Latest news about Smooth Radio

Global radio stations join in with mass applause

LBC, Heart, Capital, Capital XTRA, Smooth, Classic FM, Radio X and Gold will pause for a mass applause to thank NHS workers this week. All the Global stations will join the show of appreciation at 8pm on Thursday 26th March, encouraging people up and down the country to stand and clap at their windows, front doors, balconies and in their living rooms. The call-to-action, which will amplify the sentiment of the online ‘Clap for our Carers’ campaign, was launched this morning at 0815 on-air...

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...

Jenni Falconer moves from Heart to Smooth Radio

Jenni Falconer joining Smooth Radio to present the breakfast show in London and nationwide on Smooth Extra after leaving Heart last year. She takes over from Gary King, who will present Smooth’s new, national early breakfast show from Monday to Friday, as well as continuing to host Saturday afternoons across the network. Angie Greaves, who joined Smooth last September to host the brand-new nationwide Smooth Drive Home, will present a new three-hour Sunday morning show. The Smooth Sanctuary at Seven will now run seven days a week till 10pm hosted by Gary Vincent from Sunday to Friday and Tina Hobley every Saturday...

Opinion: RadioToday industry predictions for 2020

One thing is for sure – radio is changing at an incredible pace. Keeping up with emerging products and making full use of smart technology is key. But whilst the art of ‘input’ is changing, the ‘output’ has remained fairly static for many decades. Listeners can still hear a friendly voice on the radio at all hours of the day – the major difference is where the voice is located and when they were recorded. But let’s dig deeper down into the industry and see what 2020 might bring...

£850,000 raised at Global’s Make Some Noise gala

A number of presenters from Global’s radio brands hosted the Make Some Noise annual charity gala at London’s Finsbury Square on Monday. The event raised £850,000 for charity, as music artists including Robbie Williams, Tom Walker and Freya Ridings took to the stage to perform live in front of almost 500 special guests. Global united all its radio brands for the event – Heart, Capital, Smooth, Classic FM, LBC, Radio X, Capital XTRA and Gold – to help children and young people living with illness, disability or lack of opportunity.

Aled Jones and Russell Watson switch on Smooth’s Christmas Lights

Aled Jones and Russell Watson joined Smooth North West breakfast presenter Darren Parks to switch on the studio’s Christmas lights. Over 2000 lights were turned on as the duo talked about taking part in the station’s Carols on the Cobbles event with Coronation Street: The Tour. Speaking to Darren Parks, Aled said: “I’m very excited to be singing on the cobbles. I found out that Chesney had named his baby Aled after it was born in a cable car above the Great Orme in Llandudno because he was Walking in the Air!”

Kemp, Garraway, Roberts and Wright rumoured for I’m A Celeb

Radio presenters Roman Kemp, Kate Garraway, Adele Roberts and Ian Wright are being tipped to appear on this year’s series of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, which starts next weekend. The Sun lists the four as part of it’s rumoured line-up for the ITV reality show. Roman was on air on his Capital breakfast show with Vick Hope and Sonny Jay yesterday (Friday) as normal, but next week’s schedule lists Rob Howard and Lauren Layfield as covering breakfast across the UK...

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...

Smooth Radio regional Breakfast presenters confirmed

Smooth Radio is launching its national Drive show with Angie Greaves this week as a number of regional presenters leave the network. The brand will keep the majority of its current breakfast presenters with just one moving from Drive to Breakfast. Global (and Communicorp) previously announced Breakfast would be networked at some point this year, but later changed strategy to network Drive instead. Therefore, last week saw final regional Drive shows for Clive Warren (north east), John Mellis (Glasgow), Charlie Jordan...