Schedule changes at Midwest before rebrand

Yeovil and Shaftesbury station Midwest Radio has changed its breakfast show ahead of an expected rebrand by owners Celador Radio.

Steve Carpenter has recently left the station, with mid-morning presenter Scott Temple taking over the show.

Steve had been with the station for around nine years. In December, Celador bought Midwest after it submitted a rival bid against the group for the neighbouring Bridgwater and West Somerset licence it had previously purchased.

Midwest has retained its name since the takeover but is expected to become The Breeze at some point to match other Celador stations in the South West.

John Baker, managing director of Midwest Radio, told the Western Gazette: “Celador do believe in local radio. We have added a news journalist to our team and have seen no net loss in jobs. We have seen our audience figures grow for eight consecutive quarters and I can’t see anything being done that will damage that. We are staying in Yeovil and the fundamentals of the radio station will remain the same. There will still be all the things people care about with local news and traffic. Some shows may be produced in Bristol or Southampton, for example, but the content is remaining local.”

Regarding Mr Carpenter’s departure, a statement from Midwest read: “Steve has been instrumental in getting the station to where it is now, presenting, controlling the programming output and managing the technical set-up in what at times has been a challenging environment. We understand that Steve will be working on many projects in the future in the fields of radio, IT, and the world of entertainment and we wish him all the best.”