How exactly does the RDS switching work?

Driving up the M1 last weekend, my kids wanted to listen to Capital. We lost 95.8 just outside Luton, and caught 105.4 at Northampton, but with the weak out-of-area signal, the radio kept wanting to switch over to Heart.

Is it anything to do with the PI codes or the PTY? Have Heart locals still got the same codes as they had when they were Chiltern, and does Capital London and Capital Leicester still use those codes. thus the radio selects the PTY and does not know that Capital and Heart are two different beasts?

No more club classics.
80s overnights. That's new.

80's through the night seems like a good idea, but there was a pretty good music mix with this slot when it was Club Classics, why don't they alternate them and maybe have all 90's as well.

Something like this would be good

EARLY HOURS of
Saturday - Club Classics
Sunday - Club Classics
Monday - 80's
Tuesday - 80's
Wednesday - 80's
Thursday - 90's
Friday - 90's

Otherwise it really will get too repetitive.

this is great to have 80's on all night on heart instead of club classics- listening to it right now- wish we could have heart in Northumberland as it plays all the music I love, although maybe eventually it would get repetative

A few songs rarely heard on Heart according to the song finder. Simple Minds -Don't You Forget About Me, Rod Stewart - Baby Jane, Paul Young - Love of The Common People. Tracks which in my opinion should/could be 'wow' songs on the Time Tunnel.

But according to all the experts here, 'wow haven't heard that in a while' songs have people turn off. So I assume that the listening figures dropped like mad when Rod came on last night.

Or maybe us anoraks, who hear Heart at work eight hours a day have a point, and during features The Time Tunnel, be brave!

The 80's idea is great! I don't know if anyone has noticed but 'Club Classics' in the last week or so has been a little more modern. It sounds fresh

Those are level 2 songs and won't cause much damage overnight plus it eases up the rotation of the bigger songs.

Yes, I noticed they seem to have dropped the 70s songs and putting in a few more recent tracks on Club Classics although they maybe need to change the name to Club Heart if they are going to play current tracks. I like the change as I felt before there were too many 70s & 80s tracks.

although they've dropped some of the 70's songs in favour for more of the modern songs, I thought the point of club classics was to play just that "club classics", music from the 70's/80's!!?

Also, I thought playing Rod Stewart and Baby Jane would be a fairly safe song to be played on heart as it is a nice cheery feel good song

Baby Jane by Rod Stewart is one of the worst testing songs.. and yet they are hammering ot on Heart. Maybe they are not doing any more music testing?

To be embarrassed / apologise for playing these songs is beyond belief!!!!

It's not quite like that. At night, listeners are far less fiddle-happy.

You may want to check whatever research you are referring to as Baby Jane isn't one of the worst testing songs and 4 plays in over 2 months is hardly "hammering".

On Heart it played at -

16.52 (Apr 12th)
20.53 (Apr 17th)
14.08 (May 21st)
03.26 (May 23rd)

Where, when and how did you test it and who did you test it on?

It's possible for a song to have tested badly in the past but then test well now. If one test was all we ever needed radio stations could save a fortune on testing.

Baby Jane is a safe, upbeat, instantly recognisable, feel good, sing-a-long song.

It ticks all the boxes.

What's not to like?

Rubbish ! Baby jane always does well !

I love some of the 80's tracks that are being played over night. I would love to see some of these on the Time Tunnel or being played during the day

On the Time Tunnel yes. But especially on Heart Local's I think there is to much 'oldies'. Sure in Birmingham. London there is Capital, but in a few areas there is no commercial hit radio, because they are now Heart.

I was looking at Heart's music schedules the other day and wondered why London played different stuff to all the locals ones which seem to all have the same playlists. And a lot less oldies on the London Heart

It should be the other way round. Most of the ex-One Network stations are officially licenced as chart music services and need to play more recent music than Heart London/West Midlands. (See yellow card: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...ling/gwrfm.pdf)

I noticed after the 3pm school run that Heart started to play out the normal over played classics. Mr Mister, Geroge Michael etc etc. Seems they have a special set time of day when they do this.

Yes, I noticed i too and it's great!! Looks as though Heart have finally listened and realised Club Classics was never working the way it was.

Been really suprised at tracks now on the Club Classics playlist such as On The Floor, Forget You, Dynamite, We No Speak Americano....they're all less than a year old so it's very surprising to hear them on a show that used to just play old disco songs!!!!

I swear that on last week's show, the usual 70s disco stuff was not played at all and every song was from the 90s onwards.

Could Club Classics ever be more daring still and include the likes of Tinie Tempah, Pitbull, LMFAO, Far East Movement ect. on it's shows???

I wonder just why they are playing all the modern stuff as to the "club classics" the 70's / 80s' stuff, is it to sound similar to other stations in the same areas that heart broadcast to?

Not sure, but I'm glad as the 70s / 80s stuff was too boring, too 'samey'. Especially when it was every night after 7pm.

What was the point in Club Classics Overnight anyway, people are not getting ready to go to clubs/parties at that time they are trying to sleep????