Latest news about Hits Radio

Schedule changes coming to Greatest Hits Radio

Greatest Hits Radio is getting a schedule shake-up in January as Jenny Powell and Debbie Mac join, and Andy Crane and Alex Lester move to different time slots. Debbie Mac comes over from Hits Radio to present the weekday afternoon show, replacing Andy Crane, whilst TV host Jenny Powell will host a new weekend breakfast show. Andy Crane moves to a new late-night programme from 10pm to 1am from Sunday through to Thursdays while the dark lord Alex Lester returns to the Best Time of the Day Show to keep the overnight club awake between 1am – 6am...

Bauer stations to air new Scottish sports show

A new sports show – The Big Saturday Football Show – is being launched across five Bauer stations in Scotland from next Saturday. Presented by Steven Mill and Ewen Cameron, the 2-6pm programme will broadcast on Forth 1, MFR, Tay FM, West FM and Radio Borders. Superscoreboard will continue on Clyde 1, while Northsound 1 in Aberdeen is launching a new show called ‘Red Saturday’ hosted by Mike MacDermid and Cheryl Buchan. Some stations from the Hits Radio Network in Scotland are also going to get local Saturday breakfast shows from next weekend as MFR, Tay FM, West FM and Radio Borders opt out of...

Greatest Hits Radio Drivetime presenters revealed

Greatest Hits Radio will have nine regional Drivetime shows across its network of over 50 local radio stations in England and Wales when it expands on September 1st. There will be nine ‘super stations’ made up of all the current services operating as GHR by Bauer, and those previously owned by UKRD, Celador, Wireless and Lincs FM Group. The new enlarged regional areas are the North West, North East, Yorkshire, Midlands, East, South West, South and Wales. Each area, except for the existing North East region which takes the national feed, and Wales which has its own dedicated daytime schedule, will have a regional drivetime show...

Simon Mayo joins Greatest Hits Radio line-up

Scala Radio presenter Simon Mayo will do a Sunday afternoon album show on Greatest Hits Radio from next month. The former BBC Radio 2 host will be on 1-4pm on Sundays from 6th September as the brand is rolled out to local radio stations across the country. It’s addition to his six shows a week for Bauer’s sister station Scala. The station says he will be ‘indulging his passion for the finest albums, and their greatest hits, of the 70s, 80s and 90s’. ‘The Album Show with Simon Mayo’ will celebrate and explore listeners’ record collections along with a weekly Classic Album Countdown...

Bauer starts to roll out Hits and Greatest Hits to new radio stations

24 local radio stations are stepping up their transitions to Hits Radio and Greatest Hits Radio from next week as part of Bauer’s plans to integrate the four groups acquired last year. From Monday 13th July, former Wireless and Celador stations that are becoming Greatest Hits Radio will feature shows from presenters including Mark Goodier, Pat Sharp, Andy Crane, Rossie and Alex Lester. The stations will retain their existing breakfast shows in the run-up to early September when they will fully switch over to Greatest Hits Radio. For the time being, Rossie – who does the Greatest Hits Radio national breakfast show – will be on these 21 stations at drivetime...

Alex James moves from Hits Radio to XS Manchester

Hits Radio presenter Alex James is joining XS Manchester to host the breakfast show from July 6th. Alex has been on-air in the North West for 15 years, with stints at Key 103, Radio City, Real and Century. He’s also presented on Kerrang! Radio and hosted Bauer’s networked evening show In Demand. He says: “I can’t wait to get started on XS Manchester Breakfast – finding out what’s going on in our listeners’ lives, keeping an eye over everything that’s going on in and around Manchester and of course with loads of the best music to start the day in the world’s greatest city.” ...

Hits Radio networking starts on new Bauer stations

Bauer’s newly acquired local radio stations are starting to introduce Hits Radio Brand programming from Monday 15th June 2020. The on-air changes start today at the Wireless stations becoming part of the Hits Radio network – Signal 1, Pulse 1 and The Wave (Swansea) – which will get new imaging, production, jingles and playlists to reflect the new status. For those stations, a new Chilled network show will air from 10pm till 1am with Hattie Pearson (Sunday – Thursday) and Scott Clarke (Friday & Saturday) and new additions to the weekends include the UK Chart Show on Sundays with Olivia Jones...

RAJAR Q1 2020: Regional and local radio facts and figures

XS Manchester has doubled its listening hours year-on-year after the station was saved from closure. The Communicorp station now has 132,000 weekly reach (last year 94,000) and 1.28 million hours (last year 546k), giving it more total hours than Manchester’s heritage station Hits Radio. Also in the north west, Radio City Talk, which will close at the end of this month, leaves with 32,000 weekly listeners, down from 45,000 a year ago. Sticking with Bauer, local stations are mostly on the up. Of the 15 local services for Greatest Hits Radio in Scotland and England, eight are up and seven are down...

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...

Winners announced for Young Audio Awards 2020

All the winners from this year’s Young Audio Awards have been announced during an online awards ceremony hosted from home by Award Ambassadors Matt Edmondson and Mollie King from BBC Radio 1. They were joined by special guests including Annie Mac presenting Best in Music to 15-year-old Oli Hackett, whose show, Musicals My Way, is syndicated from his home in Corby and airs across 43 different radio stations around the world, including in the USA and Spain. Other presenters included TV and BBC Radio 2 presenter Rylan, BBC Radio 5 Live’s Laura Whitmore, singer and Hits Radio Breakfast presenter Fleur East, KISS FM’s Tyler West and Swarzy, and BBC Radio 1’s Greg James...