Foxy and Pat on Fri, Sat and Sun PLUS Pat's 10@10 as is PLUS some decent presenters
voicetracking bespoke shows would be better. But even then, non-celeb decent presenters still cost money - something that Nation don't want to spend on their new London station.

Eeking out the Foxy and Pat links the way they are isn't good - its not a good listen. The Foxy and Pat Friday and weekend shows actually sound okay - but they need some way of delivering content during the rest of the time. Even a non-stop "workday" 11-4 may be better, with some sort of drivetime show.

They don't need to spend lots if money is tight. But they've gone too far the other way.

From the Times the aim seems to survive and break even in 18 months time.
Found this about the demise of the origanal Thames Radio in 2003.
http://www.sasradiogroup.org/memorie...kie-goes-legal
seems it was plagued by high running costs and a poor playlist before being taken over by Jackie? If the new station can keep costs down, watch the playlist and start to get listeners and more importantly advertisers on board it might reach its aim then be in a good position to add more live shows?

I just can't see many people listening right now, with very little prospect of new listeners coming on board without a proper marketing drive. I still haven't seen one bit of marketing anywhere around town - has anyone else?

I've noticed that they don't even promote the breakfast show (the driver of most listening figures) on air or on the website - only the weekend shows.

All in all, a very odd way to run and promote a station.

I give it a year, tops

The problem starts with the name. Why Thames? For most people Thames is not a radio station, it's either a defunct TV channel or, well, a river. If you see it in the station list on your DAB radio, you have no idea what Thames is. Surely it needs a name that shouts "London's Greatest Hits"?

Perhaps, but London's Greatest Hits won't quite fit into eight characters...

studio. http://imgur.com/a/5Grgp

Must be a few different studios in that building. I wonder who the other studio is with redish mic

That would be the Nation Radio Studios in South Wales. The Thames breakfast dj tweets, come through on the nation radio twitter in the morning.

Yep, most of the Nation Broadcasting station logos seem to be purple! Tony Blackburn has been sent a Thames Radio Mic muffler (he tweeted it earlier in the week), so I guess he can take it to KMFM for a photo opportunity during one of his pre-records!

A "non-stop" workday would be good, and a useful way of getting business to put it on to boost awareness. It's not like they have many ads to sell at the moment anyway.

gold has a non stop workday its not exactly unique

Listening to Foxy, interesting to hear him say "Good afternoon" at 7:15pm!

That's happened a few times now

Revealed this morning that Neil Fox will be doing Breakfast from next week, with Chris Blumer swapping to Drive

Not sure if it is being mirrored on Dragon, as they're making a big thing of "Foxy returning to London's Breakfast", so will this be a localised show or just more of the shared links ?

Presumably this time he'll be saying good afternoon at 7:15am?

Chris Blumer's tweet says 1-4pm, not drive.

As for Neil Fox on breakfast, I wouldn't expect much more than "Hi this is Foxy at breakfast, great music to get you going in the morning - travel news next", "This is Thames Radio, getting you up in the morning - this is Foxy with more of London's greatest hits next", "Good morning this is Neil Fox at breakfast through until 10, on Thames Radio", "Waking up London every weekday morning, this Neil Fox at breakfast right here on Thames Radio". BUT - let's wait and see, happy to be corrected.

He barely talks on his existing voice tracked show during the week. Just changing time slot won't suddenly bring the audience flocking unless perhaps they've decided to do a live show.

I would think Neil is live. Where are the studios in London?

Doesn't sound like it to me.

I don't think there are any studios. A shared 'facility' or a microphone and MacBook in an office somewhere are probably being used to record the links. Nation Radio is based in Wales which is likely where the playout system is based. (A PC in a rack or a 486/33 in a dusty corner). OK last bit tongue in cheek, but big names of times past makes an otherwise voicetracked station have a bit of credibility. I've always been able to tell when's Foxy is live or pre recorded, even during the Chart Show days when some of the inserts were on tape.

Don't get me wrong, if you like the music and appreciate what seems like a very big nod to a nostalgic Capital Radio hay day in the 90s, then that's great. I'm not knocking them at all, I've been listening a fair bit. But don't believe it's anything other than done on the cheap. Whether people notice it or listen to it, to at least pay the bills remains to be seen. But a bit more choice isn't a bad thing. Good luck to them, it has worked for others and will continue to. Brave in a way, it's a very mature and saturated market in London.

Absolutely. It certainly takes guts to be launching a mainstream music station in the most competitive radio market in the country. But it's hard to see how they'll ever succeed when they're not doing anything to tell Londoners they exist, and treating the handful who do listen like idiots.

I'd like to think the schedule changes are in recognition of the fact that they need to serve Londoners much, much better than they currently are if they're to have even a slim chance of survival.

In reality, I suspect it's just another cynical and disrespectful attempt to make people think they're listening to something they're not - although I'd love to be proven wrong.

Neil will be live as he has just been on This Morning & said he will be getting up early for the breakfast show from next week .

Maybe, maybe not. That could be totally true. It could be part of a 'make it sound like it's live' thing. We'll see.

As I say, it's pretty easy to tell when Foxy is live or pre-rec. He comes across very differently.

I think it's pretty dire when it's voice tracked. There's just no personality to it. I can't see them making it past a year as it's just so tedious to listen to. Much prefer live shows when the DJ was the main part of the show rather than just automated rubbish. Just tuned in after a month to see if it was any different and nope, still exactly the same. Such a shame. Nice idea though as I loved Capital FM in the 80s/early 90s but this isn't it

It will either be generic voice links based around breakfast, or bespoke voicetracks for each day (like his Friday and Saturday shows). With up to date news, travel and weather etc then it shouldn't sound okay.

As for being live every day, I would say it is highly unlikely that Nation could afford to pay Neil Fox to present a live breakfast 5 days a week on a radio station with very few listeners PLUS where would the studio be? He could be "getting up early" for the breakfast show to listen to it - at no point has either he or Thames Radio said anything about it being live. Theatre of the mind and all that.

I presume he currently records his voice links in a hired studio somewhere. For what goes out on air this shouldn't take more than an hour. To voice links for 5 breakfast shows, that may become 3 or 4 hours in a hired studio - so not too costly, either for the studio or his time.

Happy to be proved wrong of course, Neil Fox doing breakfast live in London would sound pretty good.