Global Media have announced today following a meeting this morning they are axing local programming
on Heart, Smooth and Capital. They will be a completely national brand.
radiotoday.co.uk/2025/01/global-introduc...al-shows-in-england/

Sorry to all those who will lose their jobs.

Radio is becoming a medium, it's only popular with an older age group. Local radio has been in demise for a long time. I wonder if community radio has taken over regional stations, to some degree.

Why did commercial local radio work in the 1980's and not now? I remember listening to Chiltern Radio when it opened up in autumn 1981 and soon after got my first ever big radio that enabled me to listen to the new local radio in crisp FM stereo, something I couldn't even do with Radio 1 most of the time in the early 80's. I could even tape the hits off it clearly. It was genuinely local. Winter 81/82 was very severely cold with massive snowfalls before and after Christmas and they had snow lines and all kinds of local community help going out. They even had childrens radio programmes on Chiltern. I'd get in from school and stick my new expanded stereo radio on at 4pm to listen to a show called Kids Stuff for an hour, some from school even phoned in some jokes and got to air. Nice memories of the station.

Then in January 2009 the Heart brand got hold of Chiltern and erased the name to the appalling Heart Dunstable. Yuck! Now they've dumped on any pretence of locality completely and gone just national, having trashed some great local radio stations. I have never listened to anything with the Heart name or Global association and never will. Generic garbage without a heart or soul.

Global is ran by a rich playboy whose very rich daddy bought it for him.

When I worked in Dorset, I used to listen to Wave FM, they played a lot of 80s album tracks. I always loved their in-depth RDS coverage, especially about traffic.

Bauer Media Audio UK has stripped anything decent about local or regional, you only get a quick briefing. Also, GHR seems to play the same stuff over and over like Heart. As my vehicle radio is fairly old, I still get LW, which is interesting in some parts of the South West.

As you can hear a lot of heavy rock from overseas stations or the odd pirate station.