Global’s Breakfast Shows go National

Breaking News: Global’s Capital, Smooth and Heart Radio will reportedly broadcast their morning breakfast shows nationally by the end of 2019.

Today marks the beginning of a new era for Global as Founder & Executive President Ashley Tabor announced plans to network the brand’s largest national breakfast shows. This move has likely been on the cards for a while, ensuring that the group properly competes with the BBC to provide national channels in the future. It’s estimated that the move will establish Heart, Capital and Smooth as the three largest commercial radio breakfast shows in the UK, with 4.8m, 3.7m and 2.7 million listeners each week.

With that being said, merging stations – means fewer broadcast sites. Here’s what to expect:

Capital

• Capital will replace 14 breakfast programmes on its network in England, Scotland and Wales in April 2019.
• Station mergers include:
  • Capital Brighton and South Coast (Meridian)
  •  Capital Birmingham and East Midlands (consisting of stations in Leicester, Nottingham and Derby) (Central)
  • Capital Manchester and Lancashire
  • London, Liverpool, North East, Yorkshire, Scotland and Wales will all maintain their local drive show. The remaining output will be networked

Heart

• Heart bids adieu to its current breakfast show set up. Instead of 22 shows, Heart will broadcast one single show across England, Scotland and Wales on all Global and Communicorp stations.
• Drivetime will also see changes as the station shrinks drive down to 10 shows from 23.

Smooth

• Similarly, Smooth will launch a new national breakfast show to replace its current breakfast shows in East Midlands, West Midlands, North West, Lake District, North East, Scotland and Wales.
• Drivetime shows will reduce to seven with the expected merger of Smooth North West and Lake District, whilst Smooth East Midlands will network with Connect FM once it has been rebranded.

Global Founder Ashley Tabor commented: “Today’s news is a huge step for the commercial radio sector…Whilst the new deregulation will mean some significant changes at an operational level, these bold steps enable Global to lead the way in launching the UK’s three largest national commercial radio breakfast shows. We’re really excited to combine the best national talent with our unique ability to include great local content in network shows on Heart, Capital and Smooth.”

Communicorp’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Lee says: “Competition from the BBC and digital services will intensify over the coming years and the new national breakfast shows will ensure we continue to be successful. Whilst I am always concerned about changes which impact on our team, it is important that we continue to evolve and grow.”