Radio News

Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Greg James increases listeners by more than 300,000

The Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Greg James has increased listeners by more than 300,000 in his first full quarter. Latest Rajar data shows since Greg James started on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, there has been an increase of listeners aged 10+ to 5.59m (Monday-Thursday), from 5.28m last quarter. The same period (17 September-16 December 2018) has also seen a record for digital listening, with the proportion of digital listening now at 52.6%...

Fearne Cotton gets Radio 2 Breakfast cover job

Fearne Cotton will deputise for Zoe Ball when she takes holidays from the Radio 2 breakfast show, with comedian Matt Lucas looking after the show on Bank Holidays. Zoe announced the news this morning, with Fearne coming in to the studio for a chat about it as well as talking about hosting Popmaster and how Fearne used to be a big fan of Live & Kicking.

Young ARIAS awards now open for entries

The Young ARIAS, a new awards scheme celebrating radio and audio created by under 18s are now open for entries. Both the BBC and commercial stations will begin promoting the awards from Monday encouraging school radio stations, podcasts, homemade audio projects, community and hospital radio contributors and DJs to enter their work.

Opinion: Classical Music for Modern Life

Jack Pepper, one of the new presenters on Bauer’s Scala Radio, recently spoke about classical music at the European Radio Show conference in Paris. Here’s what he had to say. “Ludwig van Beethoven. Hearing that name, many people are likely to think of the famous painting of the composer, with his wild grey hair and red cravat. But the name could mean so much more; a man who suffered at home with an abusive alcoholic father, who left school at eleven, and who grappled with physical ailments and used music as an outlet for his emotions"...

Performers revealed for Global Awards 2019

DJ and producer Mark Ronson, RnB singer Mabel, Little Mix, pianist Lang Lang, Blossoms and Anne-Marie are all confirmed to perform at the Global Awards on March 7th at London’s Eventim Apollo Hammersmith. The event brings together Global’s radio stations including Capital, Heart, Classic FM, Smooth, Radio X, Capital XTRA, Gold and LBC to celebrate music, news and entertainment.

Olivia Jones replaces Elliot Holman on Total Access

The Total Access evening show, which airs across local radio stations owned by Wireless, is getting a new host as Olivia Jones takes over from Elliot Holman... Wireless’ Group Programme Director for Local Radio, Terry Underhill told RadioToday: “Elliot has done a fantastic job building Total Access to record high audience levels and we are delighted that he’s accepted our offer to take over the mid-morning show on Signal 1. Olivia is the perfect person to take over Total Access. Her energy, enthusiasm and talent will shine in our newly refreshed network evening show.”...

The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show launches BBC Radio 2’s 500 Words competition

The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show today launched BBC Radio 2’s 500 Words 2019, the short-story writing competition for children aged between 5-13 years of age. Zoe revealed that this year’s live final will take place in the spectacular surroundings of Windsor Castle on Friday 14 June. Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall returns as an Honorary Judge and, to mark today’s launch, features in a specially-created animation. The competition is now open and the closing date for entries is 7pm on Thursday 8 March. Full details are...

Scala Radio to launch on full DAB in stereo

Launching a radio station in stereo should not be a news headline in 2019, but the industry has long decided it would rather provide more services in mono than fewer services in stereo. A radio station playing classical music needs to be in stereo to fully appreciate the content, and if Scala Radio has any chance of competing with Classic FM, it needs to at least match its bit rate of 128 kbit/s stereo.

Global reports ninth year of increased profits

The latest accounts filed by Global show sales revenues grew 28% to £388m, with earnings up 34% to £104m in the year to March 2018. Global says it was in a strong financial position at the end of its last financial year, which was before it entered the out-of-home sector in autumn 2018, reporting a pre-tax profit of £25m compared with a £3m loss a year earlier...

Bauer to launch classical station Scala Radio

Simon Mayo is returning to daily radio with Bauer from 4th March as host of mid mornings on a new classical music station called Scala Radio. The station will be the first national classical station in nearly 30 years and is set to challenge Classic FM. RadioToday understands it will broadcast on the SDL national DAB multiplex, replacing heat Radio.