[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...