Another batch of long-standing UK local radio brands will disappear from the airwaves in April - some having been in use since 1974 - as Bauer Media further expands its Hits Radio franchise.
“Today marks a brand-new chapter in the history of these local stations as they become Hits Radio”, says Bauer Media Audio UK CEO Simon Myciunka. “The stations’ transformation into a nationally recognised brand ensures that we will continue to provide our listeners with the content they love, seamlessly blending the best that local and national radio has to offer”.
Commercial radio in the UK originally consisted of a network of independently owned local stations. However, through a long series of mergers and acquisitions, most of those stations ended up being owned by one of a small number of big media companies, including Bauer.
As the big media companies built networks of stations across the country there was an increasing trend for those stations to share programming for portions of the day. Even more so as licensing obligations to air a certain number of locally made shows each day were relaxed. The networks also started employing centrally managed playlists and music policies.
Initially the local brands were maintained, even when they aired lots of programmes made at a central national HQ. It was Bauer’s main competitor Global that first got rid of those local brand names to form a small number of quasi-national networks - such as the Capital, Heart and Smooth networks - arguing that in an increasingly competitive and online marketplace it no longer made sense operating and maintaining so many local brands.
Bauer has followed the same strategy, but has been much slower in phasing out the local brand names. In recent years expanding its Greatest Hits Radio brand has been a priority, and now it’s the Hits Radio brand that is getting a big old extension.
Fifteen local stations will start broadcasting as Hits Radio in April. Those stations are already carrying the same programming for most of the day, so it won’t really affect what listeners hear.
But station names that have been on the airwaves since the 1970s - like Hallam FM in Sheffield, Metro Radio in Newcastle and Radio City in Liverpool - or the 1980s - like Signal Radio in Stoke, Viking FM in Hull and TFM in Teeside - will be no more.
Other affected stations include Gem Radio, Lincs FM, Pulse 1, Rock FM and Wave Swansea, and four Free Radio stations.