The line-ups have been confirmed for Global’s newest stations – Heart North Lancashire & Cumbria, and Smooth Lake District – which launched today.
Heart’s logo includes the new frequency block of 96-104, representing the 96.9, 102.3 and 103.2 FM frequencies, whilst Smooth uses 100-102 to reflect 100.1, 100.8 and 101.4.
Heart has taken over from The Bay and will feature Danny Matthews remaining on Breakfast, Chris Kirk on Drive (and Saturday Breakfast) and Alex Cribb on Sunday at 12pm.
Smooth is the new name for Lakeland Radio and has John Pye on Breakfast, Tim Littlechild on the Smooth Drive Home and Paul Jordan will host his own weekend show from 2-6pm every Saturday and Sunday.
The rest of the time both Heart and Smooth will take programmes from London. A number of presenters have left the station as a result of the takeover and rebrand.
Ashley Tabor OBE, Founder & Executive President of Global, said: “We’re excited to welcome new listeners from across the North West to Heart and Smooth. From today we’ll be bringing the best music, news and entertainment to the area, continuing our strategy of national brands delivered locally and building on the fantastic local stations that we’ve been lucky enough to recently inherit.”
…. “a number of presenters have left the station as a result of the takeover and rebrand”
Meanwhile….. the ‘so-called’ academies continue to entice new ‘talent’ to train to work in radio..
WHAT is the point?
It’s only BBC radio that gives ‘jobs for life’…. ( as long as you have a sharp agent of course)
What? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Meanwhile local radio becomes even less local.
What a bunch
Len hits the nail on the head.
I hope the new presenters don’t get to comfortable as they’ll be gone within two years. No surprise then for networking. Get ready for Toby Anstis on heart mid mornings, Rochelle, Stephen, the Vodafone Big Top 40 etc, at weekends. Same same old….rubbish from Global, the money pinching company.
I hope the new presenters don’t get to comfortable as they’ll be gone within two years. No surprise then for networking. Get ready for Toby Anstis on heart mid mornings, Rochelle, Stephen, the Vodafone Big Top 40 etc, at weekends. Same old same old….rubbish from Global, the money pinching company.
I agree
Same old same old! How can Ofcom call itself a regulator and continue to sit on it’s fat backside while this total wipe out continues?! Too busy looking into one person’s complaint about there not being 16 hours of speech on a small outfit like Beyond Radio while Global et all rumble on regardless. Another headline today about record revenue for commercial radio proves that the Big Boys never ending excuse about having to swallow small stations up as there is no advertising money around and they would otherwise go to the wall is looking more and more like being total utter rubbish!!
Global should now sell Heart 106.2 to UKRD – they could move all Heart networking to Birmingham, the original Heart station.
Maybe it could become Mix 106.2 London, and have Wes Stakes and Nia Visser on Breakfast, replacing Jamie and Emma, Matt Wilkinson 10am-2pm, and drivetime 2pm-7pm with John Isherwood (currently on 96.9 Viking FM and 102.4 Wish FM), and then evenings 7-10pm with Sian Welby?
Or perhaps sell it off to The Wireless Group, and just relay 102.4 WISH FM on the transmitters under deregulation? Chris Milow would probably go down better than Jamie and Emma, and Tony Horne instead of Toby Anstis, plus Mark Kaye on drive instead of JK and Lucy!!
We’d like a pint of what you’ve had!
this could be good for an article on hypothetical.
Smooth Radio Gloucester Has Not Got A Local Drive Time Show At All From 4Pm Till 7Pm It Is Just London Smooth Drive Time Show With Tina Hobley It Would Be So Much Better If Smooth Gloucester Had An Local Smooth Drive Home Show In Weekdays With Andy Henly And Have A Local Breakfast Show On Smooth Gloucester From 6Am Till Ten Am With Jason Harrold That Would Be Good Why Should Smooth Lakedistrick Have Their Own Breakfast Show And Drive Time Show And Saturday And Sunday Afternoon Show And Smooth Gloucester Has To Take Smooth London Network Show Not Good At All Global You Should Make Smooth Lakedristrick To Stay Link Up To Smooth London Breakfast Show And Smooth Drive With Tina Hobley Just Like Smooth Gloucester Has Too
Don’t worry David the tea time show will probably be networked in a few months
It’s such a shame that Global have take over our local radio stations. The Bay was a really important part of our city and smiley Darren Milby was a great asset to their afternoon broadcasts… and what about Cookie! He’s been a familiar voice over the air waves for years and years round here.
The Bay would have turned 25 this year too. 🙁
Goodbye 96.9 FM, I’m changing frequency to find something with a little less Heart and a bit more soul.
Try Smooth – they play soul!
Despite replacing the Bay with Heart, they have truly ripped the heart out of local radio. The two programmes they have left have been given a heartless play list and lost all their local features (cool school , my kindatown etc) support for the community (Bay action) also gone.
Dear local businesses, don’t waste your precious advertising cash on 96.9 as noone will be listening.
CandoFM anyone 106.3 ???
I Agree The Bay was ok compared to Heart which is souless , where is Cookie he had a lovely warm presence on the radio bring him back says I
As those who post here note there is often complete disinterest towards radio ‘news’ and they get zero responses (unlike this one), so it’s interesting that Roy of Radio Today has now written:
“Whilst you can expect the usual amount of “It’s a shame the stations are losing their local names and mostly local programmes” (hell, even I love the good old days!), it still shocks me the number of people who will personally insult the people behind the decisions, and call groups like Global all the names under the sun for making progress”
“Progress” ? For who, the station or the listeners?
And I’m not sure why he is ‘shocked’ given that the above responses are very typical, nothing new, because there has been nothing new from the huge major radio groups for many years. Their unimaginative, heavily-formatted ‘one size fits all’ stations full of carefully photographed ‘presenters’ is the equivalent of a loaf of sliced white bread – nothing ‘wrong’ with them, but nothing to get excited about when they take over yet another station and lose the local roots and most of the local team….
Does ‘Radio Today’ really expect anyone who contributes to these very specialist forums to be excited, or make positive comments about an industry full of white sliced loaves?
Discouraging comments from fervent radio lovers is not the way to go Roy….
Thanks for your positive comment!
The best entertainment radios in London is now provided bythe Free Radio ‘community’ stations at no cost, or endless nauseating commercial advertising. These Free Radio community stations are actually run and presented by folk from their local communities, and so truly interact and understand their local people and culture. The presenters always come directly from those local communities, and new presenters are always invited to do ‘slots’ to see if they have the right ‘vibes’. The commercial stations are now boring and totally irrelevant to the London listener scene, and serve no purpose for London’s communities. BBC radio is regarded as excellent for news, info and sport, but for London’s communities, Free Radio community stations now have no serious rivals when it comes to local entertainment and the vital ‘vibes’. David
I used to love listening to the ‘Bay’..I live in Ulverston, Cumbria and it was a great local station…I miss the great presenters and their individual styles, glad Danny is still there….but Heart is rubbish …and I,’ve turned off….now looking for an alternative