Latest news about Virgin Radio UK

James Cridland’s International Radio Trends: Where should a radio station be? And RAJAR Q1 2019

James Cridland, radio futurologist, is a conference speaker, writer and consultant. He runs the media information website media.info and helps organise the yearly Next Radio conference. He also publishes podnews.net, a daily briefing on podcasting and on-demand, and writes a weekly international radio trends newsletter, at james.crid.land.

RAJAR Q1 2019: Milestones reached for DAB and digital radio

Digital listening has reached a new record share of 56.4%, up from 50.9% in Q1 2018, according to RAJAR Q1 2019 data released today. The annual growth of 5.5 percentage points to 56.4% from 50.9% represents the strongest ever percentage point growth in digital listening platform share since records began. Digital reach increased by over 2 million listeners to 36.3 million and overall digital listening grew by 55.9 million hours or by 10.7% year on year.

RAJAR Q1 2019 – Zoe & Chris plus national and London radio round-up

Chris Evans and Virgin Radio both reached over a million listeners in the first quarter of 2019. The digital station’s audience has almost trebled compared with the last period of 2018 thanks to the arrival of Evans from Radio 2. In Q1/2019 it posts a weekly reach of 1.3m and total hours of 7.765m. A year ago those figures were 427,000 and 1.632m. Last quarter they were 447,000 and 1.686m.

Broadcasters unite once again for Mental Health Minute

Commercial Radio and the BBC are once again uniting to broadcast a one-minute message in support of mental health awareness. For the second year Mental Health Minute will feature globally famous voices and unite stations all over the UK, from national networks such as those run by Global, Bauer and Wireless, to smaller local stations and community stations, together with BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, and 5 Live.

Radio professionals head to Student Radio event in Swansea

A number of radio presenters, producers and management are in sharing their experience and knowledge with students in Swansea this week. The annual Student Radio Conference is taking place over three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and has a line-up to rival most other industry events. Radio presenters giving up their time include Greg James, Adele Roberts, Aled Hayden Jones, Stephanie Hirst, Matt Edmondson, Mollie King, Tim Cocker, Will Manning, Vicki Blight, Trevor Nelson, Tom Swarbrick, Alex Mansuroglu and Sam Darlaston.

talkSPORT goes live from new studios at News UK

talkSPORT has begun broadcasts from its new home on the 17th floor of the News UK building at London Bridge, after almost 20 years at Hatfields. Alan Brazil’s breakfast show with Ally McCoist and Dean Saunders was the first to air from studio 17E at 6am, with guests including Olly Murs, Lawrence Dallaglio, Ian Holloway, George Groves and the Premier League trophy.

talkSPORT 2 makes the move to News UK building

News UK is welcoming the talkSPORT 2 team to its building as the station moves out of its home in Hatfields. The station is tweeting video content of the presenters in the new studio from this morning, which is in Southwark overlooking the River Thames, next to The Shard. Virgin Radio is already broadcasting from the News UK HQ, with Chris Evans currently using the future talkRADIO studio ahead of a larger studio being completed for his own show and the rest of the station.

Chris Evans on Virgin Radio – same show, different station

Chris Evans returned to the radio this morning with the same show, different station. The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio has the same jingles, most of the same people, and the same energy from his BBC Radio 2 show which is finished on December 24th. The first song, Lucky Man, was played live by Richard Ashcroft, followed by Queen’s Dont Stop Me Now.

Come over for breakfast, says Chris Evans & family

Chris Evans and his family are appearing in a new marketing campaign for his upcoming Virgin Radio breakfast show... Joining Chris at Virgin Radio from Monday 21st January will be many of his team from Radio 2, including Vassos Alexander as sports reporter and Rachel Horne who will be expanding her role as the breakfast show travel guru – providing regular news bulletins as well.

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! ...