So, Trent FM, together with Leicester Sound and Ram FM, have been consumed by the mighty Capital FM; in pretty much the same way as every high street up and down the land looks the same, now it'll sound the same too. Industry experts, true to form, say it's a good thing. One even said 'I think, on balance, it’ll produce a sensible quasi-national brand that’ll benefit the radio industry as a whole. And that’s the important thing.' Eh?
Stop the world, I want to get off.
Don't get me wrong, Radio Trent ceased to have any local relevance many moons ago. It probably went awol when it lost its 301 meters frequency on the medium wave. And, as any fool will tell you, I'm not the demographic they're aiming at anyway. But, with syndicated presenters and news from London, local commercial radio is up there with Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool - they may play at the stadium in the town, but with squads comprising mainly Johnny Foreigners, they have little or no real link to the community.
But, it wasn't always thus:
I don't really listen to much radio these days. Planet Rock a bit and Radio 1 in the morning only as I do find Chris Moyles entertaining. It is a shame when he has to play music actually as most of it is terrible, but now and again you hear something on there and go "Oh that is good - who was that?"
ReplyDeleteOur local commercial station was Invicta (Kent county slogan, dates back to a battle with some invading Saxons I believe) but it is now Heart and just rubbish.
I thought years ago that Virgin was refused a national FM slot because the govt then wanted more local stations... but if they are all just syndicated for a lot of the shows etc... another one of those what a load of old tosh things frankly.
It's happening down south with the all-consuming, smothering sound of Heart FM. I was never a regular commercial listener anyway, expect for the Sunday evening problem shows - prefering the micro-news of BBC stations. But the more formula the format has become the less I've listened - the playlists seem to be aimed at girls and young mums: Simply Red, M-People, boy bands…not my kinda cuppa
ReplyDeleteSomething David Hepworth said still resonates with me: people who like music generally prefer speech radio - they don't want some clown deciding what records they should be listening to. And he's right: my dial is invariably set to Radio 4, with 6 Music and 7 thrown in from time to time if funk or comedy is required. For everything else, there's podcasts.
ReplyDeleteyes, they said much the same when Capital took over Xfm... some 'ol puff along the lines of "why would we want to change a winning formula... blah blah". Within a month it was unlistenable.
ReplyDeleteBad luck JM