[London Lite]

I'd agree it was unnecessary for Chill to be subsumed into the Smooth brand. Chill has a younger/more contemporary playlist than the main Smooth.

But Radio X Classic Rock is clearly Global just copying the same thing that Absolute (another indie/alternative station) did with Absolute Classic Rock. It's pretty shameless really.

Absolute has never been indie, it's AOR.

[VMPhil]

I'd agree it was unnecessary for Chill to be subsumed into the Smooth brand. Chill has a younger/more contemporary playlist than the main Smooth.

But Radio X Classic Rock is clearly Global just copying the same thing that Absolute (another indie/alternative station) did with Absolute Classic Rock. It's pretty shameless really.

Absolute has never been indie, it's AOR.

It does lean more that way but I would say there is an indie element - they both play the likes of Wet Leg, Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs etc.

[Josh]

But Radio X Classic Rock is clearly Global just copying the same thing that Absolute (another indie/alternative station) did with Absolute Classic Rock. It's pretty shameless really.

In the same way Capital Chill is just a copy of the BBC Radio 1 Relax. Didn't Global have a go at the BBC for copying their Capital Dance station though?

[London Lite]

Absolute has never been indie, it's AOR.

It does lean more that way but I would say there is an indie element - they both play the likes of Wet Leg, Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs etc.

Once they go mainstream yes. When London had two rock stations on FM, it was made clear that both had to be distinctive from each other. Xfm/Radio X was the 'alternative' station for new music, while Virgin/Absolute played contemporary rock.

Global have also wanted to emulate the BBC as much as possible without having to provide the PSB requirements, so you have Capital emulating Radio 1 without the heavy speech elements outside breakfast, Capital Xtra being a copy of 1Xtra, Dance as their BBC Sounds playlist and so on.

Another theory why Global launched Classic Rock is because the Communicorp UK owned rock station XS Manchester a couple of years ago wasn't allowed to flip to become a franchise of Capital Xtra which this format would allow it to change to a Global franchise without going to consultation as long as they keep three hours local with their heavy speech commitments. (Radio X is already on FM in Manchester)

[nwtv2003]

From memory, Ofcom did allow the format change in principle to replace XS with Capital Dance, the issue was they wanted to reduce the amount of speech content dramatically, but this was where Ofcom refused the request. To be honest I’m amazed Communicorp have left XS the way it is for a while now, but I do note they’ve really cut back on the amount of presenters/DJ’s on their schedule.

[thegeek]

Absolutely. Along with Capital Life.

Core. Fresh hits for the UK

They had a feature on their website where you could "request" a song (from their playlist), and it would tell you when they'd play it for you - presumably the time it was due to be played anyway.

Was the music log not generally the same songs at the same time as the GWR FM network?

[Spencer]

Core. Fresh hits for the UK

They had a feature on their website where you could "request" a song (from their playlist), and it would tell you when they'd play it for you - presumably the time it was due to be played anyway.

Was the music log not generally the same songs at the same time as the GWR FM network?

Reminds me of the Music:Fun:Life era of the TLRC stations where on the ‘Workday Text and Request’ you could choose ANY song you wanted (via premium rate text) and it’d get played, but only if it it had already coincidentally been scheduled on the log in advance.

Cue lots of annoyed listeners running up their phone bills trying to request songs that weren’t amongst the 200 or so in rotation, and so would never get played.

[steve]

They had a feature on their website where you could "request" a song (from their playlist), and it would tell you when they'd play it for you - presumably the time it was due to be played anyway.

Was the music log not generally the same songs at the same time as the GWR FM network?

Reminds me of the Music:Fun:Life era of the TLRC stations where on the ‘Workday Text and Request’ you could choose ANY song you wanted (via premium rate text) and it’d get played, but only if it it had already coincidentally been scheduled on the log in advance.

Cue lots of annoyed listeners running up their phone bills trying to request songs that weren’t amongst the 200 or so in rotation, and so would never get played.

As the Programme Controller of a Music:Fun:Life station (I mean, who the f thought that made any sense), I couldn’t possibly comment…

[Spencer]

Reminds me of the Music:Fun:Life era of the TLRC stations where on the ‘Workday Text and Request’ you could choose ANY song you wanted (via premium rate text) and it’d get played, but only if it it had already coincidentally been scheduled on the log in advance.

Cue lots of annoyed listeners running up their phone bills trying to request songs that weren’t amongst the 200 or so in rotation, and so would never get played.

As the Programme Controller of a Music:Fun:Life station (I mean, who the f thought that made any sense), I couldn’t possibly comment…

I was one of the Workday Text and Request presenters (don’t think you were my boss tho  ) and I’ve still got the style guide knocking around somewhere where it’s all explained in black and white. Lucky no-one made an official complaint or the group wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on.

[Josh]

Heart and Capital Scotland are to broadcast daytime programmes from Glasgow, moving away from networked London programmes: radiotoday.co.uk 

Global makes major investment in Glasgow broadcast centre – RadioToday
Next month Heart Scotland and Capital Scotland are introducing new schedules wit…
  Source: radiotoday.co.uk