Who’s got it right John or Fru?

Not so long after GCaps Fru Hazlitt pulled back from their commitment to DAB Radio, reducing their commitment from being part-owners of Digital One and operators of 2 National DAB channels to effectively only offering relays of London stations to the regions, plus local services FUN Radio (A partnership with HIT) and Chill. A commitment, yes but nowhere nearly as big as it was. Their reasoning? (I summarise) DAB isn’t working the future is online… of course, as we all know the move was more to do with persuading shareholders to stick with them and not sell to Global Radio who are still circling ready to pounce with a new offer to buy the group.

But whilst GCap are cutting back it’s interesting to note that here in the North East GMG are launching a new service, which promises not a relay but locally generated content. GMG have a real history in using DAB to develop their brands, Smooth was launched (and I assume tweaked and improved) on DAB before rolling out on FM when Jazz FM was consigned to the radio graveyard in the North West and London. They now of course have rolled the brand out further, using to rebrand the Saga stations. Rock Radio is already on the air in Scotland (a rebrand of a purchased station) and will launch on FM in Manchester in May.

So, GMG are using a brand they have and are rolling it out on local DAB… nothing new here but rather than hearing content from wherever the relay is coming from (don’t you just love hearing the travel news for London on XFM or Kiss?) but it’s locally created, which means investment. It won’t be huge as the group already run 2 stations in the region but still it needs resources both physical and human. So, well done John Myers the new saviour of DAB.

It’s also worth pointing out that Jazz FM does live, but online where to be fair it always had a big audience but not within it’s licenced areas but overseas, especially the US (I’ve seen the numbers but can’t find them now) Now, this is where GCap have a point but the lesson here is that big brands work best on the platfoms where people can hear them (like FM and to a lesser extent DAB) but niches work best online where the coverage area is bigger because it’s global…

Rock On

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Tags: radiorock jazz GMG GCap