But as I finished typing "All I want for xmas" started to play @ 16:15!

Haha, typical

That can't be right. I was listening to Bassman, and he did the Cash Call, I think it was 3-4pm, with the xmas song (Slade) finally playing just before the end of the hour as Song #10.

You seem better now! I don't get so wound up by your posts now, you've definitely calmed right down.

I think we still disagree on how they can grow the station. My opinion is that they need personalities, I've said a few times that if they changed Capital to be more like 2day FM in Sydney it could be a huge success.

At the moment they don't offer anything that you can't get on Spotify.

Except competitions, artist interviews, artist news, Summertime Ball, Jingle Bell Ball, local breakfast and drive personalities, "in the mix" (Roman's show, weekends etc) to name a few elements.

In other words, same songs but delivered differently by remixes and live performances. Whilst in 2011/12 they broke away from the curfew by offering Andi Durrant, Sasha Brookes and Mash with (off the playlist) music.

Ok, I'll rephrase. They don't offer much that Spotify doesn't provide.

The presenters are only allowed to speak for 30 seconds at a time mostly. The balls and interviews are few and far between. Haven't you heard truly successful radio stations in other countries?

They are personality driven, get huge exposure on social media and get the audience to match. You're never going to get that with Capital which is 95% jukebox format.

Why is the top 40 'speed link' format not an acceptable radio format in your view? It's very very similar to Z100, another "truly successful radio station" from another country.

It offers "you know what you're going to get". So if I get in my car, and want current chart music (and little else) within 5 seconds of turning the key, Capital wins every time, over faffing with my phone to get Spotify going and selecting a playlist etc.

Are you sure...?!

Will Manning and Amy Vivian have a show together on Boxing Day, I think they are future presenters for the breakfast show once Dave Berry packs it in.

Would that be the same 2Day FM that's currently 10th in the Sydney market, having seen its ratings fall off a cliff?

Capital, meanwhile, is no. 1 in London commercially on reach.

Yes, Global have really screwed it up haven't they.

http://www.capitalfm.com/manchester/...7-2c44551bedae

Skip to '2:37' for Slade, that would've been 3:37pm.

Completely agree. People go to Capital for the hits. They don't want waffle or "personality"

They might as well have no presenters then

Exactly! Anyway I'm thinking of Capital as a national station going forward. Forget the local shows, I'm not even thinking about them.

It's no faff to use Spotify in my car, it just starts playing when I select my iPhone in the car.

No station has grown truly huge using Capital's current non-stop music format. Z100 has some big personality driven shows, so you can't count that. Elvis Duran followed by Seacrest's syndicated show. On the version of the Elvis Duran show that goes out on Z100 there's loads of talking. Way more than Capital's breakfast shows.

I'd say it's pretty huge already so doesn't really need to grow. I'm sure they're more than happy with it. It's also free, whereas you need to pay for Spotify if you don't want ads and it also uses data allowance

I'm with you there, especially with the local shows. The idea of making Capital national replacing the Galaxy stations, was to grow the brand and spread it across, pretty much, the entire country. Same thing's happened with Heart, they've burst through the doors of local station buildings, for now using 2 local shows weekdays and 1 local show weekends to keep Ofcom happy, while they wait for permission to lock up throw away the keys and broadcast the whole thing from London. The local shows add nothing. No proper local content, and as already mentioned in this forum Capital is all about the hits.

But Spotify is free with ads, you need to pay for no ads. Absolute Radio have a subscription service where you pay for a bonus song or two to replace the ads. Good idea.

Correct. I imagine they'd love not to have local shows and as soon as they can get away with scrapping them by the regulator then they will

Nope, it really isn't.

In which case we'll agree to differ

I don't know how you can say Capital in its current form is "huge". With the population our country has it could be getting a FAR higher audience.

But it's not available on FM everywhere. I dare say if it was it would be doing ok

Seacrest's show is mostly short celebrity gossip-based links, repackaged from his KIIS-FM show. Hardly amazing stuff.

Even though this doesn't coincide with the topic, I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! 🎄