Global Radio axes all regional/local breakfast shows

I just had a look at Heart Scotland, and see that their breakfast show is still presented by Robin Galloway - who was there when it was Real Radio, and (according to Wikipedia) in its even older guise, Scot FM. I presume you don't get to stay at a station for over 20 years unless you're popular with listeners.

They have held on to heritage brands for quite a bit longer than Global (and its predecessors) have. The Scottish stations may be largely networked, but they've at least seen some benefit in keeping the original names and programming originated in Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Bauer do seem to treat Scotland as a special case, maybe a hangover from the SRH days.

With something like nearly 60 new licenses added to the portfolio by their three recent acquisitions, one imagines Bauer will make use of their brands more widely. The question I have is why bother with Hits/Greatest Hits when you have the already-multimedia Heat, Kiss and Magic brands ready to go up to a national scale and challenge Heart, Capital and Smooth head on?

I'd imagine most local stations have their most popular presenters in the breakfast slot so it's probably going to be everyone for themselves in an effort to claim the remaining drivetime slots - indeed on Heart they're going from 22 breakfast slots (probably a few co-hosted too) and 23 drivetime slots to just 10 Drivetime shows - that's a minimum of 35 presenters and crews losing their jobs. Capital goes from 14 Breakfast and drivetime shows to just 9. Also add the weekend shift too and across the two whilst the "local" hours are cut from 43 to 15 per station the number of shows produced (counting breakfast, drivetime and weekend as seperate shows) goes from 120 to 19.

That is absolutely brutal - far worse than anything ITV ever did, and it does absolutely nothing to serve the audience. Unlike in television the savings won't be reinvested into more premium content.

In the case of Scotland with regards to Global, Smooth Radio has been largely a success in Glasgow, this despite the fact the majority of programming is from London with English presenters. Heart hasn't done as well as Real Radio, but GMG spent a lot of money on promotional activities, so if you look at it from a business perspective, the Scottish operation is doing what it's supposed to do with minimum spend.

Bauer in Scotland are wringing out every last drop of heritage out of those brands where they still have some merit, where as in England, they really don't. The only consolation is that Hits Radio Manchester managed to reduce their share of the audience more than as Key 103.

We really don't know what Global's plans in the future are for those national breakfast slots. They may keep the cheaper presenters such as Martin Kemp's son who currently presents Capital's breakfast show in London or in the future go for someone with a larger national presence. We've already seen that Global have got the chequebook out to grab Eddie Mair from Radio 4 to LBC for example.

The figure for certain Heart stations is dire


It bombed.. its ratings are dire and are below Scot-Fm, I couldn't believe it when I looked them up.

I can see Scott Mills being a potential target. Seems a perfect fit for a national Heart breakfast show I think.

Well that's what happens when GMG spend a lot of money on big money comps for listeners instead of actual programming. Heart may not be setting the world alight, but it's doing what Global wants it to do, which is a presence in the Central Belt.

It's difficult to see Scott Mills Leaving the BBC, but I have to agree, think he would be a perfect fit.

Nobody thought Simon Mayo would leave Radio 2, but then the salary row came along, had Jo Whiley shoehorned with him and that tanked with the audience and he left for Bauer's Scala Radio, a new classical music digital station that launches on Monday.

If local radio was starting again from scratch, I think regional radio would be the ideal size in this day and age, and should really have been able to operate fully regional on that basis. People tend to travel around their region more than they might have done in the 70s rather than being city bound.

Some of the traditional ILR stations are smaller than BBC Local Radio stations, and as they won’t be doing much public service stuff like school closures these days there is no reason why an ILR that is the size of 2-3 BBC stations wouldn’t have been sustainable, still local enough to connect to the listener, but still big enough to not sound tin-pot and be able to get guests in.

Therefore I would have scrapped independent local radio but ensure there is regional radio that is fully local throughout the day. Capital and Heart would be national brands with no regional requirement.

That happened a few years ago in Manchester when XFM Manchester was replaced by Radio X. Whilst it does ok at a national level, majority of people didn’t make the switch when Chris Moyles was installed as breakfast host but then he attracted a different, if not smaller audience for the 97.7FM frequency. Mike Toolan hosted Key 103’s Breakfast Show for a very long time. Whilst his audience was in decline it was still popular.

Whilst I don’t listen to Capital, Heart or Smooth I’m sorry to read this news. Certainly sorry for the staff losing their jobs and ultimately a number of listeners who will become alienated when the changes are implemented.

I’m sure Bauer will be watching the implementation with close eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more local closures and removal of historic brands before the end of the year. Removing Key 103 with Hits Radio I feel was merely the start.