[Adsales]

But compared  to when? What was that figure when radio was regional? That figure only indicates people want less of what’s on offer now which, you’re right, is pretty damning isn’t it? Maybe if there was more variety on offer that was relevant to them people wouldn’t want less talk. Again, it’s self inflicting damage . You radically change something to be like something else to survive because of a trend. People don’t like the new thing and leave. You then point to the thing and say “see!? The prediction was right! It’s what people wanted!” Now everything is the same with no point of difference.

You're forgetting/ignoring a number of things here:

1. The same shift in listener behaviour can be seen in countries with local radio still available.
2. Technology such as streaming, smart speakers/assistants, satnavs would still be available had the nationalisation of local radio not happened and therefore the convenience factor would still apply.
3. Local stations (with very, very few exceptions) were never profitable. Many would be gone by now.

Just look at TV. Nothing like the radio nationalisation has take place, yet the shift in viewer behaviour towards streaming is even more pronounced than with radio.

We, the consumers, are the drivers of change. Businesses adapt in order to make profits. In fact, it's not just commercials - public broadcasters are doing the same, regardless of funding model and whether there's a risk to it.

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The biggest sell for me for radio stations has been the content rather than the locality. 

We have a third tier community radio sector and SSDAB which has allowed small scale local broadcasters another chance at playing the local card with AC music.

However in the 90s The Radio Authority licenced a load of FM sallie commercial stations which never worked and bar a dozen or so stations, they're all part of now part of quasi-national stations, while the BBC are reducing hours on their local radio network.

Same.

We have a local commercial station, which to give credit where credit is due, sounds great during the important times of the day.

We have Heart which previously was a legacy station.

We have a community FM station.

The local station sounds no different to Heart because they have dropped all the stuff that no one wants to hear to. There's no difference whether I hear local news dropped in from Leicester Square on Heart or the local news from two towns over on the local station. Same for weather or traffic. The only reason why I prefer the local station is that I can't stand Amanda Holden. To be honest though, I would usually turn to Capital or a random playlist on my Apple Music.

The community station sounds like local radio did yesteryear and is unlistenable. Whenever I tune in for a few minutes it has callers who are 60 order older.