[michael1152]

So......if the northeast regional station Real changes into Heart will it have to keep breakfast (4hours) and Drive (3hrs) ?

[hanssolo]

Originally Posted by michael1152

So......if the northeast regional station Real changes into Heart will it have to keep breakfast (4hours) and Drive (3hrs) ?

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/con...dio/statement/

Encouraging new UK-wide services
1.16 Existing regional FM stations may request to have their localness obligations removed, allowing them to share their programming across a number of regions. We will generally consent to this in return for those stations providing a version of their programme service across the UK on DAB. This will foster competition and choice in UK-wide services, encourage a greater range and diversity of content for consumers, and provide the potential for new investment in programming. While the aim is to provide UK-wide services, the specific needs of the devolved nations mean that regional stations in Scotland and Wales will be required to retain their specific focus on programmes for their own nation for a number of hours a day.

London, NE and NW FM regions can share all programmes, as in Smooth currently from Manchester, if Global rebranded Real to Heart, then some NW or NE programmes/presenters could be on Heart London, but unlikely.
More like all programmes in the NW and NE will come from London. But until a deal is done and Global put in a request to Ofcom for a change we won't know?

Originally Posted by 882657

The whole point of Real Radio Wales was to create a national Welsh station not a regional anything. Any attempt to change it into an English based station will be met with displeasure in Wales.

But if it is not making a good profit and sold to Global, will just reduce to breakfast and drive with Tony Anstis and Nick Snaith finding they have some Welsh and Scottish links

[hanssolo]

Meant Toby Anstis, seems "It is currently the most listened to commercial radio show in the UK." and may be much bigger (with improved ad rates and profitability) if Global get their way to buy and rebrand Real!

[Black Label]

Originally Posted by hanssolo

But if the Real licences are regional than Global could just sack all the GMG staff and have everything from London with Jamie and Harriot for breakfast.

Best option for the GMG staff and Real/Smooth listeners is if UTV increases it's bid and starts to make Real (or renamed Signal?) national alongside Talksport, Smooth and Smooth 70's.
.

The very reason why a UTV takeover would be ‘good for GMG staff’ is the very reason the takeover would make far less sense for UTV!

UTV would have to retain the existing GMG operation as-is, albeit with limited scope for shared back office savings.

They would have to still retain the existing GMG operations, for example the costly Baillieston HQ out of which comes Real Scotland, Smooth Glasgow, and Real Radio XS 96.3.

Global on the other hand would close this operation and instead simply run Heart and Gold out of their existing Capital FM HQ in Glasgow. Virtually all the staff at Baillieston would be let go apart from a few presenters to cover off the local opt-outs on Heart and Gold (I presume Real XS would shut), and maybe a couple of sales staff would transfer too, to support Global's enhanced operation in Scotland. Everybody else (producers, journos, S&P people, sports team and whoever does the cleaning at Baillieston) would be let go, and at Pacific Quay current Capital Scotland MD Paul Cooney would oversee an ultra lean operation making the most of his existing staff.

This pattern would repeat across the country.

[hanssolo]

Originally Posted by Black Label

UTV would have to retain the existing GMG operation as-is, albeit with limited scope for shared back office savings.

They would have to still retain the existing GMG operations, for example the costly Baillieston HQ out of which comes Real Scotland, Smooth Glasgow, and Real Radio XS 96.3.

UTV could make savings in England and Wales by some rationalisation, making Real UK wide at times and selling air time alongside Talksport, but will be the first step into Scotland and will struggle to make savings, but could just about run a profitable business with a bit of risk if the advertising rates do not pick up.
Agree that Global will make much more savings and profit!

[acefee311]

Originally Posted by hanssolo

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/con...dio/statement/

London, NE and NW FM regions can share all programmes, as in Smooth currently from Manchester, if Global rebranded Real to Heart, then some NW or NE programmes/presenters could be on Heart London, but unlikely.
More like all programmes in the NW and NE will come from London. But until a deal is done and Global put in a request to Ofcom for a change we won't know?

But if it is not making a good profit and sold to Global, will just reduce to breakfast and drive with Tony Anstis and Nick Snaith finding they have some Welsh and Scottish links

How about west Yorkshires finest freelance broadcaster Elisa Hilton, shes been on pulse and pulse 2 and covers on real radio yorkshire. She could be a great contender for heart yorkshire or a cover for the network too. The djs they'll keep would be Dixie and Gayle for breakfast and Pete for drive. But they'll have to loose Daryle during the day and David in the evenings due to the network. Plus a goodbye to ryan seacrest.

[bluesdiamond]

I notice most of the talk here is about the large size parts of a merged business.
But when I first was reading this post I forgot that Real Radio XS was in Scotland.
With XFM being Global's smallest brand it seems (809.000 listeners approx), I had wondered if Bauer would be interested in the two XFM's, now wonder if they would want Real Radio XS either as XFM brand or Kerrang. Or could Absolute take Real Radio XS and Kerrang take XFM?

Also wondered how Orion would react if Smooth was called Gold in the West Midlands, but see that they are rebranding to Free Radio 80's (with Absolute 80's being the most popular of the Decade brands will be intersting to see if an AM station with Sport added in could be a Decade station).

[omnidirectional]

Originally Posted by hanssolo

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/con...dio/statement/

London, NE and NW FM regions can share all programmes, as in Smooth currently from Manchester

They could do that with Heart West Midlands now, but have chosen to keep local Breakfast and Drive so I don't think they'll network everything from London on the Real stations either.

[Black Label]

Originally Posted by hanssolo

UTV could make savings in England and Wales by some rationalisation, making Real UK wide at times and selling air time alongside Talksport, but will be the first step into Scotland and will struggle to make savings, but could just about run a profitable business with a bit of risk if the advertising rates do not pick up.
!

In fact UTV used to own stations in Scotland but got shot of them all. They sold Q96, ironically, to GMG, sold Wave 102 to private owners and closed Talk 107 after 3 disastrous years.

Looked at another way, UTV's GB arm as a business is a continuation of The Wireless Group. TWG also owned Scot FM of old which they sold to GMG in 2001 to become Real Radio Scotland!

GMG have to bear in mind that while they have had to write down their radio assets, it is they who are significantly responsible for falsely inflating the value of radio stations by the very making of big money purchases over the past decade or so in the first place!

[omnidirectional]

Originally Posted by Black Label

GMG have to bear in mind that while they have had to write down their radio assets, it is they who are significantly responsible for falsely inflating the value of radio stations by the very making of big money purchases over the past decade or so in the first place!

The ironic thing is in the case of the two Century stations, Chrysalis offered more than GMG, but Gcap decided to sell them to GMG anyway. Best link I can find at the moment is from this forum: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...8&postcount=90

The whole Global takeover of GMG has gone strangely quiet, unlike the takeover of Gcap when news was leaking out every day.,,

[Arkudos]

Come on private investors, save the radio.

[philengland]

Originally Posted by James Martin 2

Stations outside of England can't share programming fully with stations IN England. Regional licenses in the Home Nations must have a breakfast and drive from within that country.

Gold in South Wales & North Wales have the 12noon - 4pm slot done from Cardiff

Hope if Global do get Real, they will do something with it, I think putting Gold on to FM would be a good move - they can keep Heart up North, and Capital down South, putting Gold on to FM, maybe with local Breakfast & Drive would be a good idea, then they could get rid of their AM transmitters!

or - maybe they will put Smooth out in Wales??

[wavejockglw]

Originally Posted by philengland

Gold in South Wales & North Wales have the 12noon - 4pm slot done from Cardiff

Hope if Global do get Real, they will do something with it, I think putting Gold on to FM would be a good move - they can keep Heart up North, and Capital down South, putting Gold on to FM, maybe with local Breakfast & Drive would be a good idea, then they could get rid of their AM transmitters!

or - maybe they will put Smooth out in Wales??

It'll be very simple. Where there is no Heart coverage it will be made available on Real's frequencies. The jury is still out on Smooth but I suspect Gold will replace it so that Global have three clear offerings. Capital for the under 25s, Heart for the 25-54s and Gold for the over 50s. Global are about strong national brands that are distinct and marketed at a clearly defined audience.

Hopefully the GMG deal will be concluded soon and Global can get on with the business of delivering their popular formats to more areas.

[Black Label]

Originally Posted by hanssolo

GMG now think the radio group is worth about £75m, so there is a gap of about £25m from what Global have offered, however Global will also need a lot of extra money for legal work, redundancies, breaking of contracts, rent and other costs to make the current stations profitable. So the talks are probably continuing to reduce this gap?.

Quite possibly.

Global’s interest in GMG is their licences AND ONLY THE LICENCES.

I imagine Global have no interest in taking on GMG’s radio business as a whole, as this will simply mean they have the costs involved in closure. This ranges from redundancy payments to the very high HR costs of ensuring this process is fair and above board, costs of breaking contracts, service agreements and leases, returning properties to the state they found them…….and so on.....as you rightly say.

Global will probably want GMG to deal with all of this but GMG will want the cost of doing so offset by a higher sale price. Global will therefore also need to know exactly what they want to do with the stations before any deal is concluded.

The scenario would probably be very similar (but on a larger scale) to when GMG bought Q96 in 2006. They didn’t inherit the business as a whole, so they avoided TUPE transfer laws, and it was left to Q’s owners UTV to go through the due HR process of looking for other posts for their staff within their own business then making them redundant.

However at the same time, GMG management DID give Q staff the chance to apply for consideration for transfer to GMG’s operation . Then Radio Scotland PD Jay Crawford actually went into Q and gave the presenters the chance to pitch to him, and a handful of them and other staff did transfer over.

I imagine Global’s ideal would be a similar ‘cherry-picking’ exercise leaving GMG to tidy up the rest.

[hanssolo]

Originally Posted by wavejockglw

The jury is still out on Smooth but I suspect Gold will replace it so that Global have three clear offerings. Capital for the under 25s, Heart for the 25-54s and Gold for the over 50s.

The Gold format has not grown, whereas Smooth which features new artists and the chance to promote concerts for over 50's has been growing, and not just because of FM coverage, so I think Global may decide to drop Gold instead and keep Smooth, making more of a distinction from Heart.
But from the wiki seems Gold itself has been slowly evolving moving into Heart's age range.

Gold aim their music at people aged 50 or over. However, in the last few years there has been a noticeable shift in general daytime programming from playing classic artists such as Sinatra, Presley, 'King' Cole, Como etc in favour of more contemporary artists of the last 15 years or so, thus capturing yesterday's teenagers now today's thirtysomethings.

Or perhaps go down a decades route with Smooth/Gold 70s and 60s stations?

Originally Posted by Black Label

I imagine Global’s ideal would be a similar ‘cherry-picking’ exercise leaving GMG to tidy up the rest.

This is where is can become messy! GMG don't have the local papers anymore, where ex GMG radio journalists and admin could be offered jobs.
Nothing on Media Guardian today, so talks may last for another week or two?

[hanssolo]

Originally Posted by Arkudos

Come on private investors, save the radio.

Sadly too much risk involved to run it as a standalone operation!

[tomhourigan]

Originally Posted by hanssolo

Nothing on Media Guardian today, so talks may last for another week or two?

Think again.

[Harris Tweed]

Originally Posted by 882657

The whole point of Real Radio Wales was to create a national Welsh station not a regional anything. Any attempt to change it into an English based station will be met with displeasure in Wales.

In RAJAR, "GCap local brands" reached 401,000 people in Wales in the last quarter before it reported as Global (Q2/08). At this point, the stations all had their own local brand names and local management.

In every survey since then until this one, "Global ILR" has scored *more* than that.. getting up to 537k in the first survey after the stations merged - admittedly declining since that. But even the last one (383k) is only about 4 per cent down on GCap's performance, which when you consider the amount of cost they've stripped out is a nailed-on business win.

Are people flocking to the merged stations? No. Is there much evidence yet that they're deserting in great enough numbers to worry the powers-that-be in Leicester Square? I'd say not.

[dpb]

Global have confirmed the purchase:

https://twitter.com/MaisieMcCabe/sta...82077165109248

http://radiotoday.co.uk/2012/06/glob...uys-gmg-radio/

[Bingethink]

Blimey! Global buys GMG? Who'd have thought it? That came from nowhere! We should start a discussion about that!

(DPB should win a prize, though, for being first!)

[simon243]

Let the fun begin.

I predict Real will be Heart and Smooth will be Gold by Christmas, provided it doesn't go to the Competition Commission.

It didn't with GCap, and that took about 6 months.

Question is now - what will they sell?

[goldlistener]

Originally Posted by simon243

Let the fun begin.

I predict Real will be Heart and Smooth will be Gold by Christmas, provided it doesn't go to the Competition Commission.

It didn't with GCap, and that took about 6 months.

Question is now - what will they sell?

Real Radio XS will be sold off or closed pretty quickly I would imagine, they may possibly rebrand the Scottish version to XFM but cant really see it.

Real will become Heart that is obvious, it gives Global a Heart station in Scotland, Wales and the north which they desperatly wanted.

I am not sure about Smooth though. Will there be competition issues in the West and East Midlands and London? They had to off load Heart in the East Midlands so will they not have to sell Smooth in the same area?

It may be possible Global only really wanted Real and might sell off Smooth. If not I cant see it becoming Gold, if it does then they will really need to up Golds game as at the moment I dont believe it is strong enough!

[DiandalScotland]

So the heart attack starts... A shame for all the djs that are

going to lose their jobs. Here in Scotland The Real Radio

Football phone in is very popular- Will Heart keep that?

(assuming that changes take place)

Gee How radio has changed over the last few years, eh.

[darkknight77]

Originally Posted by DiandalScotland

Football phone in is very popular- Will Heart keep that?

.

No chance.

[SouthCity]

Originally Posted by simon243

Let the fun begin.

I predict Real will be Heart and Smooth will be Gold by Christmas, provided it doesn't go to the Competition Commission.

It didn't with GCap, and that took about 6 months.

Question is now - what will they sell?

It will almost certainly go to the Competition Commission - the other radio groups are not going to allow this to be waved through lightly.

The Welsh Assembly Government will probably make a submission to the CC about the same company owning Capital & Real in Cardiff (and Real & Heart in North Wales). The fun has only just begun with this one - it could drag on for months, if not a year.