It seemed to be the case from the profile of Beacon's first MD under GWR Roger Brooks a few years ago:
"He sustained the station’s market leadership in the face of tough competition from new regional and local stations, whilst also substantially increasing the company’s annual profit"
Well I for one would certainly like to know how on earth he managed to "sustain the station's market leadership" with audience figures plummeting and turning to other stations. As for "substantially increasing the company's annual profit" That must have been by cutting back on station staff (especially in the news department, the local news reports practically disappeared!) and introducing more networked programming. It certainly wasn't done by an increase in advertising revenue. By the time I left Shropshire in 2001 there was very little or no local commercials on Beacon at all. A lot of the breaks consisted of just "in house" promotions.
But then again Roger Brookes wasn't exactly renouned for telling the truth about his involvement with Beacon FM if reports in the Shropshire Star newspaper at the time were anything to go by.
My local Bauer station still has local news and still covers school closures in mind numbing detail. Bauer know that's why people listen and it's part of why they've retained the heritage names.
They also know that listeners don't care too much about where the presenter taking about One Direction is sitting.
Why would anyone listen to output you describe as "mind numbing"? Surely that makes a stronger case for radio not to broadcast this type of information?
Listeners aren't bothered about heritage names as the Heart and Capital rebrands of the likes of Broadland, Invicta, Hereward etc clearly demonstrated.
Yeah your right but if the Radio Clyde name was scrapped so would West Fm, Radio Forth and all the other Bauer Radio stations names in Scotland would be lost too. That would annoy people in Scotland
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Well I for one would certainly like to know how on earth he managed to "sustain the station's market leadership" with audience figures plummeting and turning to other stations. As for "substantially increasing the company's annual profit" That must have been by cutting back on station staff (especially in the news department, the local news reports practically disappeared!) and introducing more networked programming. It certainly wasn't done by an increase in advertising revenue. By the time I left Shropshire in 2001 there was very little or no local commercials on Beacon at all. A lot of the breaks consisted of just "in house" promotions.
But then again Roger Brookes wasn't exactly renouned for telling the truth about his involvement with Beacon FM if reports in the Shropshire Star newspaper at the time were anything to go by.
Cut6, what is your problem with local radio, you horrible rotter?