But is that not variety?

I didn't realize those points had been raised in a thread about a radio station called heart. But do enlighten us. Have these topics been discussed in depth on heart? Maybe those shows are available via the listen again feature.

If you could let us know what time these shows were on, we could listen in.

If the tagline was to "fit" better with the target audience, surely it should be "Music U Luv... innit tho".

"Innit" sounds a wee bit too R1Xtra/CapitalXtra, but "Music U Luv" fits fine I guess

Tony Shepherd hasn't left Heart Sussex and Surrey? Tom Evans on Drive today and Sat afternoon with Angela Jay in on Drive next week.

Another network mess up this morning. Adverts playing then music started playing over them for at least 60 seconds then it was just music and then silence for over a min. Then a track played with no jingle. Very poor and amateur like.

Where have I heard Angela Jay before her name rings a bell?

Real Radio Wales, Heart Wales (North and South) and she's been covering on other Heart stations recently.

Yes, it is variety, but an example of where variety is not necessarily a good thing. I pointed out to Funk You that he needs to be careful when assuming he will attract a bigger audience by playing a wide variety of dance music genres. There is every possibility that in trying to please everyone, he will be too diverse and end up pleasing nobody. As I pointed out, I may well listen to a dance show specialising in house music, but chuck in drum n bass and hardcore and I'm gone - and probably won't be alone.

As a commercial radio operator it depends what you want - a large and loyal audience, or a large and varied database. You rarely get both. The successful ones generally realise that audience is the more important of the two.

What an earth are you going on about? I'll help you out. I was suggesting that saying you were 'sickened' by Heart not mentioning where listeners were from, was at best a bit melodramatic, and at worst, a huge over reaction and an unfortunate use of that word when one considers what else is going on in the world these days. There are far more important things to be 'sickened' about.

If you really are affected that badly by Heart not telling us that Tracy comes from Taunton, you probably ought swap Digital Spy for a couch and a pair of professionally trained ears!!

I noticed they took quite a few old tracks off the Heart playlist in the last couple of weeks, and added GRL, Jessie Ware and The Veronicas, which are slightly daring in that they aren't either by household names or already massive in the charts. I wonder if it's the start of something.

Is there any need to insult another poster in such a way? But of course, I don't agree with you, so I suppose you think that is ok.

The point I was trying to make an you have quite obviously either missed or chose to ignore, is that comments on this thread on the whole appear to relate to the radio station called heart. Will you at least concede that is the case?

And yes, I am sickened by other things in life. But, I am giving an opinion (even though it is clearly incorrect in your eyes) regarding the way heart have destroyed some decent radio stations and replaced it with the rubbish they output.

Now, if you don't understand the above, than that's fine. May I suggest you find somebody else to be the subject of your insults!

Is this on the local shows as in there remit they have to play more top 40 stuff and they'll play stuff like Armend Van Buren, Sweedish House Mafia etc
Probably not a start of things to come though very occasionly they will add a track or artist not so well known don't expect it to be a regular thing.

They should remove or play less of some of the older regular tracks and add some new ones, so so so many more they could play

New music, new artists, testing the listeners tastes, record companies asking for them to be played?

I have absolutely no issue with your opinion. If you think Heart should always mention where listeners are from and that it would massively improve their product you're entitled to think that, and express it. My issue was your use of the word sickened - I still fail to see how something so minor can drive such strong emotions. I used the other examples to highlight why I felt the term you used was slightly unnecessary in this context, and I still do.

Oh how the record companies wish they had that kind of power! See the other recent thread on Capital's initial non-playlisting of Calvin Harris to get an idea of the games that are played. There may be exceptions around Summertime/Jingle Bell ball when playlist in return for appearance negotiations may take place, but on the whole, radio stations will ultimately make their own call on what they play.

So what? You don't like a particular word I used to express an opinion. Are you in charge? Should all posts be run past yourself first to determine whether or not they are appropriate? Again, you are completely missing the point. Let me explain:-

The issue I have with the way heart broadcast mentions and has very little listener input via calls to air is that they are deceiving the listener. The average listener thinks that they are listening to a local station, where as they are only local for 7 hours of the day Monday to Friday, even less at the weekend.

The trouble with heart is that it is essentially a national station, and as such, in my opinion, this should be made clear to the listener.

Now, lets play the normal Digital Spy radio thread game. I will beat you to it:- "The average listener doesn't care." Fine, if that is the case, there would be no problem with being upfront with the facts. They hide the facts for a reason. I wonder what that is? But, no doubt, you will already know. Care to share with the rest of the class? I use the term "rest of the class" because I feel that you still have not apologized for your childish insult in your response to my post.

But, maybe you are correct! Maybe it doesn't matter whether or not place names are mentioned. In that case, they shouldn't mention in traffic bulletins where hold ups are, crashes have happened. Maybe they should simply say "There is a hold up on a particular road in the area. Why not phone in on our £15 per minute phone line and guess where it is. This is heart."

Oh, the irony!!

Personally I couldn't care less where 'Jane' or 'Lisa' or other callers live. The accent is generally a clue if you're really interested.

Traffic reports however are a completely different thing.

I'm not sure what I need to apologise for? You offered your opinion, I challenged you on it. That's the nature of debate. I think sickened was a ridiculous word to use in the context of your post and I stand by that. You think it was appropriate. Again, it's the nature of debate.

Whatever your views on Heart and its approach to broadcasting, your suggestion that they shouldn't mention place names in travel bulletins is just a little bit silly isn't it? And for what it's worth, yes, I beleive you have answered your own question. When it comes to mentioning where a particular caller/texter comes from, I genuinely believe that the average listener really really doesn't care.

Shame they didn't remove John Legends all of me such an over played track this is the 2nd time I've heard it today since just after 9am

Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass just played, what is going on?

You get tracks like that during local shows on the old Gcap stations, due to their format requiring a certain amount of new/recent music.

Heart London, West Mids and the former Real stations played Human League - Don't You Want Me instead.

People round my way of a certain age are bored of not having much dance music to listen to. Im in my late 20s and young people in my age group love house, trance, dnb, hardcore and at the moment the stations dance show is automated and just plays watered down poppy house and cheesy remixes. The guy who runs it wants me to do something different with it and breathe in some new life, he knows I can mix up all styles very well as locally I am known for doing that along with my internet radio shows. I take the listener on a journey starting at around 128bpm going up to the dizzying heights of 180bpm when the drum n bass kicks in. We are bound not to please everyone but from what I hear listeners are bored of one genre being played over and over (in the current automated show) and the DJ before that used to download mixes off the internet and pretend to mix! was just cheesy house and he was taken off because there was so many few listeners.

I do think that proper variety can cater for all and stations should not be frightened to try it. Fair play I am from a pirate/internet radio background and they have a certain style of play and play a lot more music that pop stations would sneer at. Sometimes it takes a few people to grab it all by the bollocks and take things away from the norm. Not everyone likes top 40 and I know for a fact most of my friends and people in my area are sick of the crap choices we have on the radio down on the south east, we are crying out for a dance pirate or at least a dance show on a community station with a bit more oomph than just "steady as you go" club classic cheese stuff. I'm not blowing my own trumpet but if Im given the chance to do something then I do things differently and with good results especially in the music sense.

All I'll say is for stations to not be scared of trying out different things.

All About That Bass and the other tracks I mentioned are on the nationwide Heart daytime playlist now. That's what I'm saying - looks like they might be changing things up a bit.

It varies from Heart stations - I've listened to Toby Anstis doing the Time Tunnel on Heart London (well I was listening on digital in the East Midlands) and there were plenty of mentions of London place names, callers saying where they are. Whereas I've heard other Time Tunnels during local hours where place names haven't been mentioned.

If you like hearing place names, maybe you should check out this:

http://www.heart.co.uk/northwest/on-...town-showdown/