[London Lite]

Bauer less so, they have a much wider, more disperate range of brands. They're all quality products but it doesn't feel like there's much cohesion or strategy. This might change when they bring all their stations under a single app soon

Rayo once it fully integrates the different platforms and Premium which can only be heard on the station apps currently should hopefully bring them more on a level with Global Player, which is easily the best commercial radio streaming app on the market currently.

Global Player is basically trying to emulate BBC Sounds down to the catch-up of radio shows and podcasts

[DeMarkay]

Whilst they both have the live radio, catch-up and rewind features, Global Player has more users than BBC Sounds and has a central video hub for all of its brands.

[Orry Verducci]

What next? "Well advertisers are telling us people dont even want music anymore, just ads!" If you gut something people liked and replace it with something inferior of course they're going to stop listening. It's self inflicted and now it's happening to TV.

Is it inferior though?

Generally speaking I find the quasi-national stations to be much better executed products than the local stations they replaced. Instead of having a station with ok presenters and production we now have stations with excellent presenters and very slick production standards.

I find most people don't care if it's not local. They just want to hear a station that sounds good and plays music they like. As evidenced by the many people who listen to BBC national radio, or the stations we now have on the national DAB muxes.

To Global's credit they're also very good at making the stations appear local when they technically aren't. My local Heart station seemlessly weaves in "across Cambridgeshire" branding between the songs, and broadcasts news and travel bulletins bulletins dedicated to Cambridge. When done well like that most listeners can't tell the difference, or care that actually it's being broadcast from London/Milton Keynes.

[Kim Wexler’s Ponytail]

So let me get this right. You’re saying that people in Leicester would listen in greater numbers than now if they still had Leicester Sound, someone reading the local news and traffic from Leicester rather than London.

No, but i'm not sure the mass exodus from radio can be entirely attributed to spotify and podcasts.

[London Lite]

To Global's credit they're also very good at making the stations appear local when they technically aren't. My local Heart station seemlessly weaves in "across Cambridgeshire" branding between the songs, and broadcasts news and travel bulletins bulletins dedicated to Cambridge. When done well like that most listeners can't tell the difference, or care that actually it's being broadcast from London/Milton Keynes.

Global have also used the split link technology well during instances of severe weather. Each presenter in one of the studios at Leicester Square has the ability to either go live or pre-record a link to any of the local versions of Heart, so for example on Heart Essex, there could be an incident in Colchester that only goes out on 96.1 while the opts for Southend/Chelmsford and Harlow continue to play out the networked or regional content from Milton Keynes.

I'm sure Bauer do this with GHR on the regional afternoon shows where they can insert a link for Surrey on 96.4 and another for Salisbury on 102.0 from the Segensworth studio shared with Wave 105.

Bauer have regional hubs in Segensworth, Leeds, Norwich, Birmingham and Bristol for GHR with two local afternoon shows from Carlisle and Lincoln and GHR Scotland is based in Clydebank with Clyde 1.

[lookoutwales]

There are occasions within both the Global and Bauer networks when stations will opt out entirely and do an extra local show - usually if it's justifiable editorially.

Capital in South Wales (granted, a Communicorp franchise) usually does a four-hour OB on Wales rugby matchdays, live from a pub in Cardiff city centre - one thing that marks them out a little from the rest of the network is a stronger focus on sport.

Some of Bauer's local stations make a habit of it - Hits Radio Manchester recently opted out for seven hours on FA Cup Final day (and opted out again for the Champions League final a week later)

[AndrewP]

Is it inferior though?

Generally speaking I find the quasi-national stations to be much better executed products than the local stations they replaced. Instead of having a station with ok presenters and production we now have stations with excellent presenters and very slick production standards.

I find most people don't care if it's not local. They just want to hear a station that sounds good and plays music they like. As evidenced by the many people who listen to BBC national radio, or the stations we now have on the national DAB muxes.

To Global's credit they're also very good at making the stations appear local when they technically aren't. My local Heart station seemlessly weaves in "across Cambridgeshire" branding between the songs, and broadcasts news and travel bulletins bulletins dedicated to Cambridge. When done well like that most listeners can't tell the difference, or care that actually it's being broadcast from London/Milton Keynes.

When Magic 105.4 launched nationwide, they used to have separate jingles for the London feed and national feed.

The London feed would have the full name sung, whilst the national feed would have the jingle without singing in place of it. I believe they got rid of that when they launched the current "More of the songs you love, 70s/80s/90s" theme

At least in 2019, between songs on FM sometimes the 'mystery voice' would say "Magic 105.4" or "London's Magic 105.4". On the times I managed to switch to DAB on time, in these places the voice would just say "Magic"

Side note -- does anyone know whose voice it was, she was on Smooth too and a few other stations...

On her links, Angie Greaves used to say "This is London's Magic 105.4, with....".
She even called it this on her final link.
I personally stopped listening to the station when she left, the station just felt incredibly artificial...

[LargelyALurker]

No, but i'm not sure the mass exodus from radio can be entirely attributed to spotify and podcasts.

Has there been a ‘mass exodus from radio’? I don’t believe that’s the case at all - latest stats suggest all radio has a reach of 88%, with the average UK adult listening to 18 hours of radio per week. 

www.rajar.co.uk 

[Adsales]

Has there been a ‘mass exodus from radio’? I don’t believe that’s the case at all - latest stats suggest all radio has a reach of 88%, with the average UK adult listening to 18 hours of radio per week. 

www.rajar.co.uk 

There most definitely has been a mass exodus, especially in the age group most relevant to advertisers. Radio vs streaming has in fact completely flipped between 2017 and 2022. The numbers will be even worse in this year’s report.

Pages 92-93
www.ofcom.org.uk 

These numbers are very much the same in all western countries, regardless of whether “true local” radio still exists or a Global/Bauer model has been introduced.

There are companies that recognised this threat/trend early on (for example Global, in parts iHeart and Bauer) whereas others are desperately trying to catch up (for example Audacy and in parts Bauer and RTL).

Advertisers expect to book spots cross-platform and target specific. That’s the reason why remaining semi-local stations like KMFM for example have their airtime sold by big competitors (in this case Bauer). The ads make it to KMFM because they’re bought across the Bauer network, per brand and across Rayo.

The more reach across all your platforms you can evidence, the easier it is to sell airtime. That’s why every stream and every podcast Global adds to Global Player makes sense from a business perspective even if it just adds a couple thousand of extra listeners. As long as costs don’t outweigh the benefits of course.

Same applies to why Global are effectively copying Spotify and Apple Music by offering dozens of playlists. Research has shown that while many have switched to streaming, most use is through curated playlists rather than people creating their own. Even when they make their own playlists, curated playlist use comes out top in many situations (car, parties, BBQs etc.).

[Adsales]

No, but i'm not sure the mass exodus from radio can be entirely attributed to spotify and podcasts.

Of course it can. It's the same across TV and it's happening in all comparable countries. We are inherently lazy and crave convenience. Why would we plan our day around the times a show is on TV? Why would we put up with three songs we don't like to hear one we do? 

On top of that, technology has made the previous USPs of local news on radio obsolete. 

Ask any parent in their thirties if they'd ever considered listening to the radio to find out if the kids' school is closed due to snow. Of course they haven't. Schools send e-mails and texts with one mouse click. Ask anyone random person in the car park of a motorway service station if they pay attention to traffic bulletins. Of course they don't in the majority because their Google Maps, Apple Maps or Tom Tom have live traffic conditions that no radio traffic service can compete with. Not only that, they also automatically show the best option to re-route.

Severe weather? The Met Office app, AccuWeather or even the iPhone weather app are your friend. The instant a warning is issued it pops up on your phone. Do you want it more fancy? Alexa reads out the warning for you within in minutes of it being issued.

Do you want know about your commute before you leave? Ask Alexa or set her up to automatically give you a traffic update while you're getting ready. No Alexa? No problem... your smartphone learns when you usually get into your car and will have a pop up notification if traffic is worse than normal.