Two big changes in radio in the UK - and what it means for everyone

Lots of things to read over here: https://james.cridland.net/blog/2025/global-regional-programming/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist, and every week or so I write a newsletter

(00:04):
all about international radio trends and all of that sort of thing. If you're interested
in radio, then you should be getting it. You can grab it on the web at james.crid.land,
which is where you can also subscribe to it via email, or you can hear it read like this
to you on this podcast when I bother to remember to do it. And this version was sent out on

(00:27):
January 12th 2025. It's called Two Big Changes in Radio in the UK and What It Means for Everyone.
And yes, there's no editing of my fluffs all the way through this, not half.
UK Broadcaster Global is to drop local and regional shows in England on its Hart, Capital
and Smooth radio stations. All the output for these stations will be broadcast from

(00:51):
London from the end of February, which means about 20 local and regional shows will disappear.
There'll also only be one set of national shows for Wales coming from Cardiff, which
means the loss of separate shows for Hart and Capital in North Wales. And I don't see
anything about Capital Cymru, which is a Welsh-language version of Capital, which has always slightly

(01:11):
weirdly existed, but chatter is that that will also go. In most cases, the shows going
are drive-time shows, which were the only locally produced shows on Hart and Capital.
Regional breakfast shows on Smooth will also go to be replaced by a London-based show.
There will continue to be regional news, regional travel and of course advertising throughout

(01:33):
the station output. And as now, the national presenters can direct individual voice breaks
or links to specific regions. And that's important to know. This isn't just a push the fader
up and leave the building job. You can actually do some quite clever things if you need to
in terms of big road closures or power cuts or weather or all that kind of thing. It'll

(01:56):
result in a number of job losses though, and regional offices will close across the country.
Now those local presenters were undoubtedly an asset, since they could be the regional
face of a station that was otherwise nationally programmed and could do local events and appearances.
They could of course also do promotional activity during their show for local businesses. So

(02:18):
why would Global want to remove them? Well it's mostly because they now can. The Media
Act last year dropped much of the requirement for local programming. And clearly closure
of studio facilities and the resulting simplification of transmission will be a significant cost
saving to Global. Now Global's a private company but we can peer into its accounts

(02:42):
in the UK's Companies House. And the latest accounts are for financial year ending 31st
March 2024. And unlike radio companies elsewhere, Global is actually not in bad financial shape.
The company also owns an out of home advertising business, but the audio part of the business
made an overall operating profit of £76.6 million, which is $95 million. And that figure,

(03:10):
impressive though it is, was down by 9% year on year, so savings of people and property
will be welcome. National programming also makes it much easier to promote, because few
media in the UK is local after all, and it's complicated to promote specific shows to specific
regions. But let's not forget that the majority of programming output on these English stations

(03:36):
wasn't local. For Heart and for Capital, we're talking about one 3 hour show from
4pm to 7pm. For many listeners the station was a national one anyway. And that hasn't
harmed audience figures. UK commercial radio hit an all time high last year in both total

(03:56):
numbers and in share, if not to be honest in total hours. Global itself also posted
its biggest ever figures. Live and local seems an easy mantra to follow, but I don't think
it's what wins audiences. If you're a bored man sitting in a local studio above the pizza
shop and you're back announcing another 10 great songs in a row, that won't magically

(04:20):
save a radio station just because it's live and local. It's what you put there that counts.
A human connection and a shared experience. Or as Valerie Geller will tell you, tell the
truth, make it matter, never be boring. Locallness in the US and Australian capital cities is
one thing, but I've always felt that much of England lacks that strong localness. Yes,

(04:44):
you might live in Leeds, but there are precious few brands and experiences that you have that
aren't just as applicable to Coventry or Bristol. In short, what does local mean to parts of
England without as much of a strong local identity? For every Liverpool, there's a Bolton,
there's a Grimsby, there's a Gloucester, there's a Taunton. Is local really just England?

(05:10):
We should also note that Global's output on Capital Scotland and on Hart Scotland is fully
local from 6am to 7pm. Scotland is, it turns out, not overly fond of posh English accents
like mine. All said, it's sad for the great people that the radio business will essentially
lose. Of what I know about Global, they'll be treated quite well, but realistically,

(05:35):
with BBC Local Radio leaning more on cost-cutting and shared programming, there's nowhere for
these fine people to go. And that's a real shame. Perhaps some should look at the success
of Tony and Ryan. That's a super successful podcast in Australia, run by a big radio programmer,
but a show that's never been on the radio, ever. And maybe, just maybe, the Global player

(05:58):
would be a good place for some of these people to continue their fine work. Global's accounts
also show that its out-of-home ad company made £10 million operating profit in year
ending March 2023. That's reversing a £9 million loss the previous year. Owning an

(06:20):
out-of-home ad business always seemed to make a lot of sense for a bigger media company,
because it allows you to use unsold inventory to promote your other products. Just ask Patterson
in Canada, or once ARN in Australia. Global bought three companies – Exterion, Prime
Site and Outdoor Plus – in 2018. And they have quite the contracts, including all of

(06:43):
the advertising on BT phone boxes in the high street, and the Transport for London contract,
including buses and tube stations, and plenty of other big name placements as well. There
are also obvious synergies between your work in ad agencies selling radio ads and selling
poster sites.
So the other big news this week is that Bauer, Global's competitor in the UK for commercial

(07:07):
radio, is buying Clear Channel Europe, essentially Global's main competitor in out-of-home.
The UK is still a diary-based radio research country, and Bauer now gets access to more
than 40,000 advertising sites across the UK to help remind audiences about what they listen
to. And they also get plenty more across Europe, where, unlike Global, Bauer owns a number

(07:33):
of stations too. That will, if they're crafty about it, help bolster both businesses. And
while I find much of Bauer's strategy oddly timid, this is a crafty move, I think, from
the company. Bauer also announced this week that they're buying Star Radio in Cambridge,
and turning it off, turning it into Hits Radio. And here's a fun fact for you – Prime

(07:56):
Site and cinema advertiser Perl and Dean used to be owned by Scottish Television, which
also owned Virgin Radio in London. So what goes around, comes around.
Elsewhere, I've had a few long drives over the last week, and much use of the search
button on the in-car radio. On FM, the ABC in Australia doesn't use RDS, which is weird

(08:17):
– an odd choice for a national broadcaster. So listening isn't particularly easy on a
five-hour drive, but it's nice to hear ABC Radio National as well as news radio on FM.
And I enjoyed a documentary from Earshot about the Maori hacker, which was good, along with
a few local ABC stations as well. Can't tell you which, because a. No RDS, and b. Outside

(08:41):
of the capital city's ABC local radio never identifies individual stations after 10 in
the morning anyway. Which is weird, isn't it, because I'm fascinated how people know
what station they're listening to for the audience figures.
Also it was interesting to catch Chris Smith on 4GY out of Gympie. After an enforced career
break for a few years, he's now on the Super Radio Network as the new John Laws. Given

(09:08):
we're not in survey currently, it's good to hear him introducing himself to his audiences
of what I could hear over the lightning interference on AM. He sounded pretty good. We'll not
know how good, because the Super Radio Network doesn't as far as I know participate in
the audience figures. And that, I think, is a bit of a shame.
But also on my personal blog, I blogged a bit about podcasting's unique selling proposition,

(09:30):
why I think it's a bad idea for podcasting to be chasing the video dollar. You'll find
a link to that in the link that you'll find in my show notes.
And thank you to Hubbard Radio's Craig Strassel. Greg Strassel. Greg Strassel. Not Craig. Greg
Strassel. I mean, I was going to say Greg anyway, but it kind of came out as Craig.

(09:53):
Anyway, thank you to Greg Strassel from Hubbard Radio, who has joined us as a new regular
supporter of my newsletter. That's very kind of you, Greg. That also coincides with our
local coffee shop reopening after the Christmas break. So hooray. I will be spending that
money on coffee.
Also thank you to Irene Hume off of that excellent Game Changers Radio podcast for your coffees.

(10:18):
Very grateful. Thank you for that too. I'm speaking all over the world, it turns out,
this month, or rather this year, 2025. Next, I am in Neuchâtel in Switzerland on February
the 7th for the Atelier Radiofonique-Romande, which should be great fun. Really looking

(10:40):
forward to speaking about the future of radio there. I'm also talking about the future of
radio, I believe, although I'm not quite sure what I'm doing, at Radio Days Europe in Athens
in Greece this year. That's between March the 9th and the 11th. Looking forward to that.
I should book my tickets for that really, I suppose, given that we're less than two

(11:02):
months away. Also Radio Days Ireland in Dublin in Ireland towards the end of March. Evolutions
by podcast movement in Chicago in early April. Radio Days North America in Toronto in early
May. The podcast show in London in late May. Podcast movement itself in Dallas and Texas,

(11:24):
probably, in August. I assume I'm going to go to that. I suppose I ought to. We'll see
what the US is like by that point. And Radio Days Asia, which in my newsletter it says
CBC. Indonesia, I can tell you, that's probably an exclusive. I don't think anybody knows

(11:45):
it's in Indonesia yet, but yes, Indonesia, apparently. September the 1st to the 3rd is
the dates that they're going for, but they haven't actually managed to book the hotel
yet. So who knows what might happen there. But anyway, it'll be great to see you if you
wanted to come to that. And also, I'm hopefully looking forward to coming to Pennine Radio's

(12:06):
50th birthday, which is the second week of September. I'm just hoping to go. So if you
are organising something in Europe that would help me get there, then that will be great.
So thank you to those supporters. Also Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn

(12:28):
Abbey and James Masterton for being regular supporters. If you would like to support my
work in any way, you can buy me a coffee. Become a member to give regularly, like Greg
has done, or just give a one-off coffee or five. You can do that at buymeacoffee.com
slash James Cridland. Alternatively, I've also linked to a direct link with Stripe if

(12:48):
you want that. Again, that link is in the show notes. You can follow me on the internet.
I'm on bluesky as james.crid.land or on mastodon as james at bne.social. My website has more
details about who I am and what I do and whether I can help you further. And that is at james.crid.land.

(13:11):
And that's it for this week. Please keep listening and I will be around in a week's time with
more exciting international radio trends and produced in such an excellent way as this
podcast is.