Sky to sponsor Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio

Radio X and Virgin are both in mono too, they need to be in stereo really because they just sound crap. There are two ways to do that: get rid of some of the other stations on those multiplexes or switch them to DAB+.

Most DAB only stations are in mono. LBC in particular is horrendous - all the presenters sound like they have a cold.

I wish we would bite the bullet and switch to DAB+. Even on the local muxes, Bauer are pretty poor when it comes to sound quality compared to Global.

DAB still suffers too many shortcomings, especially in-car where you can get an audible FM signal even in fringe areas of the TSA. With DAB it's all or nothing.

Not necessarily, if the station list is alphabetical then Virgin probably appears next to Absolute in most areas


That won't be anything to do with being mono, it'll be more to do with bitrate/sample rate etc.

Makes sense for LBC to be in mono - the majority of it's output is either one person in a studio talking to people on the phone. You don't need stereo for that

It’s an interesting move but when they eventually reintroduce ads (and it’ll happen in 6 / 12 / 24 months etc) that’ll become really noticeable for any ex-Radio 2 listeners who have migrated over. Whereas if they’re on from the start of the show, you kinda put up/get used to.

It’ll be an uphill struggle to Evans with RAJAR. Radio 2 has a base number of listeners who would’ve kept with it after Wogan regardless of who took over. Same now with Zoe. As pointed out, Virgin has a much more niche playlist. Could a halfway Radio 1 to Radio 2 commercial alertnative have worked better here? Heart but with some personality.

When Virgin re-launched two and a half years ago, it really did position itself as a Radio 1.5 type station with a mixture of both playlists, but that was ditched after a year or so of not working. A few people speculated there may be a shift in playlist again when Evans moves over but as far as I can tell if that is the case they are leaving it late. Fearne Cotton is supposedly on drive so it still may.

Which might explain why she's giving up Celebrity Juice

Part of the problem Virgin Radio has is that people still associate it with being a rock music from the days when the name, in the UK at least, was used for an AOR station

I thought that Virgin Radio might be added to Virgin Media's TV service at some point but with Sky now sponsoring the station's breakfast show they may not be so keen.

I don't think Virgin Radio and Virgin Media TV share much in common other than their name.

OT ...

The Virgin brand is a fluid thing in most cases it's simply licensed and used by other investors and companies for their propositions, usually associated with a minority equity interest. In other cases such as the airline a much higher level of investment is present and the trademark accompanies this interest. It's very much a notional conglomerate.

Virgin Radio in this incarnation was originally one of UTV's digital national brands. By the time it got on-air, with the sale of UTV's television side to ITV, the radio division rebranded to Wireless Group, which in turn was then acquired by News Corp.

Wireless as it's now branded as is now a division of Murdoch's News UK and is in process of moving across to their HQ in London Bridge (home to Ian King Live on Sky News), where Evans's radio show will broadcast from.

When the original Virgin Radio changed its name to Absolute, James Cridland wrote a blog post about the limitations of having the right to use the Virgin brand. They couldn't use the brand name for a spin off TV channel, magazine, or dating service. The cover of a Virgin Radio compilation album wasn't allowed to use the Virgin logo.

And Virgin brands weren't obligated to use other Virgin brands - Sky sponsored the Virgin Radio breakfast show just as Virgin Media was launching, Virgin Trains didn't carry Virgin Radio on their in-seat audio etc.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080604013543/http://james.cridland.net:80/blog/2008/06/01/farewell-virgin-radio/

I have to admit there is something very odd about Murdoch owning Virgin radio with a breakfast show sponsored by Sky.