[London Lite]

There is a difference between a single sponsor ‘buying out’ all the advertising for a single Digital feed of a station, than one that has dozens of local opt outs with hundreds of advertisers on FM across the country. Basically the advertising space is Bauer’s main product, the other being their subscription service which wouldn’t serve any purpose with your idea. 

Yes, they could increase audiences massively by ditching advertising, but there is no point to having the highest listening figures if you can’t make money from them.

That is the thing no-one thinks about with GHR in essence is this. It isn't strictly a "national" station but one that is made up of tons of local frequencies here and there. In Cleveleys where I live, the local FM frequency is what was the old Radio Wave one on 96.5FM. I'm sure that those who advertise locally still on these "stations" would be too pleased with having their adverts ripped from the airwaves because the need to get Ken - or anyone really - more listeners.

The same could be said for every commercial national radio station except Classic FM and TalkSport which have national INR licenses. However while GHR, Capital, Heart and Smooth are made up of local ILR and regional licences, they're one station each overall with opt-outs. France has a similar issue with the likes of NRJ and Nostalgie which are made of of networking local transmitters across the country, but they're national with some regional opt-outs depending on the market.