Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

No, it's in Bucks, but BBC Berks is a station full of alominies. Its main transmitter is in Hampshire, and because of that, North Hampshire is served by them, rather than Radio Solent. Also has a transmitter to serve Henley, which is in Oxfordshire



Brilliant stuff, you don't get that today, BBC or commercial. I remember their Chief Engineer, Philip Bond I think ? Also were the first UK radio station to have dynamic track/song info on RDS

I'm not sure Free Radio Worcester really exists these days does it? I thought they closed down the Worcester and Coventry versions and it's all from Birmingham now, presumably with local ads.

You are right though that if its done badly then it's not worth doing. Networking generally is very good these days

I do wonder what sort of calls the engineers got and how many people needed help tuning up 5Mhz?

Or even 500 kHz

They still exist, the Worcester and Coventry versions get a different breakfast show from the Birmingham and Black County versions (though both of them do come from Birmingham).

All the Free Radio output outside of breakfast is networked programming though now I think.
Mostly from Manchester, which for the four heritage ILRs in the West Midlands is such a shame.
I assume that the Oldbury studios that they opened not that long ago after the former Beacon studios were sold have also now gone, along with the Coventry and Worcester ones?

Yes seems so, looking at their schedules there's two breakfast shows across the 4 stations - one for Brum, Black Country and Shropshire, the other for Coventry/Warwickshire and Hereford and Worcester.

Drivetimes are networked on Free but there's a local Drivetime on GHR. Which is similar to what Global do with Smooth and Heart - means only needing one studio. That was a late decision for Smooth, originally that was to have a local drivetime too,


Incidently I like this feature on their site showing what all the Bauer stations (not the new acquisitions yet) are playing now. It gives a good visual idea of what stations are sharing programming:
https://planetradio.co.uk/free/

I never really understood why they divided the breakfast show in that manner.
Why not Brum and Coventry with one show, and the Black Country and H&W with the other, which would make a more obvious pairing geographically.
I'm sure there was a good reason for it.

Free seems to be a brand they've inherited that they're not entirely sure what to do with. Its effectively Hits in everything but name.

Free Radio was the attempt of their previous owner to compete in the West Midlands with a single brand against Heart, Capital and Smooth, replacing the old heritage brands such as BRMB and Beacon.

Reverting to the old brands would have been a retrograde step, so Bauer have been left with a brand that doesn't really work.

Agreed, the days of BRMB, Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern are long gone, and there is no way that they will return.
The change to Free hasn't really helped the listening figures, despite the advantages of a single brand though.
What would anyone do, the other brands have moved in with their niche programming, leaving the local broader programming without a large listening base? The internet and all that offers have diluted the available audience whether for music or local information.
Obviously this is not just a local West Midlands issue.
Bauer may as well just make it a national Hits outlet, which in time I imagine it will be when OFCOM allows it.

That, and to make selling national advertising on those stations easier by selling dead air on the four stations as one brand, rather than four seperate single station named entities.

I was listening to a podcast with Phil Riley who was chief exc of Orion Media on David Lloyds Radio Conversations series, about the switch from BRMB/Beacon/Mercia/Wyvern and the renaming under a single name, and it appears that Free Radio was one of the last on the list, and the easiest one, copyright wise, to adopt.