Latest news about Absolute 80s

Overnight changes as Chris Martin promoted at Absolute Radio

Chris Martin has been promoted to the role of Executive Music Producer at Absolute Radio meaning an end to his overnight show. Chris, who previously led programming on Absolute Classic Rock will now add Absolute 80s to his responsibilities. As a result, Dan Noble will move to take on the 1-6am weekday slot, with Sophie K taking on the late-night weekend ‘Through the Decades’ show on Fridays and Saturdays from 10pm...

You are invited to Absolute Radio’s Christmas Party

Absolute Radio has announced it is creating the UK’s first virtual office Christmas party, and anybody is invited to join in. Bastille and Blossoms will be the headline performers in the day-long event which is happening on-air on Friday 4th December. Bastille will be performing live tracks and chatting to Dave Berry on the Absolute Radio Breakfast show while Blossoms will be joining Andy Bush and Richie Firth for Hometime. To bring the Office Christmas party to a close, the station is working with KISS FM stablemates the Dixon Brothers who will be doing a special Absolute 80s mix from 7pm...

RAJAR Q1 2020: London and national brands roundup

BBC Radio 2 has lost almost a million listeners in the last year, according to the Q1/2020 audience research from RAJAR. The reach of the UK’s biggest radio station fell from 15.356m at the start of 2019 to 14.362m over the first three months of this year. The two biggest commercial radio networks – Heart and Capital – both lost significant reach over the 12 months too. The Heart network lost 787,000 listeners to leave a reach of 7.737m, while Capital dropped 815,000 to 6.386m. When you add in the other Heart and Capital branded stations – 70s, 80s, 90s, Dance, Xtra and Xtra Reloaded – the Heart brand reaches 9.365m and the Capital brand 7.502m...

RAJAR Q4 2019: London and national brands round-up

Coverage of the general election helped 5 Live, Radio 4 and LBC each add half a million listeners across 2019. 5 Live is up from 4.9m to 5.4m in the Q4/2019 RAJAR listening figures, while Radio 4 has added a similar amount, rising from 10.4m a year ago to 10.9m now. LBC, including new digital station LBC News, posts a record high of 2.7m listeners (up more than half a million year on year), while talkRADIO is up more than 40% from 12 months ago to now have 433,000 listeners a week – another record high for the Wireless station...

Paul Gambaccini to host radio series on Absolute 80s

Absolute 80s is to broadcast a new series of programmes hosted by Paul Gambaccini to celebrate the station’s 10th birthday. £80,000 will also be up for grabs in a competition run by Dave Berry on the Breakfast Show. The four-part series with Gambo, called Tribes, will look at the sub-cultures that defined the decade, their cultural impact and how that still resonates today. Broadcast at 7pm from Monday 2nd December – Thursday 5th December, the series will see Paul taking a look at the musical icons of the era, and how their impact shaped popular culture...

Absolute Radio’s Hometime expands across network

Absolute Radio’s Hometime show is to be shared across the other Absolute-branded stations, with 7 separate playlists. The programme, presented by Andy Bush and Richie Firth for the last year, will air on Absolute’s decades stations – 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s – as well as Absolute Classic Rock and the main station. The split playlist technology developed by RCS and Bauer is already used on the Dave Berry Breakfast Show to enable genre specific music for each service alongside the live presenter content.

RAJAR Q2 2019: London and national brands round-up

Zoe Ball has lost more than three quarters of a million listeners to her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, according to the latest audience research from RAJAR. The show’s reach is down 781,000 quarter-on-quarter to 8.266m for the three months survey period up to the 23rd June 2019. In Q1/19 she had 9.047m listeners; in Q2/2018 Chris Evans reached 9.038m. Radio 2’s audience at breakfast is now the lowest its been since Q3/2010, when Evans was fairly new in the job.

Ross Buchanan joins Absolute Radio for weekend breakfast

Absolute Radio has signed former Radio X presenter Ross Buchanan to present weekend breakfast. Ross will also host a number of shows across the network of seven Absolute Radio stations. Absolute Radio Content Director Paul Sylvester told RadioToday: “Ross is a passionate music fan and this is a great opportunity for him to share his love on-air. He’s got a great personality and we’re delighted to give him a platform to develop.”

RAJAR Q1 2019: Milestones reached for DAB and digital radio

Digital listening has reached a new record share of 56.4%, up from 50.9% in Q1 2018, according to RAJAR Q1 2019 data released today. The annual growth of 5.5 percentage points to 56.4% from 50.9% represents the strongest ever percentage point growth in digital listening platform share since records began. Digital reach increased by over 2 million listeners to 36.3 million and overall digital listening grew by 55.9 million hours or by 10.7% year on year.

RAJAR Q1 2019 – Zoe & Chris plus national and London radio round-up

Chris Evans and Virgin Radio both reached over a million listeners in the first quarter of 2019. The digital station’s audience has almost trebled compared with the last period of 2018 thanks to the arrival of Evans from Radio 2. In Q1/2019 it posts a weekly reach of 1.3m and total hours of 7.765m. A year ago those figures were 427,000 and 1.632m. Last quarter they were 447,000 and 1.686m.