But it wasn't running from London, unless Global do something I am unaware of. Surely that's what you have regional PD's for.

I visited Smooth in 2013 when their London studios were in Castlereagh St and was informed that they used a centralised playout system from Manchester. I'm assuming Global does.

Whilst a terrible tragedy, a few points........

First of all, it WAS clear this was as severe as it gets, and with the advent of social media, these things are instantly worldwide...


To go half an hour without bringing a story of this magnitude to the listeners is poor, and, whilst I normally knock Heart for its music, this will no doubt be due to a lack of personnel, especially senior employees.


Its at times like this when radio "done on the cheap" falls down in a seriously big way!

Not sure she's a great loss if you go by the quality of her breakfast show this morning, basically two dull listener interaction topics filled the core part of the show;

7-8; What is it that 2/3rds of men do that women don't like?

8-9; What have I started doing this week?

Had to tune out due to boredom so don't know the answers but can't see that they're that entertaining.

I also think one of the permanent presenters Caroline needs to relate better to her audience she comes across very highfalutin, she's just had a baby so we have to hear about that every day but recently she was boasting about having a night away from the baby who's only a few months old, does she not realise most of her listeners with kids probably haven't had a whole night away from the kids ever (its been 4.5 years for us!) so starting to have nights/weekends away from your few month old baby and telling us all about it is not going to endear you to your audience when most would love just one night away.

Another armchair critic. You might want to check your facts about the timeline of Saturday's events before making comment.

News of an 'incident' didn't start to filter through until after around 20 minutes of it happening. That makes it 1.40pm

It wasn't a case of Heart Sussex, Sky News, BBC, etc etc being late delivering information, it was down to the fact the full scale of the accident wasn't immediately known. Sky News picked up on it at 1.50pm. As soon as it was evident this was a major incident Heart Sussex were on it straightaway.

She's staying on the books I think but just not in a full time role

As mentioned, Heart Scotland was playing completely different music to the rest of the network following the bin lorry incident last year, so if necessary they can change the music.

How did the music differ?

Sorry it was clyde 1 that I used as an example I am not sure what Heart did

I recall as soon as the local show started at 4pm the music changed to a more sombre mix along with regular news/traffic updates. Providing the latest news on a local tragedy followed by Pharrell - Happy wouldn't have been appropriate.

When I heard about the bin lorry tragedy I immediately went to Clyde 1 for the latest. They were playing, I kid you not, 'What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger', That was just before they started a simulcast with Clyde 2 and switched to somber music.

There maybe should be some acknowledgement that in this day and age, if people want to know the latest about breaking news, local radio isn't the first place they go to. The Internet, social media in particular, has really taken on that role.

But to be fair to Clyde after that when they started the simulcast with clyde 2 they did a great job providing the latest news and traffic updates and did play sombre appropriate music

[quote=SmartProgrammer;79362558]What has London got to do with anything? Heart Sussex were live and local at the time. Read my post again. The severity of the situation wasn't immediately clear until quite a while later.

May I politely request you refrain from joining in discussions you clearly have no knowledge about. You are looking for a way to criticise a station outside your own area without even hearing the output.[/QUOTE

How could anyone outside London possibly know what's best for their own area? We need the smart people from London to do everything for us, or how could we possibly manage?

Apparently, there are still some poor souls up here in Norfolk who can't even turn a radio on without help from London.

Incorrect.
Just slow at doing so.

RAJAR states that Norfolk demographic switch on the radio slower, but leave it on for longer.*

*Q3 '15

Bank holiday

6am Heart Breakfast (Jenni Falconer in London)
10am Rich Clarke
2pm Zoe Hartman
6pm Roberto

So the breakfast show is the regional show for the day

It usually is for Bank Holidays

Always the same on bank holiday's they only have regional breakfast shows then after that all the presenters are in London

Rich Clarke is on Saturday morning 10am to 1pm covering for Toby

Hearts Variety gauge is now up-to 22% in the past 30 days the most played track is See You Again by Charlie Puth with 61 plays considering Love Me Like You Do by Ellie Goulding had around 160 plays over 30 days at its peak they've cut down on the number of plays each day quite a bit

So when did he record this please??

That must be a mistake surely hearts variety gauge is usually around the 11% mark it can't of doubled. That would mean a huge change in playlist and the number of unique tracks ?

Can anyone confirm ?

There have been more older songs (e.g. The original London playlist) across the network in the past few weeks and months so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. I'm sure the Heart haters will be heartbroken

Yes they seem to have gone back to how it was a few years ago lately at one point they were playing some songs just about every show every day but now its more mixed the most played song with 61 plays shows the improvements they've done in the playlist long may it continue

The current Compare My Radio numbers for Heart don't look right to me. They're saying Heart played only about 3,200 records in the past 30 days. That works out at only about four or five an hour. That can't be right. Even Radio2 which has a lot more chat than Heart is listed as playing over four thousand.

It also has the most played records on Heart on only forty or fifty plays in the last 30 days. Most,if not all the records in Compare My Radio's Top Ten most played tracks for Heart,(like Fight Song and Hold Back the River) we will hear on Heart during the overnight shift. Sometimes twice. So that's forty or fifty plays per month just in that six hour period from 1am to 7am. So what is Heart playing the rest of the time?

If Heart had suddenly started to play their top tracks only one or twice a day,instead of four or five,it would free up a lot of time to play other records that we wouldn't normally hear. You would notice the difference immediately.

And I can't say that I have.

That would mean no song has been played more than twice a day ?

There are a lot of unique songs in the two happy hours which are on Monday to Thursday but that wouldn't bring the variety gauge up to 22% I can't see how it would of jumped up so much. I can't recall hearing much difference outside of the happy hours ?

Can anyone shed any light. I know comparemyradio.co.uk can be a little inaccurate sometimes.