Latest news about Hits Radio

Bauer Media to launch Country Hits Radio via local DAB

Bauer is starting its third new radio station this year as Country Hits Radio gets ready to launch on a number of DAB multiplexes in the UK. Country Hits Radio launches on April 5th via DAB in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, South Yorkshire, Lancashire, Humberside, Tyne & Wear, Teesside, Glasgow,, Edinburgh, Tayside, Inverness and Ayr. Bauer is to remove Kiss Fresh from the above local multiplexes to make room for Country Hits Radio.

Opinion: UK commercial radio presenter numbers could drop by more than 250

With news that Global is to introduce networked breakfast shows and have just a handful of local drive shows across Capital, Heart and Smooth, RadioToday’s Stuart Clarkson has done the maths on what it means for presenter roles across commercial radio. Our exclusive figures show that presenter numbers could drop by more than 250 if both Global and Bauer take full advantage of the recent changes in localness guidelines from Ofcom.

KISS and Hits Radio join up for BRIT Awards show

KISS and Hits Radio will be broadcasting live from the BRITs this year with presenters from both networking joining together for a special show. ‘Live at the BRITs’ returns as a three hour show broadcast from 7-10pm on Wednesday evening. Hits Radio’s Sarah Jane Crawford and KISS’ new signing Tyler West will join to host the programme that will feature interviews with some of the event’s performers and nominees, as well as the biggest tracks from this year’s BRIT nominees.

Greatest Hits Radio launches with new line-up

Greatest Hits Radio has launched on FM, AM and DAB in a number of regions across England, with Mark Goodier joining the network for a daily programme. The former BBC Radio 1 and Smooth Radio presenter will present the mid-morning show, and joins a team of presenters already established on the network. Here’s how the schedule looks each weekday in England:...

Hits Radio to launch own UK Chart Show

Bauer is to broadcast its own chart show each Sunday afternoon following its decision to drop the Official Big Top 40 from Global. The UK Chart Show will broadcast every Sunday 4pm till 7pm with Sarah Jane Crawford across the Hits Radio Network from this Sunday, 6th January 2019. The programme will play “the hottest 30 tracks in the UK, airing what audiences are listening to, streaming, watching and downloading that week...

The 10 biggest UK radio industry stories of 2018

The last 12 months have been the biggest in RadioToday’s history, with over a million new people visiting the site, so here are the top 10 reasons 2018 was one of the most interesting years in recent radio history. 10. Key 103 replaced by Hits Radio After 40 years of locally-named radio in Manchester, (Piccadilly) Key 103 rebranded to the more generic sounding name of Hits Radio in the Spring. Billed as a national radio station from Manchester, it is widely expected for the same to happen in other places where Bauer owns a similar radio station, such as Hallam FM in Sheffield and Rock FM in Preston...

Here it is… Our radio industry predictions for 2019…

Once a year we pretend to be radio futurologists and predict the future of radio, with our annual radio industry predictions. The truth is, with deregulation and the continued movement of the top talent in the industry, anything could happen in 2019. So we’ve gone for some tongue-in-cheek predictions this year along with one or two which have a more than 50% chance of happening. Comments are open for a few days if you want to add yours! Happy New Year! ...

Dawn French to be the voice of Greatest Hits Radio

Dawn French will be the station voice of Bauer’s Greatest Hits Radio brand when it officially launches in January. The station, playing music from the 70s, 80s and 90s, will be on numerous DAB multiplexes around the UK, 105.2 FM in the West Midlands and 105.9 FM in Liverpool, AM in the North and online.

Ofcom resolves complaint over Hits Radio competition

Bauer has added an extra set of Terms and Conditions to a competition as a result of a complaint from a listener about the Sarah-Jane Crawford show. Ofcom received correspondence alleging that a round of “Sarah-Jane’s Split Second Song” competition was conducted unfairly on 17 July 2018 at 19:00hrs. Sarah-Jane asked for listeners to text into the normal none-premium studio number to guess what the song was, and...

RAJAR Q3 2018: London and national brands update

Nick Grimshaw left the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show with half a million more listeners than a year ago – handing them to Greg James who took over the show halfway through the last quarter. The show now attracts 5.75m listeners (Mon – Fri) and is up 465,000 Year on Year. In London, Capital is back on top with almost 2,100,000 listeners according to Reach in the London commercial radio battle, as Kiss slips back under the 2m listener mark (1,958,000). Magic is in third place (1.5m) whilst Heart comes in 4th (1.4m). But BBC Radio 4 continues to lead the London Reach with 2.4m listeners.