The new name for Virgin Radio is absolutely fab
Posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 7:56pm. #
Virgin Radio’s new name, Absolute Radio, might be seen by some people as a little, um, obvious. Absolute Radio was the name of the company that bid for Virgin Radio in the first place. So, after all the hoopla and suspense over the last few months, is Absolute the right name?
Let’s rewind a little. At the time of writing (8.00pm), there’s no announcement on the Virgin Radio website. There’s nothing on the onegoldensquare staff blog. They’re treating their VIPs as just that - VIPs. So, possibly uniquely in radio… the listeners got to find out before anyone else outside the station did. Above is how I found out. (Well, okay, after a telephone call or two, and a broken embargo on Marketing Week, the rotters). [Later: the announcement is now live on Virgin Radio's site].
So, why do I think the new name is actually really rather special?
It’s got a number of interesting points. Absolute Classic Rock, the classic rock station on DAB and Sky that the company also runs (I can reveal - I think exclusively - that’ll be its new name), is a statement of intent. It plays absolute classic rock. It works on an obvious level.
But what makes the Absolute brand a special one? Surely you can name any old radio station anything you like these days? So why is Absolute a good brand for a multi-platform radio station?
The answer, my friend, is written in the EPG. The electronic programme guide. Radio’s future isn’t 105.8FM. And it’s certainly not 1215AM. The future’s digital. And digital gives us no numbers… just names. My new Pure Evoke Flow, just like almost every DAB Digital Radio built these days, sorts its stations in alphabetical order. 
In London, the first set of stations on your dial are the BBC stations. From October, no longer - Absolute Radio will be number one. In fact, given that only two stations are “higher” in the alphabet in the UK, and both aren’t on any new platforms, Absolute Radio is guaranteed to be number one on anyone’s radio. Or any internet listing. Or any website.
They’re still committed to DAB - I can possibly also exclusively reveal that they’re concentrating on promoting the in-car element of DAB, giving away around a thousand Pure Highway in-car DAB receivers between now and Christmas. It’s surprising how few people realise that DAB is available in the car as well as in home; this will go a long way towards shattering that misconception. Hopefully, the rest of the radio industry will sing off the same hymn-sheet, just like BBC Radio 5 live has been doing for a while.
And Absolute Radio are also committed to cross-promoting their additional services (available on DAB in London). Oddly, they plan to simulcast the Christian O’Connell breakfast show, and the new drive show with Geoff Lloyd, on all three - and, at the broadcast junctions, heavily promote the choice of listening on each station.
Absolute is unlike other Virgin refugees, who’ve gone with unpronounceable and unspellable names when they jumped away from the Virgin brand. Absolute is easy to spell, easy to remember, and absolutely easy to include in crap puns. And that’s particularly useful for website addresses. Compare, if you will, with GWR plc’s mindnumbing decision to go, five years ago, with “koko.com” as their local radio station website addresses - a worse website address for radio it would have been hard to find, given every mention of it had to be accompanied by how to spell the damn thing.
They’ve done this properly. They own www.absolute.co.uk as well as all the variants. They’ve already thought about additional opportunities. And they’re not shy of the fact… on the ‘questions and answers’ page of the website, they write: “Why are you changing the name?” The old one wasn’t ours, it was lent to us. That means we could not do all the other things we wanted to do, in spinning off the radio station into other areas which we feel you wanted. A beautifully clear way of explaining what I had to in a much quicker way.
Life will be rocky with a brand new name. The station’s web traffic will significantly suffer (and with it, their revenue). Their RAJAR listening figures, based as they are on the antiquated system of writing in a paper diary what you listen to, will undoubtedly dip alarmingly before recovering. Worse, it’s possible that Virgin Enterprises will perform the morally bankrupt exercise of relicensing the name to one of the company’s competitors - though I doubt Virgin Enterprises would be so damn stupid or ignorant.
Absolute’s launch treasure-chest of many millions of pounds does mean they stand a good chance to produce a brand new radio brand: something the station has promised will be “the largest multi-platform marketing campaign in commercial radio history”. And a success for Absolute will be a success for the medium as a whole. So I wish them all the luck.
And to those in the digital media team - your friend is the search and replace function.
Rob Lawrence said at September 1st, 2008 at 8:27pm 
Phil Heywood said at September 1st, 2008 at 8:46pm 
Bingethink said at September 2nd, 2008 at 12:20am 
Russell Chant said at September 2nd, 2008 at 10:46am 
RossOz said at September 2nd, 2008 at 12:26pm 
Tim Abbott said at September 2nd, 2008 at 3:23pm 
Phill Clark said at September 3rd, 2008 at 1:10pm 
Elle said at September 6th, 2008 at 12:41am 
