Smooth Radio’s North West breakfast show with Darren Parks was replaced by Gary King in London for a few hours on Friday morning.
A technical issue in Manchester meant the Communicorp station continued to take London output from Global beyond the usual 6am opt-out.
Other FM Smooth stations, in the East Midlands, West Midlands, North East, Lake District and Glasgow, were unaffected.
Listeners in the North West heard London news, weather, travel and conversation for the first half of the breakfast show.
A Smooth Radio spokesperson told RadioToday: โThere was a technical issue in Manchester this morning, which is still being investigated, but all services were back to normal by 8.30am.โ
Darren Parks thanked Smooth London for keeping the ship afloat when he reappeared saying it was nice to be back on.
Smooth Radio did plan to network its breakfast show following the syndication of Capital and Heart Breakfast but changed direction to announce the networking of Drive instead, which starts in September with Angie Greaves.
It’s not the end of the world is it?
The way things are going with Global, by the time the end of the world comes and we’re all sitting up in some lobby in heaven waiting for Gods judgement, Heart FM will be playing over the PA. ;o)
It’s Global’s world, we’re just suffering in it.
Not sure if in Heaven Smooth is on FM, DAB or Medium Wave. ? or it could be โฅ Heart.
I’m surprised anyone noticed.
I’m surprised anyone noticed the difference! I bet the script would have been similar anyway with a few local bits inserted into the conversation at breakfast. The music is likely to have the same running order in Manchester and London. The news is mainly national stories anyway, and the travel news is hardly comprehensive. I don’t think the listeners in Manchester would have missed very much.
… and no bugger noticed.