Global Radio axes all regional/local breakfast shows

In short, it allows Quidem's management to make their own profits, without doing any work. Global provides the content and sells the advertising. It's a good way of avoiding ownership dominance issues. Global already operates the model with Communicorp. It's quite commonplace in Europe with brands like NRG. Think of it like McDonalds or Pizza Hut. Chances are your local McDonalds is not owned by the multinational corporation, but is in fact a franchise arrangement with a local owner.

Unlike Bauer who bought a load of stations and are now stuck in a Competition Commission nightmare, a brand agreement will see Global launch their brands a lot more faster as Quidem will still own the licences.

Global had previously done this with Adventure Radio who sold two of their three stations to Communicorp UK, another group who has a long term brand agreement deal with them.

I don't know how "local" the Touch stations have to be but I would expect them to be turned into relays of Capital Birmingham given Heart and Smooth are regional and already cover that area.

There is a chance 102 could become Heart because I’m not sure how well 100.7 gets into Stratford and Evesham. Rugby FM will most likely will most likely have a Heart transplant and Banbury Sound probably Capital as I’m pretty sure the old Fox FM Heart covers that area. 107.3 has almost total overlap with 102 anyway so would make sense for that to become Capital along with Coventry.

It was one of the first groups to rebrand most of its stations to a single name and considerate studios to one location and I believe it’s owed by Steve Orchard who used to run GWR/GCap.

Although of course Global have done the Competition Commission thing already, hence the use of companies like Comminicorp to warehouse their stations in some areas.


Bauers CC situation is much more complicated all these years on because Global have reduced the competition. I wonder if Bauer will do a similar brand licensing scheme for their stations that they can't take over?

Helpful to read this post alongside a map of the coverage areas of the various Quidem stations.

http://www.touchfm.co.uk/images/maps/map.png

I can see the appeal of wanting to licence the Heart, Capital or Smooth brands from Global, but I can’t see anyone jumping at the chance of franchising Bauer’s duff Hits Radio brand. Perhaps if Magic or Kiss were available might be a different story, but they don’t seem to be part of Bauer’s local strategy at the moment.

That said, the issue of Bauer’s takeovers making First Radio Sales unviable is a much bigger problem to which there doesn’t appear to be an easy solution that will satisfy the CMA.

Hmm. Never knew Burton was due north of Lichfield.. 🤔

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the mixture of different fonts ?!

Different fonts for different station branding.

Bit disappointing that Chill was just binned off without a mention on-air, especially if there was a successor. It was my default radio station in the car.

The Quidem stations are all to become Capital.