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Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

The majority of its acquisitions last year (May 2020)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
BB
BBI45
W1LL posted:
Any news on what will happen to the existing AM GHR stations?

Where I am we currently have 'Greatest Hits Radio East Yorkshire & North Lincolnshire' on AM, but the FM versions will be different versions for Grimsby and Hull, which are both in the existing AM area. Will they just keep the AM version how it is (completely national except for adverts and news), and separate from the FM version?

This situation is made even messier by the fact GHR Hull (KCFM) will have its own separate drive-time programme, meaning at drive-time GHR Hull, GHR Grimsby and the GHR East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire will all be airing completely different programmes.

AIUI, unless a merger has been mentioned in the list I shared above, then stations are separate. However, the information has come from RadioToday, so if they've made an error in interpreting the info, then I'll have missed it too.
BB
BBI45
Social media accounts are now being updated with new names. And the Greatest Hits Radio website now includes the new stations (with their new names).

EDIT: And the RDS (for Peak FM at least) has been replaced by Grt Hits.
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Last edited by BBI45 on 27 August 2020 2:44pm
JO
Josh
My local station is yet to rebrand it's Twitter it seems and I imagine others are getting to that stage too.
PA
Parker
I always wondered who Casey was and what relevance she or he had to Hull Wink
JO
Joe
Do they not employ women then?
JA
JAS84
Parker posted:
I always wondered who Casey was and what relevance she or he had to Hull Wink

Anyone from Hull would know exactly why the station was called KCFM. Kingston Communications.
IS
Inspector Sands
Had a quick look at some of the renamed Twitter accounts. Seems that Signal 107 has been renamed Greatest Hits Radio West Midlands, so I wonder if that's going to be combined with the existing GHR for the West Midlands?
NW
nwtv2003
Wire FM’s Twitter has changed to Greatest Hits Liverpool and North West very recently, but it hasn’t been updated since the first week of July.

Whilst it was clear that they were becoming Greatest Hits Radio, what I didn’t know this week is that Wire FM has effectively been merged with what was Radio City 2/GHR Liverpool. That explaining why Wire FM had a jingle bragging that they were for Liverpool and the North West, despite Wire being Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn only.
NL
Ne1L C
As someone who has been involved in community radio I find it very sad that some of the nation's best known radio stations have been swallowed by GHR. Now don't get me wrong I listen to GHR and enjoy it. Its just that a local radio station is supposed to reflect its community and if the station is lost/absorbed then the community loses some of its individuality.
JO
Josh
Josh posted:
My local station is yet to rebrand it's Twitter it seems and I imagine others are getting to that stage too.

Update: My station is one of the ones that is being merged to form a larger pan-regional station. My local station's account seems like it will be left inactive and the new GHR account is going to be used.
SP
Spencer
I’ve been told that lot of the existing stations were taken by surprise when the social media accounts changed, and had assumed they wouldn’t switch until next week.

Apparently Minster FM had a Facebook Live video abruptly cut short on Tuesday morning when staff had their admin rights withdrawn from the station’s page.
IS
Inspector Sands
Ne1L C posted:
As someone who has been involved in community radio I find it very sad that some of the nation's best known radio stations have been swallowed by GHR. Now don't get me wrong I listen to GHR and enjoy it. Its just that a local radio station is supposed to reflect its community and if the station is lost/absorbed then the community loses some of its individuality.

I wouldn't say they're some of the nation's best known. They're well known in their localities but not outside.

It is sad but of course it's not just them, most of their rivals became Heart and Capital a few years ago. They're probably lucky they made it this late. Sadly its a sign of the times, most of these stations weren't making money even before Covid. Local stations can't compete with the big slick formatted music stations and online advertising
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 27 August 2020 6:54pm

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