I agree with every word you say.It's got to the point where it's actually tarnished the memories I have connected with some songs. Could do with a good five year break from any hint of Candle in the Wind.

........could I suggest Candle In The Wind '97 instead? ... ...

Please note. The lawnmower has not been locked away in the shed tonight and the cafe will be open 1 hour later tomorrow morning. Be careful out there.

Well, Funny how the "global brigade" dismissed the outcry on those social media sites, as trivial, and not worth bothering about when the Capital changes were implemented!

As I have said MANY times in the past, they have more "spin" than Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar combined!

Agreed 100%. When they do speak, although it is generally just to ID the station, it flows much better. The imaging and everything about Magic , whether you love it or loathe it, it is a quality well programmed radio product.

If they must persist with Candle in the Eternal Wind, then give us the live 1987 version, which is far and away my favourite version. Either that, or Everytime You Refuse to Go Away by Paul Young, which I had the pleasure of hearing again and again and again and again and again and again for the first time on Smooth Breakfast with Simon Pre-Recording this morning on a continual loop.

as I said in a previous thread as the station has lost all its personality they may just as well save themselves a fortune and have voiceover Mitchell Johnson in between all the music he is better than most anyway.

Agree with you there apart from Simon Bates who seems to still have a licence to communicate all be it rather restricted compared with Pre Global Smooth there seems little point in employing a human robot when they could merely be replaced by a jingle/sweeper combination.

Smooth has been almost destroyed they might as well finish it off. Makes me feel pretty sad really when I think about how good Smooth used to be with its mix of classic old and decent new music linked by great presenters.

Haven't heard Candle in the Wind yet this morning. This is national disgrace. Who should I complain to?

Relaunching a radio station by adding unfamiliar music is commercial suicide. At this stage in Smooth's transition you don't add stuff people don't know even if it's by a core artist.

Here we go again. The same old refrain. So you simply take the easy/lazy option and programme the same old stuff. That's hardly going to gain listeners is it? New stuff , unfamiliar music should entice people to listen. Why would I bother if its simply what I can get elsewhere?

Yes but as far as the listener is concerned the station isn't being relaunched is it? It's a station they have loved for years now behaving very uncharacteristically.As for adding stuff people don't know,that's utter tosh as there are many many core artists where only a few songs are being played and they have stacks of songs -hit songs.that would be suitable for the brand.

Why is Candle in the Wind deemed reassuringly familiar, but Blue Eyes viewed as dangerously unfamiliar?

I totally agree. There ARE loads of songs that would fit the brand. However research dictates otherwise. Songs which you would THINK would work well quite often don't and they score poorly when tested.

Say what you want about music research but it works and it's a very successful programming tool if used correctly.

Are all new release easy listening songs, like Voyeur, now dropped from testing (like they used to be)?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/playlist#a

And of course if it backs up your own point of view then you repeat it again and again and again and again and again (just your narrow programming of tunes) and eventually you convince yourself its true.

It is true though because it works and there is evidence of sucessfull stations all over the world who use this aproach and it works.

Can you explain why Heart is a sucess with this aproach, why Magic 105.4 is a success with this aproach, why Capital is a sucess with this aproach. In fact you'd be hard pushed to find a successfull commercial station that targets women and doesn't programme their music in this way.

You might not understand why it works but it does and the people who run Global and Richard Park in particular has a very good track record and I'm sure he knows a thing or two about music programming and making a commercial radio station a sucess.

Success doesn't just mean in audience terms by the way it mean a good business too although in radio higher audience generally means more money.

I'd wager the point of this exercise is not to just maintain the existing audience that allows Smooth to not even score in the top 10 stations in London, the aim is to bring more listeners in and even make some money for the first time in the station's history.

Comparing Radio 2 to commercial radio is totally pointless, they have next to nothing in common and what works for one certainly doesn't for the other.

A Different Corner on,AGAIN
This is bloody ridiculous

I might have guessed that the "it really does work because I say so, but you don't understand it" argument would get am airing. And as for saying success doesn't necessarily mean audience, what an attitude. Bugger the listening audience as long as we make money...as if it wasn't us listeners paying the money. Dear oh dear.

Here we go again the notorious reference to the infamous Global research & testing that no one has ever been asked about much like the RAJAR diaries.
Would you please enlighten me as to how & when Global actually do this so called testing & research and how many people they actually ask?
As a member of the Smooth Music Panel who completed the weekly survey each week I can assure you we were only ever asked to review new & current easy listening tracks that were played on Smooth & certainly not the oldies that they are playing now. Given that Global have presumably taken over this database surely as existing panellists our opinions of the oldies now being played to death might have been useful?

The Lovely Tina was on Paul O Grady ITV chat show this evening. Obviously Paul is unwell at present.

Indeed even making out that she is live on Smooth on a Sunday morning!!!!!

Information like that is confidential and it's certainly not going to be posted by me on a public forum such as Digital Spy. You might find this link useful as it explains how auditorium testing can be carried out.

Music research has been going on for decades and goes back to the days of ILR in the 80s. It's nothing new. All the groups do it - Bauer, UTV, Orion, etc. etc so it's not just a Global thing. Just because you haven't been asked (or anybody you know) doesn't mean it's not happening.

Every big company or corporation will research their product thoroughly and at great expense. Ever been stopped in the high street by somebody with a clipboard? Do you think McDonald's launch a new burger by sticking it on the menu and hoping for the best? No of course not. They will identify their target customer and gain feedback based on a predetermined sample size before going national with it.