[JMT1985]

For me, the one new station recently which is interesting to take note of is Boom Radio - they were about to have Paul O'Grady as their key presenter on there before he sadly passed away

Boom Radio is unique, that it doesn't have a studio base, all of their shows are produced from their presenters homes, just when a lot of radio was done during lockdown.

I have listened to a tiny bit of Boom Radio, and it sounds to me the station that many older listeners want Radio 2 to be now in 2023. It's a bit like a time machine of a station, with a comforting sound for the over 50s who seem to be ignored by radio a lot these days - considering the over 50s are the ones who consume more radio, and are likely to be a lot loyal and stick around, Boom Radio has benefited from it.

While is different to most of the big players in that respect, it isn't unique. There are a few stations, whether smallscale DAB or online that have presenters presenting from thier homes or remote locations.
As you say, I think lockdown - for all it's negative aspects - provided an insight to some, that you don't need a base where everyone has to go to do thier shows. If the lockdown had happened even 20 years earlier, I think it would have been a lot more difficult to maintain the output while not travelling or social distancing.

Actually lockdown would have never happened 20 years ago, as the attitude to flu and pandemics was very different then - in 2003 working from home was really not achievable compared to now - and the attitude by governments to pandemics was simply to tough it out - people got sick, that was it. Remember the 2009 swine flu pandemic, we never locked down for that. So I don't see anything on the same scale as we had in 2020 and 2021 happening, broadcasting would have continued as normal.