[London Lite]

The frustrating thing about these spin-offs is how off-target they are to the main brands.

If they were targeting exactly the same audience as the main brands they’d be no point in offering them. I haven’t listened to any of the stations but I can see the cross over with most of them. Classic Rock obviously works better for Radio X than any of the other brands (apart from maybe Gold, but that’s a brand they’re not really invested in) it is guitar based music after all.

Country might seem an odd thing to go with Smooth, but it’s not really. Because you’d get some crossover with those who like the music Smooth play anyway more so than the crossover with Capital or Heart I’d have thought. And if you’re just a massive country music fan it’s not like you have to be a fan of Smooth in the first instance. 

The Chill out stations I would imagine are connected to the brands based on the age range the music is connected to. Some Capital listeners will want music to chill out to sometime and so will some Smooth listeners. But probably not the same music as each other. 

I just think launching these under new brands would mean they would get a bit more lost and that’s before we get into making the brands a better proposition for advertisers.

I’d be interested to know under what branding you’d launch these formats?

I get your point as I said in a previous post that they raise the share of the overall brand which helps Global sell the brands to advertisers.

However Radio X is an alternative brand, if you're going to provide a spin-off brand, then at least make it coherent with the main brand with sub-genre playlists for that station. Alternative classics for example or a station based on the new music strand Xposure. I doubt if Xfm was still with their original ownership that they'd be considering a spin-off station that playlists Marillion, Bryan Adams and Genesis.

Radio X Classic Rock isn't a bad station in regards to programming and presentation, but I still feel it jars branding wise.

Bar Absolute Country, Absolute's branding of spin-off stations complements their AOR main station brand.

Global have been left shoehorning formats onto existing brands because they've been late to the party with Bauer providing niche digital formats for years now either by setting them up themselves or acquiring existing stations such as Planet Rock and Jazz FM and have market led in the DAB exclusive sector with them.

I'd debate that Smooth Chill is on-target for the station's older audience considering the type of music playlisted.