Don't agree entirely, I remember we used to call it Choice FM lite at the time! The music wasn't that bad, it had no direction or identity ,but the line up was pretty poor too and didn't play to the strength of the presenters.

Bacon's show with radio 2 esque jingles, Neil Bentley talking to Darts teams around London, Chris Brooks with the 80s voice, I could go on

Capital has a problem, which is that the audience has a different expectation of it in each area.

In the likes of central Scotland it's always been seen as the alternative to the heritage station and Real Radio, so it fits in perfectly to the market. However in areas such as the South Coast and, of course, London, it is the heritage station and is expected to do a bit more than just bang out the hits non-stop. Hence the mish-mashy presentation, mixing ultra-cool voiceovers, big competitions and big celebrities with 80s sounding sung Capital FM jingles and "Capital Reports". Lovely for the radio geeks, if a bit baffling.

But the people you have to blame for this situation are the advertiers. They didn't 'get' Galaxy, forcing a rethink. Advertisers, on the other hand, do 'get' Capital, so the idea of providing that to advertise on on a national scale must have been irresistable.

The problem now is matching up the different expectations of what the station should be doing, and I can understand why they might not have got that spot on first time.

Besides, most listeners probably don't actually notice the difference. They just want a station that bangs out the hits they love when they tune in. So the issue isn't as big as it seems.

I have always wondered if the EX Galaxy listeners lets say Jean in Leeds. With her three kids. Money is tight. Does she care if Roberto was "Chilling with Gary Barlow in a bar" when she can't pay her bills? No.

p_c_u_k - you have hit the nail on the head there! It has to be tons of different things to many different people. Galaxy, as Andi Durrant said in his close-down link, was something a bit different - you had your traditional breakfast show on the heritage Radio Aire in Leeds for example which your mum might listen to on the way to work, and then Hirsty's daily dose was that bit cooler and not just something people's parents would enjoy too (many did of course).

However, RAM FM, Trent, etc all were heritage stations and so the listeners are often slightly older and expect more of the station. I still wonder what the listeners to Johnny and Lisa in London think of all the R'n'b and such that Capital appear to play in the mornings to satisfy the Galaxy formats elsewhere. It doesn't seem to bother them that much according to listenership figures, but manufactured music is something people often tire of more quickly as it is often similar for many years.

Capital in Manchester instead of sounding like a cool alternative to Key 103 like it used to, now sounds like it is emulating Key 103 and not doing it quite so well as it isn't local.

Capital sounds like Kiss Lite. In London it is stuck as it can't be too similar to Kiss, but yet can't be all-round CHR...

Understandable logic on the ex-Galaxy listeners from Sean, but I believe the theory over Jean from Leeds was comprehensively tested when Radio 1 put Mark and Lard, two 'ordinary blokes' on in the morning. They felt that, after Chris Evans's boasting about flash cars and celebrities the audience may warm to more down-to-earth conversation. We know how that went.

It's not a straight comparison - Mark and Lard generally had a far less mainstream offering - but if you look at the sales of celeb magazines, I think that gives you an idea of where the audience's interests lie.

'Personality' doesn't necessarily translate as 'waffle on too much'. A good jock can exhibit a lot of personality in tight, short links as proved on Galaxy. I suspect the people you mention (although I never heard them on Capital) were allowed to waffle on far too much. Neil Bentley was good when he was on Galaxy years ago however.

Brilliant.

I think the problem with Capital is that the whole station sound has changed to what it was before.

With the Heart rollout, the heritage stations were in some cases molded into a Heart style format way before heart is coming started. The audience was gained or lost before the rebrand so no real issues.

However Galaxy was still your cool best friend on a night out until the end so when Capital arrived it was just too much of a change and a bad one at that. Basically overnight Galaxy went from being a cool hip and trendy station with personality presenters who you could tell enjoyed the music they were playing to a strict tight commercially driven CHR station.

The Birmingham audience certainly disagree with you, Capital Birmingham is achieving record highs for that license, and has overtaken Radio One, Capital is only being beaten in the Birmingham market by Heart.

In the East Midlands, Capital FM is number one, beating all BBC stations, national and local, and easily beating Gem.

And, as has been pointed out elsewhere, if you look at BBC Derby's TSA for instance, Capital FM is now scoring a reach of 121,000 listeners, Ram was only managing around 100,000......so Capital is a bigger success in that market than the "heritage" station which preceeded it.

Yes, but there have been declines in Manchester, Yorkshire, North East and Scotland have there not? As someone has pointed out, I do think there has been too much of a dramatic change between Galaxy and the January 2011 Capital.

Where are the stats showing the reach in the Radio Derby area? I can only find stats for the whole East Midlands - how does it compare with the previous Trent in Nottingham??

Its been on air for 8 months and I'm not hearing it anywhere when I'm around Derby. I've heard Gem far more...

You need to be subscribed to RAJAR to see detailed results in all the individual broadcast areas

in BBC Derby's area, Capital reaches 121,000, Gem reaches 106,000, and Smooth reaches 95,000

The figures for Derby could be explained by the following.

People in Radio Derby's TSA in border areas such as Long Eaton, Ilkeston may of listened to Trent FM and not RAM FM pre merger so now that its all included in one, them Trent listeners will now show on Capital East Mids in the Radio Derby TSA.

I'd like to see the figures for 102.8 only, I think then you will see it dropping below 100,000.

Well there's no way of telling, since its the same station

Irrelevant anyway, that's how many people in the area choose to listen to Capital East Mids, who cares which transmitter they're listening to?

My point was that just because an increase in the Radio Derby TSA for Capital has been shown in RAJAR doesn't mean that it is now out performing RAM FM.

Its likely that there has been a loss on 102.8 (RAM listeners) and new listeners from 96.2 (ex-Trent listeners) in the Derby TSA has been added to show a net gain of around 21,000 which ain't bad!

What is Capital East Midlands 105.4 like? Leicester have been the worst hit as they all there local presenters, at least Nottingham & Derby listeners still have T&E and D&P to tune in for.

Actually, looking back to pre Capital results, 120,000 is about where the combined Trent/Ram figure was in BBC Derby's patch...so the reach for both 102.8/96.2 looks to have remained the same...which is a good result i would say, given that lots of people on here were saying it would be a bloodbath....and Gem doesn't look to be a threat

BBC Derby not so great though, they seem to have lost 30,000 listeners quarter on quarter

It is very good John especially with such a change as a merger.

GEM is more of a threat for BBC Derby than Capital in my opinion, also BBC Derby is likely to of taken a hit from Amber Sound & Erewash Sound, both in its heart land targeting the same sort of demographic.

Yes agreed, Capital is the only station serving the younger end of the market up against Radio One, so i think we'll continue to see it grow later this in this market.

At the older end there is Gem, Smooth, and Radio Derby. Like you say, Amber Sound, Erewash Sound, Ashbourne Radio and High Peak Radio will all chip away at the BBC local audience as well

I don't know wherever it's just me but i've noticed an increase in bass during Andi's show.

This was explained earlier in the thread, it's because Andi makes his own mixes at home and his mixer likely has more bass on it than Capital's equipment. I agree though, Capital sounds much better when Andi's on, it almost sounds like Galaxy again with the more powerful bass and toned-down top-end.

Just heard that Capital will play the unedited version of Loca People by Sak Noel soon.

Yeah... I can just imagine it... F's all over the show in this song.

When I came to Spain and I saw people partying
I thought to myself: What the f*ck!?
All day, all night
All day, all night
Viva la fiesta, viva la noche
Viva los DJ's
I couldn't believe what I was living
So I called my friend Johnny
And I said to him: Johnny,
La gente esta muy loca,
What the f*ck!?

I think that James Barr's show sounds a lot better on a Saturday then on any other day. He seems to hide all of his remixes for the Saturday show

Yeah, he slips in a few older tunes on a Saturday too that you never get to hear any other time like Booty Luv and Fedde Le Grand etc.

Interesting.

10am, and I hear James Barr say "It's Hair straighteners o'clock on the south coast, here's pitbul", over the intro to Katy Perry - Last Friday Night.