Goodbye Smooth Radio 70s

In the early hours of Sunday morning, decades station Smooth Radio 70s will be replaced by a test transmission of Global Radio's new spin-off station Capital XTRA aimed at younger audiences.

GMG started experimenting with spin-off brands on DAB with the novelty format Smooth Christmas, which then led to the launch of Smooth 70s on December 27th 2011.  Less than two years later and after acquiring a total audience of 730,000 listeners to add to Smooth Radio's total brand audience, it'll be a part of digital radio history.

Unlike the main station under GMG, this was a focused product which played a broad playlist, those which anoraks and musos love, this despite being broadcast at 80 kbps mono on DAB.

I was at first very critical of the format, as it launched after Absolute Radio launched it's own 70s decade station earlier in 2011, yet like all good things, I doubt the station ever made money, so would be a drain on resources.

If you consider it from Global's point of view, they have two slots on Digital One acquired from the acquisition of Real & Smooth Limited, both serving the over 50s.  Sadly, it's a fact that younger listeners despite using other ways to listen to music are still the most attractive to advertisers.  Capital XTRA gives Global a national platform to attract listeners from Kiss and 1Xtra who playlist similar dance and urban music on the same digital platform.

Once Smooth 70s closes, there's still Absolute Radio 70s on DAB in London and online, however it is more rock focused due to the Absolute brand values.  This station and it's parent Absolute Radio are currently in the middle of being acquired by Bauer Radio who may use the space on DAB for other uses instead. There are other online stations providing 70s music all day long.  Some of which have promoted themselves on Digital Spy and social media outlets.

From day 1 of the opening of Smooth 70s, it was always inventable that it'd close.

Smooth Wallpaper Radio

Today is the first day of Smooth Radio coming under the control of it's new owner Global Radio.  However the company only owns two of the licences currently in London and the West Midlands as the other licences in northern England and Glasgow remain in hold separate with Real & Smooth Ltd.

Moving the studio to Global's Leicester Square broadcast centre will stem the losses from the London licence, which has continually hemorrhaged listeners under GMG/R&S Ltd due to the clash in format with Hot AC Heart and Bauer's soft AC format Magic 105.4. 

Global have made some subtle tweaks to the output today, regular speech features have been removed, such as Our Tune from the Breakfast Show and Lynn Parsons's quiz alongside specialist output on a Friday evening.   It also appears that new music that was playlisted under GMG/R&S has been removed, although stubbornly the second to last song played on Smooth from Laser House in Salford was Daft Punk's latest track, which jarred terribly amongst the classic hits.  

However The Golden Hour has been saved, presumably as it's heavy on music.

Like other Global brands, Smooth has become more music intensive with longer sweeps and short speed links which has made it an easier listen for those who don't like speech heavy links on music radio.  It also compliments Global's sister brands, rather than competing with them.  There are tracks which crossover with Heart and Gold, however as Global specialise in 'mood radio', this isn't a problem.

I think Smooth will have more changes once the issues with the Competition Commission are resolved.  Global now own two over 50's brands, the male skewed Gold which broadcasts on AM and now the female slanted Smooth which if Global don't have to sacrifice any of the regional licences contested on the more valuable FM frequencies, which surely will either lead to a merger or a sale of the less viable AM station.

To the normal listener, there isn't much to complain about as the regular presenters during the day have stayed with only small changes in overnight output with a shorter night shift and an early breakfast show presented by Global stalwart Nicola Bonn who has presented overnight shifts on Heart.

Anoraks on the radio message boards are not happy alongside a couple of people on Facebook, however I imagine that is due to the company who has taken over, rather than any real programming changes.  Niggling about technical problems on day 1 is petty.

It's a big improvement to how the station was sounding last week or even yesterday as the takeover was near and Global should be congratulated on maintaining the brand, however toxic it has been in London. 

How to solve a problem like Global

Copyright: Real and Smooth Ltd.

After the Competition Commission's decision on the acquisition of GMG Radio (trading as Real and Smooth Ltd) by Global Radio, the owner of national brands such as Capital FM and Heart, the group has to sell seven stations in areas where the company would have an unfair advantage in the advertising market in those areas.

In most areas, they have to sell at least one regional station, which means one national brand will be sold or franchised to keep the other.

Most professionals and anoraks agree that Global's reported £70m acquisition is to expand the Heart brand into areas of the UK the station doesn't broadcast on FM on licences currently held by Real Radio, which should mean those stations will be kept on by Global, although there's debate if the mix of North Wales local FM Heart licences will be kept, despite cumbersome Welsh language commitments, especially on the Anglesey licence instead of the North and mid-Wales Real regional licence which has no Welsh commitments and already has an agreement with Ofcom to network with the South Wales Real station as it'd mean existing listeners would be forced to retune.

Another issue is the Smooth regional licences, do Global sell the brand on, franchise it  or merge with existing brand Gold, the oldies/classic hits station which also caters to over 45's, but with an older musical sound in comparison to Smooth?

In the North West, Smooth is the most listened to regional station with under a million listeners in a market place saturated with AC and CHR formats, yet in London, the UK's most competitive market, the station bobs around the 400-600k listener level while their nearest competitor Magic 105.4, owned by Bauer Radio has under 2 million listeners.

Suggestions have been made that Smooth could be re-focused (for the third time mind) as a Soft AC station to directly compete with Magic, yet the brand has been used as a classic soul, later refocusing as an Easy Listening station and hasn't made a dent in the market, this would be a waste of resources, which is why I personally feel that a straight FM simulcast of Gold would be the best use for this frequency as it'd cut costs considerably and bring a new format to London's FM marketplace.

Smooth could still be kept on as a brand in London by flipping the formats of Gold and Smooth so that the latter moves to Gold's 1548 AM frequency.  This would allay any fears of a lack of a London presence in the national advertising market to any investor interested in their regional FM licences.

Capital is a likely candidate to be franchised off in areas where the CC has asked Global to consider to sell.  Who'd want to buy them though if a company can't change the programming output? Orion, who acquired a Heart franchise in the East Midlands and Gold in the West Midlands eventually quit as a franchisee to go it alone with Gem and Free Radio 80s.   A consortium may come forward to buy those licences from Global to 'hold' them before the rules change again which would let them buy the stations again, but do Global want to be around in ten years when they surely have a strategy to sell the group altogether to an overseas investor?

What happens next?

Global have another 11 weeks at time of posting to inform the Competition Commission their plans to sell or franchise the stations in each area.

It's also very likely that we'll see a decision to sell classic rock station Real Radio XS in Glasgow and Manchester although the CC didn't include the Scottish station on the for sale list as Global have no direct brand to merge the licence with.

Whatever happens, the radio landscape will be different, even if a brand continues with a new owner with no change in programming output.