Matt said at December 27th, 2008 at 1:36pm

I think it’ll be interesting to see the RAJAR figures in six months. Also the Heartification process is in three stages, I think. It’s the East stations going first on Jan 5th.

Briantist said at December 27th, 2008 at 5:44pm

James,

I can only assume that Ofcom approve the change of formats at some point, I must have missed that?

Is this a national radio station by stealth or just a rebranding of many local names to “cut costs”?

Mike said at December 27th, 2008 at 6:31pm

It’s not “tens of millions” of people’s radio stations just yet: the former Chiltern group, Broadland, Hereward and SGR are changing names immediately (Jan 5th). The other stations – Invicta and Southern, down to Gemini and Plymouth Sound, and up to Marcher country – change in TV region stages over the next few months, I believe. So, if it does cause a massive outcry and drop in figures, they will be able to scale back what they are doing, I guess.

Rich said at December 27th, 2008 at 6:34pm

The thing I liked about the Absolute change is that the listeners seemed to be central to what was going on. So, they felt not only involved but also fully aware of what was going on. As Matt says it will be interesting to compare RAJARs between Absolute – where the listeners were told there was a new name and why – and the new Hearts, were listeners haven’t been. It almost seems like a ‘day one’ approach, where everything that went before was crap (ergo the listeners were stupid for putting up with it) rather than the ‘all things change’ approach taken by Absolute that said Virgin was rather cool but Absolute will be cooler

Matt said at December 27th, 2008 at 7:17pm

@briantist

The heritage ILR formats are pretty broad – you can squeeze Heart into it without too much trouble.

James Cridland said at December 27th, 2008 at 11:10pm

@mike… cheers for that correction.

So, the listeners who’re losing their favourite station on January 5th are…

Radio Broadland: 170,000 weekly reach
SGR Ipswich: 135,000
SGR Colchester: 182,000
Hereward: 189,000
Chiltern Bedford: 104,000
Chiltern Dunstable: 174,000

… just 954,000 people.

@rich: “everything that went before was crap (ergo the listeners were stupid for putting up with it)” – brilliant summation! :)

Briantist said at December 28th, 2008 at 8:57am

@James Cridland: If we are going to be picky, I can’t see an actual link between “weekly reach” and “favourite station”.

The “reach” is people listening for 15 minutes at some point, whereas to count as “favourite” you would have to listen to the station more than any other?

martin said at December 28th, 2008 at 10:45am

I have a few friends who were caught out by XFM Scotland changing into Galaxy – apparently the week before the change was full of plugs for XFM on DAB, but no mention that their station was about to turn into a dance station again.

Adam Bowie said at December 28th, 2008 at 5:03pm

Whether these people consider their local Broadland/SGR/etc. their favourite station or not is really beside the point. They are currently listeners – indeed they’re the only listeners the station has.

After January, the new “Heart” services have to hope they remain listeners. In any business it’s probably sensible to look after your current customers before you go chasing new ones.

PS. If we’re getting really picky about station reaches and favourites, you can’t really sum all the reaches to come to a total of 954,000. There’s likely to be some overlap between these services, so the number will be a little lower. Nonetheless, that’s still a sizeable percentage of the population as a whole, and a very sizeable percentage of the TSAs of the stations concerned.

Helen Blaby said at December 29th, 2008 at 7:07am

heartiscoming to Northants on 5th as well

Michael Wincott said at December 29th, 2008 at 12:24pm

If a local newspaper changes its name from the Anytown Herald to the Daily Press – I’d guess the majority of people will still buy their local paper. Especially if the highest profile writers are still on the paper, and the new columnists are competent and/or known-names. Plus, the paper is available in exactly the same places it was before.

Their local radio station will have the same breakfast show and the same drivetime show as before. The music may be tweaked a bit, but I’m guessing the change won’t be very dramatic in a lot of cases. Haven’t they been phasing in the new music policy anyway?

I know there’s a big shift from local presenters to networked presenters – but will the average listener know that or indeed care?

Angus said at January 1st, 2009 at 9:30pm

People outside the industry that just listen to radio tell me that they listen to their local station for local stuff – like the place references and local news.

I was in Bucks & Herts today listening to what remains of Chiltern FM – the RDS name only I’m afraid. I was subjected to “heart is coming” all the time, nothing local whatsoever. What’s the point ? My friend said if he’d wanted to listen to heart he could do via his Sky TV box anyway – but he didn’t want to as he was well aware of Heart 106.2 in London.

Chiltern’s been around since the early 80s – Global’s bulldozers have now trashed all that heritage and for what ? Saving a little cost to network more I guess. I can’t wait for the audience figures.

Ofcom shouldn’t be allowing this UK-isation of local radio. These licences were handed out as local licences on what’s still limited a scarce resource – FM. The licence owner should be forced to provide a local service. The public deserves something local in return, not just a remote Toby Anstis thrust on us by desperate cost-cutters.

If BBC local radio manages to shake off its worthy and old image, this is a big opportunity for those stations.

Stuart James said at January 3rd, 2009 at 4:40pm

I used to work as a presenter on Radio Orwell/Saxon Radio prior to SGR, from October 1983-October 84 and I could see the way the industry wanted to go then. With the end of the IBA, the Radio Authority started the process of destroying LOCAL RADIO as we all knew it, purely for the pursuit of profit and to hell with the audience. As for OffCom, what your getting now is because of this excuse of a so call regulator. (well done Tony and Gordon another winner.) The labour party never did want commercial radio did they “Caroline”

I jumped ship and headed overseas with BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) which was great for about five years, then BFBS along with Capital Radio became on of the first to embraced “SELECTOR” music scheduling by computer. This introduction was a disaster for the audience and signaled the end for creative and passionate music presenters like myself.

I struggled on for some years after the introduction of Selector hoping the industry would see the error of it’s ways. As we all know to our cost it did not, and is now controlled totally buy bean counters and suits obsessed by focus groups, consultants and takeovers.

I left full time radio in 1997 but was persuaded back to the business by an old friend who was Programme Controller at Sovereign Radio in Eastbourne, there I was given the freedom to produce my own show again, I thought I was back in heaven. Unfortunately this independent station sold out to one of the big groups. Within a month a tight format lead radio with Selector at it’s heart was introduced and enforced with an iron fist. I left and have not heard any music station worth listening to since.

Only Radio 2 is worth a short listen, even with it’s much larger data based “Selector” it becomes repetitive within a week.

So I’m not surprised all the once loved LOCAL RADIO STATIONS are becoming Regional. They have lost so much audience share since the introduction of computerised music scheduling that it was inevitable that they would have to become more than a LOCAL service. I’m sure they will finally become National Stations with lip service paid to local opt outs which will satisfy this appalling regulator called OffCom.

The only hope we have is that all existing radio stations become part of the digital platform that is now available, and that the FM/AM network would be handed over to Broadcasters that would re-instate LOCAL Radio as we knew and loved.

Stuart James

donna said at January 14th, 2009 at 10:50pm

The way foward will be community radio stations, like 10radio.org they have a funny show called the burnt welly show, on friday evenings and i also listen to johnny robinson on swindon1055.com, both shows make me laugh and remind me of when local radio was local and not national, which one day all companys like gcap will make their stations national.

thats why i support community radio as they do shows which are fun and entertaining.

xxxx
Donna