Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

I know it’s radio but seems a big enough development to warrant its own thread.

https://radiotoday.co.uk/2020/05/most-of-acquired-bauer-stations-to-become-greatest-hits-radio/

Not particularly surprising but disappointing to see the loss of yet more local brands.

One oddity I’ve noticed is that in Hull, Greatest Hits already exists on AM but Nation Broadcasting have licensed the use of the name for KCFM on FM. Seems a bit of an odd situation having the same station on AM and FM owned by separate companies, particularly considering the article notes the AM variant will have its own seperate drive time show due the Nation licensing agreement, whilst the Bauer owned stations will have a larger regional drive time programme.

There's also the possibility of 1152 AM being switched off in Manchester as small scale local stations in Wigan, Warrington and Widnes are becoming Greatest Hits Radio.

I wonder how many shows, and hence jobs, have been lost in local radio since the turn of the century. Such a shame that way into broadcasting has largely been lost.

Quite a few I'd say, considering the bulk of what passes for "local" radio these days is networked and its all about doing their best jukebox impressions. The days of "true" local radio are long gone, anything local is a 20 second insert into a national broadcast. Its a shame really, but its obviously far cheaper to play music all day than it would be to write, script and produce something unique.

How depressingly crap.

Oh my god. I was fully expecting there to be more networking, but to completely swing the axe on so many local radio stations is just awful. Given how popular some of the names are, I can't see this move going down well with listeners. I'll give it a chance, but for me, Greatest Hits Radio will never truly replace my local station.

That's a shame. My local station is one of the ones due to rename and I don't think it will be a liked idea in my area as the brand is known for many things. Local radio is one of the things you can always rely on, especially in this day in age.

As BBI45 said, I don't think Greatest Hits Radio will ever truly replace the station.

Bauer also owns another Hull station, Viking FM, so that probably explains that. Viking would have Bauer's programming.

Bauer once again have made some ridiculous decisions. Dump brands like Eagle, Minster and Yorkshire Coast Radio which overplay the local card really well in markets where there isn't much commercial radio competition and introduce a national oldies radio station on them.

Advertisers want to be able to attract either 15-24s or thirty something women, neither of which Greatest Hits Radio as a brand is actively attracting.

They've for some reason decided to keep Pirate FM in Cornwall, Lincs FM and Sam FM in Bristol as stand-alone services, while they introduce Hits networking on others and GHR across the majority of their new stations.

This is no different to what Global has done with their stations, and based on Global's experience the reality is that while listeners might complain at first about loosing the local brands, in the long term they don't care. In fact they've gained listeners. From a TV point of view it's also very similar to what ITV have done, and it's done them no harm.

As long as listeners get a decent radio station that plays songs they like, they'll listen to it. Using national brands usually results in a better product, which is marketed better as they can run bigger ad campaigns (e.g. on regional/national TV), and usually results in a better sounding station even if it is less local. The use of split news and links often results in listeners not realising it's less local.

It's sad we'll lose established brands and that people will lose jobs, but it's a good business decision. The only bit I do find strange is that they've decided to roll out Greatest Hits to most the stations, whereas I would have thought the younger sounding Hits Radio would have been a better choice.

You are making some good points. I do agree that it's a bit strange that they've gone for Greatest Hits, when most of them fit Hits better.