[Zenon]

It will be called Real Radio now.

http://radiotoday.co.uk/news.php?extend.4197

[Quincy]

R.I.P

[S4B]

All the Gcap Media stations are being rebranded as Heart over the next few months. The demise of local radio is a huge shame for the industry.

[foot-loose]

Oh no!

[Munki Bhoy]

It's an ironic name I'm sure. It's all very fake.

[Johnny 1989]

Such a shame that another well known name is being killed off in favour of a bland, unified name. Capital Fm has thankfully survived all of the cullings but even Capital Gold has been renamed to plain old "Gold". Power FM has gone as has XFM in at least Scotland.

I must point out that with Global Radio's take over of GCap that one of the people invovled is one Charles Allen, the same man that killed of the LWT, Tyne Tees, HTV, Anglia, etc. names

Seems him & heritage do not mix :X

Oddly enough BRMB has to be sold off spilt away from the rest of the Capital Radio Group stations.

[Zenon]

I have a feeling that Bauer owned Tay FM, Clyde 1, Forth One and West FM will all be rebranded Kiss and Tay AM, Clyde 2, Forth 2 and West Sound will all change to Magic soon.

[MK Chris]

Local radio has largely been far from 'local' for a long time - this is just a name change.

[Munki Bhoy]

Yeah, we should stop referring to it as "local radio" and give it its proper term - "commercial shit".

[S4B]

We do have a purely "local" radio station in Peterborough, it's called Lite Fm and it's great.

[S4B]

That means you'll have to come back here and play on Lite again! yay!

[Quincy]

peterborough is an awful place

[Johnny 1989]

Yeah, we should stop referring to it as "local radio" and give it its proper term - "commercial shit".

Funny thing is that about 10 years ago that wasn't the case, Capital FM used to be an excellent station in London & long a thorn in the side of Radio 1 in London especially with Chris Tarrant on the breakfast show. However deregulation (such as what has happened with ITV) has meant everyone has bought each other out & a lot of names have been dropped. London gets to keep most of the names however as alot of the stations that have been taken over by other companies already exist in London (Heart for example already existed so Capital FM is safe)

Capital FM had some great DJs at the time Chris Tarrant, Pat Sharp who went to Heart in mid 1997 & was replaced by Steve Penk, Martin Collins, David "Kid" Jensen, Doctor Fox, Paul Phear, Margarita Taylor, Neil Long & of course Chris Moyles. Pat Sharp leaving was when Capital slowly went down hill & along with Moyles leaving shortly after they never really replaced them with anyone unique. Now out of that list only Margarita Taylor remains, the rest have gone & sadly Capital FM have replaced them with rather dull DJ's, which helped Radio 1 as they have now over taken Capital FM at breakfast time in popularity, something of which Radio 1 struggled with for years.

Capital is not the only one though, Kiss 100 is a former shadow of itself, Virgin Radio (before the name had to be dropped) had being in decline since 2002, Heart has always been bland but I always found it Ironic when they said "more music variety" yet play the same 12 songs all day long. Magic is just dull & XFM isn't as good as it used to be (BBC 6 Music is more listenable now).

It some ways it's a shame because, for me at least, it's nice to have a variety of stations to choose from. Nowadays however Radio 1 & 6 Music are the only two which are listenable.

[Munki Bhoy]

I wouldn't know. I'm fairly sure it was all rubbish up here but I was just too young to notice.

[SnowMonster]

There's already a Real Radio in Edinburgh.

[ladbroke]

Capital FM used to be an excellent station in London & long a thorn in the side of Radio 1 in London especially with Chris Tarrant on the breakfast show.

I agree totally, Capital used to be so good. I stopped listening in about 2001, but breakfast with Tarrant in the 90's was just great, with Russ Kane 'in his little blue plane' doing the traffic reports! DOn't really know what happened with Capital, and where it went wrong, but think they just failed to adapt to what people wanted to listen to. Even the much maligned Steve Penk was funny in his day, but sounds incredibly dated now.

[S4B]

peterborough is an awful place

Why?

[Yudster]

It has no personality, no proper centre, no focuys and no "soul". And seeing as it is an ancient city with a rich history, it should have all those things in spades. At least that was my feeling about it during the years I was a regular commuter to Peterborough. I'm not saying it has no nice aspects, but it really could be "Anytown, UK".

[S4B]

It's getting better and I like it. If people don't like it they just shouldn't come here. I don't like many places and just don't go to them but the only place I slag off is MK and that's just to wind Topher up!

[Yudster]

It was a bit difficult to avoid when my head office was there and I used to have to attend regional meetings there every week.........

[S4B]

Well it's been a while since you came, it was lovely over the run up to Christmas. Also I don't like Cambridge, mainly cos I go there for regional meetings. Maybe it's not the place but the reason for visiting?

[Yudster]

Actually, I don't like Cambridge either - in fact it is worse than Peterborough. Well the bit where my regional office was anyway. I think the college-y bits of Cambridge are nice, but thats not really a fair evaluation of the actual city.

[S4B]

Again maybe it was the reason for visiting rather than the actual city?

[Yudster]

Oh no - it doesn't help, but I can distinguish between my impressions when I spend time in a city and my feelings when I spend time in my office! Actually I really liked the office in Peterborough. Full of lovely people. The one in Cambridge - opposite!

[Johnny 1989]

Capital FM used to be an excellent station in London & long a thorn in the side of Radio 1 in London especially with Chris Tarrant on the breakfast show.

I agree totally, Capital used to be so good. I stopped listening in about 2001, but breakfast with Tarrant in the 90's was just great, with Russ Kane 'in his little blue plane' doing the traffic reports! DOn't really know what happened with Capital, and where it went wrong, but think they just failed to adapt to what people wanted to listen to. Even the much maligned Steve Penk was funny in his day, but sounds incredibly dated now.

I think where Capital went wrong, like so many other local stations, was that they dropped the DJ's that seemed to have a "personality" (for want of a better word), I enjoyed listening to Virgin in 2001 when Jon Holmes used to do late night weekends (which he got sacked from for being too over the line, however since has made his was to 6 Music & although toned down still likes to push the boundaries a bit) and Mark Fox who was as mad as a box of frogs but got the bullet (I believe) for "polarising" the audience, ironic then that not long after the management managed to do that by playing the same 12 records all day long.

The other problem was that Capital sadly became too corporate & generic by the early 2000's but this seems to be more to do with mergers (first off to create GCap Media & then being swallowed up by Global Radio) and sadly Commercial Radio (much like ITV) is all about cost cutting & as we can see with Heart renaming Essex FM, Chiltern FM, etc, that with the exception of breakfast & drivetime everything else will be networked

True that Xfm is no where as good as it once was but it's started picking up again, the S&M on a Saturday is actually one of the shows I try and catch now. As for Pat Sharp, I heard him on Invicta a few weeks ago. It was that or KMFM, I can't remember which but it was Kenty.

Can I ask what S&M show is? I would like to find some good Saturday radio again, although Jon Holmes & Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show on 6 Music are two rather good shows so it'll take alot to beat. Does Ricky Gervais still guest on XFM anymore? I used to like his show, especially Karl Pilkington