Thanks Clive, of course when I mentioned your name I clearly forgot the 'rather excellent' bit before it.

Russ Underwood is Russell Holding who can be heard presenting the travel news on Talk Radio & Talk Sport, isn't he?

How about Russell Pocket, Richard Skinner and Mike Read?

It will be interesting to see who does Breakfast during the week, I would have thought they would get 'a name' into do that slot. It would be great to see Dean Martin on the station with an evening request show similar to what he did on Capital Gold.

I hope they do have a full schedule of presenters rather then just a jukebox churning out the tunes all time.

There is a schedule up on the website but it makes no mention of Blackburn (though he does feature on the home page) and weekday breakfast is just listed as non-stop music so it's obviously not fully up to date.

Interestingly the online London news feed comes from the BBC.

I hope so, the schedule for now is more from a internet radiostation than for a radiostation in one of the biggest city's in the world. When you link the new station to bring back the good old days of Capital in the 80's and 90's in your press release, you must looking further for DJ's they can brand this new station to that and fits in this.

I dropped a message to the enquiries e mail address on their website earlier.
Two replies very quickly just telling me to spread the word and watch this space for more presenter news soon.

Tony is listed on the schedule for his soul show

Music mix is good, lots of people just want background tunes they know so i suspect it will do okay even if it doesn't meet the requirements of some of those on here who want 80's jingles and the like.

Not agree. For a station who want to create the old Capital sound of the 80's and 90's they must have typical 80's and 90's jingles to brand the station in that way.

At the very least I'd expect a London station to be live 6am to 10am and 4pm to 8pm and I'd think Tony's show will be either live or recorded as live.

Now that would be fantastic if Dean Martin's request show was back on air, or whatever show, just hearing him back on air would be a start.

Ha ha thanks!


Yes he works for the travel provider INRIX which is also providing the travel for Thames Radio with a former Jackie travel presenter Nicola Richards

It would be brilliant. I'm quite liking Thames at the moment. Nice alternative to Gold (So much choice on DAB these days). It would be good to have a full schedule as it just appears to be in test mode at the moment. If it is just the odd show, that would be a shame as it looks to have potential.

Paul Hollins maybe?

I agree, been listening for about an hour this morning and the music is great. Get a few more presenters aboard along with Neil, Pat and Tony, this will be a good station.

Might be able to get a few more well known presenters depends on there contracts letting them work for other radio stations

Playlist is very tight for a classics station. It's very repetitive. I hope they fix that.

I mentioned the very same in an e-mail to Thames yesterday, got a reply saying I wasn't the only one to suggest Dean as he was very popular. Fingers crossed

Caught a bit of Thames Radio Yesterday and again today. Does what it says on the tin plays the greatest hits, so no forgotten airplay hits, album tracks or new relases so far.

However the selection I have heard being played out is well selected and will appeal to broad range of ages. They manged to avoid irrating songs. I can see this station being played widely in shops, taxis and other workplaces.

Good to hear local news content for London and Traffic too. To capture the old Capital sound they need to make the station sound like part of London life. I look forward to hearing a full Presenter line up soon.

Thames Radio will need a bit of marketing as the public is never very quick to catch on with new DAB stations (personal experiance). The new station could secure a reasonable size audiance from what I have heard so far.

I have also emailed them some feedback & have also asked about Dean. Might be a good incentive for them to ask if they get the numbers.

Neil Francis will be doing weekdays 1-4pm, Martin Buchanan will present Totally 80s and Totally 90s at the weekends

It reminds me very much of the old Real Radio which I enjoyed very much. "Safe".
Remember when Real Radio London had its own breakfast show for a short while before reverting to Yorkshire for the rest of the day?

Neil Francis also a old Capital FM jock from early zero's. So that's good...looking forward who's next...

I thought Gary King doing Totally 80's and 90's in weekends?

Presumably, if they've got a weekday afternoon presenter, this means they'll also have presenters at breakfast and drive at least. More announcements over the coming days, I guess.

The Radio Today story says the first live show is Friday afternoon. I wonder whether this will be Neil Fox (and indeed whether 'live' means 'live'!).

Completely agree with stevecisco's point about the station needing to sound like part of London life. They're doing a good job already with the news and travel (second story on the 4pm news was Tube disruption) - if they added some 'what's on' inserts too (which none of the main London stations do), they may just have a winning formula...

I guess live as in real live, so no VT's. This station makes sense when all programs, or most of them are live. That's London, that's real radio. Than you can recreate the vibe of the old Capital when everything was live radio these days.