Latest news about Hits Radio

Radio stations to unite with You’ll Never Walk Alone

You’ll Never Walk Alone will be played out simultaneously on a number of radio stations this Friday morning. NPO 3FM presenter Sander Hoogendoorn had the idea to bring all radio stations in the Netherlands together during the corona crisis, but now BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and dozens more across Europe are joining in. Bauer’s Greatest Hits Radio will play the tune during Breakfast with Simon Ross from Liverpool, along with the Breakfast shows on Hits Radio stations in England, plus Country Hits Radio...

Country Hits Radio partner with the Country to Country music festival

Following a partnership with Country to Country for Country Music Week in 2019, Country Hits Radio have now partnered with Europe’s biggest country music festival for their upcoming London event. C2C: Country to Country will take place at The O2 in London over 3 days next month, featuring some of the world’s biggest country stars along with emerging talent. The Country Hits Radio Sessions at Country to Country, will feature stripped-back sets from some of the most in-demand artists right now on the country music scene...

Bauer plans big night of radio coverage at BRITs

Bauer’s Hits Radio and KISS are broadcasting live from The BRIT Awards tonight as the event marks its 40th anniversary. Gemma Atkinson and Wes Butters’ drivetime show across the Hits Radio Network stations comes from backstage at the event, with breakfast presenter Fleur East chatting to nominees on the red carpet as they arrive. The networked evening show in England with Jordan Lee will then keep listeners up to date with the awards as they happen, while Callum Gallacher presents a BRITs special on the group’s stations in Scotland...

Nominations for the 2020 IRN Awards revealed

The nominations for the 2020 IRN Awards have been announced by Sky News presenter Kay Burley. There are 12 categories including the Student Journalist of the Year prize which is supported by the Broadcast Journalism Training Council. The awards event itself will take place at Sky Cinema in west London on Thursday 26th March 2020, also hosted by Kay. IRN Editor and Chair of Judges, Dave Terris said: This is a stellar list of nominations representing the gold standard in commercial radio news and sport...

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...

RAJAR Q4 2019: Regional and local radio facts and figures

The big stories from around the regions this quarter include Capital Scotland shedding 104,000 listeners, whilst Hits Radio and Greatest Hits Radio increased listeners in the North of England. Global brands - The majority of regional and local Capital stations are down – including Capital Scotland which falls from 513,000 to 409,000 weekly reach, Capital South Wales going from 213,000 to 180,000, Manchester down from 493,000 to 437,000 and Yorkshire down to its lowest figure of 849,000. Recently acquired and...

Bauer’s Cash for Kids raised £20.9 million in 2019

Cash for Kids, Bauer Media’s dedicated charity network, has announced that £20.9 million was raised in 2019 to help disadvantaged children. Over 1 million sick and underprivileged children benefited from Cash For Kids’ campaigning, thanks to generous donations from the British public. Cash For Kids runs a number of initiatives throughout the year which is driven by Bauer brands including the Hits Radio Network, Absolute Radio, Magic Radio, Take a Break, That’s Life, Grazia, Closer and Total TV Guide...

New direction for the sound of BBC Local Radio

All BBC local radio stations are getting a different sound for 2020 with a new jingle and imaging package from ReelWorld Europe. The first station to broadcast the new sound was the first BBC local radio station – BBC Radio Leicester – on Monday 6th January. A new strapline has been created “The Sound of [area] and all the music you love” along with an updated six-note logo. The previous network-wide package, produced by Mcasso, also featured a six-note logo, with listeners left to work out the words to match...

RAJAR Q3 2019: London and national brands round-up

Zoe Ball has lost another 364,000 listeners to her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show in the latest radio listening figures from RAJAR. It means more than a million weekly listeners have switched off since she took over the breakfast show from Chris Evans in January. In the period 24th June to 15th September 2019 (Q3/2019), Radio 2 breakfast had a weekly reach of 7.902m – that’s down from 8.266m in Q2 and 9.047m in Q1.While Zoe is still the presenter of the UK’s biggest breakfast show, the figures are the lowest for the slot in a decade – since...

RAJAR Q3 2019: Regional and local radio facts and figures

The big stories from the regions are that Heart has increased its audience despite rolling out a national breakfast show, and Greatest Hits Radio stations are taking a beating under their new names. Global - For the Heart brand, overall, it has seen an increase in listeners since taking its breakfast show national. It now has 9.8m weekly reach compared with 9.7m last quarter and 9.6m last year. In the regions, seven Hearts went up including Scotland and North East England, nine went down including West Midlands and two stayed the same...