Global Radio axes all regional/local breakfast shows

I thought Breakfast was the higest rating time of the day for radio? So how have regional drivetime shows survived but not breakfast when the later would presumably bring in better ad revenues.

Unfortunately I think this is inevitable. Brands like Heart, Smooth and Capital are successful and popular, despite radio enthusiasts disliking them, and sadly I don't think listeners have really complained too much about the erosion of local/regional programming from them.

It makes sense for them to ultimately become national services with networked breakfast and drivetime which can be marketed more effectively, especially when we (eventually) switchover to DAB where there are currently multiple variations of the same station (I wonder how many settle for the first Capital they come across? At one point I could get Cymru, Liverpool, Manchester, North West, North Wales and UK variations)

Breakfast might be more expensive to produce, so the overall profit margin is worse.

I've lost track, presumably there still has to be some local output, so they've opted to retain drivetime ?

I dare say the days of "true" local radio as depicted on this website for the former BRMB in Birmingham are all long gone:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180706010815/http://www.mds975.co.uk/Content/brmb02.html

These days of course the only sign of anything "local" about independent commercial radio is news at the top of the hour, the adverts, inane banter and references to "slow moving traffic through the roadworks at M5 Junction 1". Beyond that all the stations are the same really, playing endless music with the odd phone in competition.

Practically easier and cheaper to get people to work at 4pm than 6am, plus the London breakfast shows are very much the flagship.


Don't blame Global though - this is a destruction of the local media industry enabled by the regulator.

Over 10 years ago, the UK radio industry was really on its knees. At one point, the Digital One DAB multiplex was left with the three INR licences and Planet Rock, which was at threat of closure. So started the first step of consolidation when Global Radio acquired GCap Media (the former Capital and GWR businesses) and the heritage stations were the first to go to be rebranded. Later GMG's radio division was acquired by Global giving them Smooth Radio as the final piece in the jigsaw of Global's ambition to be a commercial BBC by providing a broad range of brands across all working ages.

So we're now at the next stage of the consolidation of radio stations where they're (finally) able to network the prime breakfast shows across the country, as long as they can network within approved areas. Bauer (who aren't seen as evil by anoraks) already do this with their Greatest Hits Radio network, a group of heritage AM stations in the north of England and on FM in the Midlands and Liverpool. Bauer get round the three hour local rule on FM by networking their breakfast show from Liverpool and provide a separate drive programme from Birmingham.

For the average listener, the budget goes up for the London based breakfast shows as they no longer have to pay for local presenters, producers etc.

In any case, even those who claim to be fully local, such as the UKRD Group have the same playlists, so if you're listening to Minster FM or Eagle Radio, the music is exactly the same, with the speech content being local.

Which, by the way Global wants to count as 'local content'.

Commercial radio started to wither, the day the IBA ended, and a lighter touch regulation started with the Radio Aulthority.

Plus, when stations started to have more accountants than programmers..

The argument that 'listeners don't care where the DJ is, as long as they play their favorite music' only holds out for so long.

Wait until Jamie Theakston on Heart network breakfast gives away £25,000 in 'The hot hits, feel good triple birthday missing lyric bong game', and where before on a locally produced/presented breakfast, the winner was wholly from within the station TSA. Soon, you'll have winners from all over the country. Then it may kick off.

Those type of competitions already happen on Bauer's stations, of which some are still locally branded with the winner coming from another part of the country.

It'll come down to this, if listeners really want big money comps and long music sweeps, they'll listen to the quasi-national commercial stations or if they want local, they'll listen to the Beeb in England or community radio.

Alright it was a tenuous link to try and make it TV Forum friendly, I cannot lie.

However it's not completely unrelated and we are seeing the same sort of consolidation in radio that we have in commercial television.

The speech content makes all the difference though, and radio was an accessible way into the industry for people outside the big cities.

Theres been no glooming closures of "local" stations under current arrangements - OFCOM aren't saving local radio by doing this, just lining the pocket of Global as they axe hundreds of jobs across the country.

I do think they were right to allow networked flagship breakfast shows, but it should have been a trade for the morning or afternoon show.

This feels like though OFCOM have pushed the industry into this situation whilst with ITV it was almost more reactionary.

With ITV, we've seen an increase in regional output since the first set of consolidation with the reintroduction of full sub-opt bulletins for the likes of Anglia, Meridian (+10 mins for Thames Valley), Central, Yorkshire etc as well as non-news quotas for Wales and UTV, alongside some extra programming for Border's Scottish opt.

The difference is that viewers still expect some form of regional news content, while on a typical Global station, a 'local' story will be something tacked onto the end of a 60 second bulletin from an approved area stretching from Penzance to Gloucester. But I really don't think a typical Heart FM listener is that interested in local news unless during an emergency, for the rest there's the BBC.