70s and 80s, when everybody in their town lived and breathed the ILR.
GE
thegeek Founding member
I wonder how long it will take Bauer to rename all the Bauer Scotland stations.

Do the Scottish stations (FM or AM) take any content originated outwith Scotland? I think they've definitely put more importance on local programming (or at least not English voices) than Global, but does it translate to better figures?
BB
BBI45
I've just thought of a couple of questions about the upcoming changes.

1: Will news, travel and weather remain at a local level (i.e. each current station will do their own news)?

2: What will be happening with my local station, Peak FM? It operates on two frequencies, one from the Chesterfield Transmitter which carries Yorkshire stations, and one from the Stanton Moor transmitter which carries Derbyshire stations. So will it be put in the Yorkshire & Lincolnshire region, or the Central region?
GM
Gary McEwan
I wonder how long it will take Bauer to rename all the Bauer Scotland stations.

Do the Scottish stations (FM or AM) take any content originated outwith Scotland? I think they've definitely put more importance on local programming (or at least not English voices) than Global, but does it translate to better figures?


I don't believe they do. The stations get networked with Clyde 1 for various programs such as the GBX on a Friday night.
LL
London Lite Founding member
BBI45 posted:
I've just thought of a couple of questions about the upcoming changes.

1: Will news, travel and weather remain at a local level (i.e. each current station will do their own news)?

2: What will be happening with my local station, Peak FM? It operates on two frequencies, one from the Chesterfield Transmitter which carries Yorkshire stations, and one from the Stanton Moor transmitter which carries Derbyshire stations. So will it be put in the Yorkshire & Lincolnshire region, or the Central region?


To answer number 2, Bauer have asked for their own approved regions in the South and SW of England, but haven't requested for any changes to Yorks and Lincs or the Central area so under the current rules, they'll network programming from Birmingham which already goes out on 105.2 the West Midlands and on DAB muxes surrounding the area, such as Coventry and Hereford and Worcester.

Bauer could apply to Ofcom for permission for Peak to simulcast the AM output from Sheffield arguing local affinity as part of the Sheffield City Area which would likely to be approved.

However in another crossover area, when Helius purchased High Peak Radio and Ashbourne Radio (which are the same licence), they could have asked Ofcom to merge all output with Imagine Radio in Stockport which isn't that far away, but instead decided to stay in the Central approved area and provide local programming at breakfast and drive instead. Those stations are also called Imagine Radio now.

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