Radio Caroline Closes Sky Satellite Service

And Magic? I only really hear it in my parents car and mini cabs but I'm pretty sure that it's still London centric. The other Magics on AM elsewhere are different.

Oh, that's good if it is, the station it started as, Melody Radio, I don't think had any London local content (except for the ads of course) ?

Yes, in London it's sold as part of Bauer's place network unlike the other brands that appear to reflect the music rather than the local area in the name.

The main reason the content is fully local is because the Northern Magic stations operate a more Gold style format and non of the other local FM licences are that compatible. Bauer had resisted most of the commercial radio cost cutting measures until now, they've closed down the Kerrang Radio service in the West Midlands replacing it with Planet Rock from London and TFM in the North East has basically become a relay of Metro Radio. So now is the time Bauer are really showing their true intentions. I think they'd love to be able to turn Liverpool's City Talk into Magic and they could do it with Wave 105 on the South Coast, then London's Magic might become a little less local.

On the subject of Capital, when they first announced the brand extension they claimed the London service would be live and local with the rest of the output using live voice tracking from the London presenters outside of breakfast and drive, don't know if they kept that up though.

Also does Choice not quite count as fully Londonwide? As that's just for London too in terms of FM.

Probably not, I use the yardstick of being able to circumnavigate the M25 and have uninterrupted reception ?

Choice is an odd one. It was originally a south London station based in Brixton, then it gained a license for north London too. These did run separately, then it was bought by Capital and moved to central London with north and south combined. They also had a license in Birmingham for a few years (that became Galaxy and is now Capital).

There are a few other stations that could be classed as London ones... Spectrum 558, Kismat, Sunrise and Buzz Asia, although the last 3 of those might not be around for much longer as their owners, Sunrise Radio are in big financial trouble at the moment.

The other MW London station, Premier could be considered as a London one, I've not listened to it!

Melody had little content except the music and the ads, that was the point behind it. Hanson owned the station and it was designed as the station that Lord Hanson wanted. They marketed it as having no DJs, no competitions, no talk, just music and that's what they did. They had announcers introducing the songs, IIRC Peter Marshall, former Thames announcer was one of them. It had a much lighter music playlist with showtunes in the evening.

It is a bit more like a normal station now, Neil 'Dr' Fox is their breakfast DJ for example.

Incidentally, originally Melody was on 104.9FM which was a problematic frequency in some parts, mainly South West London (where the signal was restricted due to another stain nearby in Surrey), it then moved to 105.4. The worse frequency was readvertised and given to XFM.

Not the first cost cutting they've done, Kiss lost it's local versions a few years ago.

Their big issue at the moment is what they do with their new purchase, Absolute. It has some overlaps with Kerrang and Planet Rock and the decades based stations have some useful DAB slots.

Ah, now what happened there was when the IBA decided to launch two more stations in 1990 (because there
were a huge number of applicants for the 102.2 license, that went to Jazz FM) they found two 'spare' frequencies for London. 100.0 which was allocated as a possible future frequency for what became Classic FM from the Guildford relay and 104.9 which was allocated as a possible frequency for BBC Berkshire from High Wycombe.

Kiss ended up on 100.0, Melody on 104.9. All was fine until 1993, when the BBC opened a relay near Chichester
for Radio Sussex, on 104.8. This caused interference in SW London to Melody, also the BBC planned to move
Radio Leicester from a low power allocation on 95.1, to a high power one on 104.9.

The then RA, re allocated Melody to 105.4, and re-advertised 104.9 as a 'restricted coverage' London licence.
XFM won, and launched on Sept 1 1997 (the day after Diana was killed)

In the end, Radio Berkshire was never launched from the High Wycombe relay (HW is in Bucks anyway!) eventually BBC 3CR pitched up from there during the 00s on 98.0.

Sad to see the station go off satellite but that's a bit of a dig at satellite that's not deserved. What Caroline found was that it's not possible to build a listenership without a EPG listing, But EPG listing cost money. SKY have no real interest in Radio and couldn't care less if stations can't be tuned in on other channels. There were a lot more TV stations as well but the free Market weeds out the weak.

Satellite Radio was never the top digital choice in this part of the world but it's certainly not old tech. The bigger stations will continue to use it for years to come. It's the small stations on with few or no listeners that will go onto the web. The web wasn't able to really provide that service 15 years ago, it can now.

Exactly - even the smallest stations such as BRYL Radio can thrive on the web. I doubt Barry Robinson could do it any other way.

I hate stations that have the streams embedded on the site and play automatically.

Who's Barry anyway?

He's an ex-Yorkshire Coast Radio presenter.