The local dj suddenly appeared around 2.15pm with no explanation ?

Seems it's back to normal now with news no news at 12 1 or 2 though

You make an interesting observation.

Whilst I would never listen to the repetitive drivel that is Heart, in fairness to them, they have realised that the current day 21st century is such a "dumbed down society", and aim the output accordingly.


You are right that a presenter had an air of authority and connection with the listener, from back in the 1960's ( the film "The boat that rocked") shows this in abundance.....


However, I suspect the majority of regular listeners to Heart could not name the presenter they listen to, but once again, because of the way the station is structured, the jocks are limited to a few short lines that you and I would find lacking and poor, but the DJ, with limited places of work these days, will just be thankful to be in employment, and do as told.


As you say it is sad, but its the way of the world.


I have stated before, if you would have told me when ILR was initially being established, that one of the main music stations by 2015 would be aimed at people who know nothing about music, or don't really care, I'd have thought you off your rocker!

its where we are though!

Nailed it, Wck! Good post!

Duplicated

The music on heart is popular it has the best current songs along with some greats from the last 30 years, it is maybe a bit repetitive but there will always be a song on heart which nearly everyone can sing along too and like to listen to on there travels in the car.

On your point about knowing presenters names I think most listeners would know there local breakfast DJ's and maybe local drivetime presenter on heart and possibly Toby Antis as many Heart listeners will remember Toby from kids Tv when they were young.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

I'm not so sure.....

When all you're allowed to say is
This is Heart
Check the website

Then most will not be able to distinguish one host from another.

I actually cant get Heart on FM where I live so sometimes listen to the London version on Sky and Jk and Lucy say this is Heart drivetime with Jk and Lucy also when I do listen to Heart Scotland in Glasgow or online I am sure Breakfast presenter Robin Galloway says his name during the show.

But I am not sure if Toby Antis has ever said his name when I have listened but I know it is him due to the info bar on sky

Latest figures show Heart has over nine million listeners

wckartist, you do make a number of reasonably fair points across your posts on here, but you seem to see things as far more black-and-white than they are or need to be.

Whilst you manage to insult both Heart and its listeners here, your point - that Heart are actually good at what they do, even if you don't agree with what or why they do it - is one overlooked by many people in their criticism of the station.

You say "do as told" as if turning up to work and doing as your employers ask you to do is a bad thing! I think in two separate ways this is a 'blame the game, not the player'-type affair and you acknowledge this - firstly, the DJs are "poor" (in your eyes) because they are on a station where it is all tight links and station promotion. On a different station you may find them outstanding - it's the format, not the jock (necessarily). But this brings me on to the second aspect - what Heart does and doesn't play would be of no consequence if there were a decent number of other stations on the dial that people could access. If everyone could access twenty stations, each with different styles and formats, then I'm confident that the amount of Heart-bashing would decrease because why would anyone spend any time bothering with a station that isn't for them? They wouldn't (or, they shouldn't). So this is the other part of the 'blame the game': it isn't Heart's "fault" that it's the only non-BBC station on the dial in many places, or that there are limited places for DJs to find employment, etc. Yes, they network; yes, they took over other ILRs; yes, they merged some Hearts into regionals. Job cuts, money saving, profit chasing, call it what you will. But if there were more other stations, Heart would just become an irrelevance to some people rather than this figure of hatred it currently seems to be.

Finally, I don't get this "Heart plays mainstream and has little talking, therefore it's dumbed down, therefore its listeners are dumb". Why is a narrow playlist an example of dumbing down? Why is breadth of musical taste now suddenly an indicator of intelligence? Can't people be not an idiot but just not that into their music? When I apply for my next job, should I state that I listen to Heart so that they can get a better idea of my intelligence, rather than cite my maths degree?

Heart is part of a private company so by definition as long as it turns a profit it is good at what it does.

Its basically music and radio for people that dont like music or radio.

I can name our breakfast presenters as I get a lift to work some mornings with a colleague and she listens to it, well its on in the car, I wouldn't have thought she was part of an interested, engaged audience

Its not just the music, its the way their news bulletins are too.......when something like Kerry Katona breaking a fingernail is a lead story, and important stories do not get a look in, it tells you a lot about the target audience.


Also, I can only go off personal experience.......

On Saturday I was in a hair salon where Heart is the station of choice, and a customer mentioned to the stylists that the clocks were going back an hour that night.......one of the stylists couldn't understand why, and the other stylist asked the customer "does this mean we get an extra hour now in EVERY day?"


Give me strength!!

Until you can post constructive criticism don't expect your posts to be taken seriously.

Again, our experiences differ a little. I wouldn't go to Heart for in-depth news coverage, but they don't treat their news output as Heat magazine either - the lead story is rarely a celebrity piece unless it's a major story in itself.

For example, the 8pm bulletin I just listened to covered, in this order:
- the candlelight vigil taking place this evening for the poor lad stabbed and killed in school in Aberdeen;
- the news that the Chilcot report into the Iraq War won't be out until next Summer, which has caused upset;
- substantial transport delays in London this evening; and
- Paul Gascoigne charged with harassment.

I wouldn't call that important news stories not getting a look in, although I will concede that the Gazza story was not of any interest to me at all.


I'm not sure what this shows other than that you managed to find the only two people in the country that have grown into adulthood with no idea that the clocks go forward and back every year. It's a very selective personal experience that gets remembered because it serves your view point; had you gone into Waterstones and found two guys sat with their noses in a couple of decent books with Heart on in the background, I doubt it would be mentioned on here or even remembered. Dim people listen to Heart, yes - but they also listen to other stations too. And intelligent people can listen to and can enjoy Heart. It isn't intellectually stimulating but it isn't trying to be - it's playing music for people who want to hear some popular music that they know and can sing along to. And it does that job well.

I suspect that's why they don't bother with any real programming on heart. It would appear that the target audience is well and truely covered.

That's like saying all Sun readers are thick. Talk about generalising.

Heart's variety gauge on CompareMyRadio is now 20% which is very good. Heart is sounding great too

Sorry but I'm taking this with a pinch of salt.

For starters I think if it did happen you wouldn't have waited until yesterday to pass it on!

CompareMyRadio's data doesn't seem to have been accurate for months now - I don't know if the problem is at CMR's end or at Heart's end, but things don't add up. For instance, it reckons only 5,000 songs have been played in the last 30 days - this amounts to about 7 songs an hour, as opposed to the 10 or so you would expect from a commercial music station. Furthermore, if you compare, for instance, Heart Northants with Heart Oxon, it reckons that from 1000 unique tracks only 871 are shared between the two stations, even though they work off the exact same playlist!

So I don't really trust the figures given by CMR. More realistic would be to say Heart play 1000 unique tracks out of around 7,500 across the course of 30 days, which would be about 13% on the variety gauge.

Have you actually looked at the detail of that statistic before posting on hear as the only justification that Heart is playing a wider variety of songs, it's clearly wrong;

20% calculated as follows, 996 unique tracks out of 4,957 tracks played equals 20%.

However this is the last 30 days so Heart played 165 (4,957/24) songs per day or 7 tracks an hour. We all no Heart has very little speech content so 12-14 songs an hour is more like it. Let's go with 13 tracks an hour, that's 9,360 in 30 days, variety gauge of 11% which is not impressive by any means.

Capital is a good comparison, it played 9,374 tracks so pretty much what I've assumed Heart played as similar speech content, but that does genuinely have variety having played 2,049 unique tracks with a 22% gauge.

Actually I'm also suspicious of the Capital unique tracks, as all the regional stations have about 1,000 unique tracks.

My point is Capital only plays recent stuff and can still rotate about 1,000 tracks, yet Heart which plays recent and older stuff only plays a similar number surely with the whole history of music to include it could select a much wider range of songs.

Heart TV has become Heart Xmas and is now playing non stop Christmas tunes 24/7

Won't be long till they arrive on the radio

Heart has variety what a joke it plays the same songs every day. Stations like Big L have variety a playlist of 17000 tracks.

Global stations have had unusual figures on CompareMyRadio for a couple of months. There is no way that Capital has 2000 (or even 1000) unique tracks compared to 800 on Smooth.