Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

if it was Global, they'd introduce national brands on every single station by stealth, not the half arsed way they've gone about it by introducing an oldies station on some stations where there's no competition, others keep their name, but take the playlist of Hits Radio, while others like Pirate and Lincs stay as they are!

The former UKRD stations largely had Hot AC formats which covered both avenues. GHR alienates younger listeners who I dare say will listen elsewhere, along with advertisers who target younger adults.

I completly agree. Global's roll out of their brands has always been very well executed. In this case it seems like Bauer are trying to do the same but without the same level of thought and planning.

I somewhat feel like they're running scared from Global. Many of these stations overlap with Global's Heart and Capital brands, and in recent years they've struggled to complete. So I'm wondering if they've decided to roll out GHR as it's a different format that doesn't directly complete as much.

However like you say, there are areas that don't have competition (on FM) that will now have GHR forced on them, where Hits would have been the better choice. I live just outside KLFM's coverage area, and while some of it does overlap with Heart East and Lincs FM, there's a large area in the middle of its patch that only has the choice of KLFM or BBC.

I don't think either of them cover Manchester well enough to switch off the AM signal. Widnes and parts of Warrington are closer to Liverpool and fall within the Greatest Hits Liverpool TSA.

I live in Warrington (although I’m closer to Leigh and Salford) as well as Wire FM, which is clear we have no issues receiving Wish FM and City2/GHR on FM, nor do we have issues in receiving FM stations from Stockport or Tameside, in that sense then certainly there’s a possibility that Wish and Wire can be receivable in parts of Manchester.

As we’re one of those towns that had listened to Key 103 and Radio City prior to Wire coming on air in 1998, today’s news has gone down quite quietly online, in comparison to the outcry there was when Heart dropped Joel and Lorna at Breakfast. Sadly like Heart, after a few months people don’t notice, forget it and move on, certainly in Wire’s case I can see that happening.

From what I’ve been reading today, many people stopped listening when they moved out of Warrington (ironically towards Wigan) and when they stopped broadcasting Live Rugby League. Me personally, I almost never listened to it, I have always had a preference for the National or Manchester stations over Wire.

Nevertheless, sad news for those losing their jobs at the stations across the board. I’m still surprised that the majority of stations are adopting the GHR format over Hits, but I guess Bauer have carefully planned what they were doing.

Interesting the station names that are being kept, either as standalone stations or becoming part of the Hits Network. Apart from Sam FM, which seems to be regulatory issues, the others look to me ones that have had particularly strong audience figures and therefore getting rid of their names probably wasn't seen as very wise. Even though the ones that are becoming part of the Hits are effectively now closing down and just running a Breakfast programme (although I don't know if local news is being provided throughout the day - so effectively the national station, outside of breakfast and local news inserts into the national station? The breakfast shows the only programmes of their own. Great shame as it isn't really the local station, with its retained name, in those four areas but the local station now a breakfast-only station and otherwise the national channel now with local inserts, with listeners still thinking, or being told, that it is the local station as it's name is still being kept).

It's tricky to tell now with national networks masquerading as local stations but in most areas how many commercial "local" stations are there supposedly?

I imagine the regional names which have survived for The Hits network (both present stations and the ones joining in September) will be on borrowed time too.

[quote="Orry Verducci" pid="1234979"]

I don't think Hits Radio is getting the right numbers for them yet, as Key 103 has lost listeners on every Raja and Breakfast is not working for Hits Radio at the moment.

GHR is ok but it is nothing to Radio City 2 which was kind of where GHR came from.

I quite like the GHR branding



Certainly better than Hits Radio.

I've heard a lot worse but the logo is a bit pants though lol

Makes sense for Bauer, but it’s a shame we don’t have effective regulation anymore.

Does Lincs FM still have a farming programme? It does very well because there is little commercial competition in the area. Not surprised it has survived.
I imagine it's a similar story with Pirate FM in Cornwall.