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Media Top Stories
No more Galaxies or Dragons – Global roll out Capital FM
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 14 September 2010
Galaxy FM is no more people, or it will be come 2011. Global Radio is scrapping its Galaxy brand and will rename the six stations that currently operate under that banner as Capital FM stations, a name which will make perfect sense for local radio stations in, erm, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle.
Still, the Scottish outpost of Galaxy does broadcast in Edinburgh, which is a capital city. And another British capital will be in the new Capital Network too, because four of Global’s remaining local FM stations will also be rebranded, including Cardiff’s Red Dragon FM.
This is the latest downsizing of Global’s radio brand portfolio, as the radio major prepares to operate in what could become a much more competitive market if and when internet radio comes of age. Previously, a stack of the local FM stations operated by Global predecessor GCap were morphed into Heart stations, both in name and format.
This latest roll out of what was GCap’s biggest pop radio brand around the country will result in the demise of the Galaxy call sign, which has existed somewhere in UK radio ever since 1990. And some even older radio names will disappear too, including Trent FM, Leicester Sound, Ram FM and the aforementioned Red Dragon FM.
It will be interesting to see how the new look Capital FM sounds, given Galaxy was designed to have a more youthy, urbany, dancey feel to its output compared to the more traditional pop FM approach of the likes of Capital, Trent and Red Dragon.
Assuming the current Capital FM format – as heard in London – is used, it will see Global more directly compete with the other pop FM stations (mainly Bauer-owned) in some other key cities, including Forth One in Edinburgh, Clyde 1 in Glasgow, Key 103 in Manchester and BRMB in Birmingham. Ironically Global only relatively recently sold BRMB, to Orion Media, as a regulator condition of its takeover of GCap.
Programmes-wise, only peak time breakfast and drive time shows will be produced locally on the Capital Network, with the rest of its output coming out of Global’s HQ on Leicester Square, London. That said, many of the effected stations already took quite a bit of networked programming, hence how Global can claim the revamp will only result in a handful of job losses as far as presenters are concerned.
Confirming the upcoming rebrand, Global main man Ashley Tabor told reporters: “It seemed like a natural extension to move it [the Capital brand] on and make it a national brand while keeping it really locally focused in each of the areas. While we have had a lot of success with the Heart rebrand this is a different challenge and we have to make sure the name is correctly launched in each area. People know the Capital brand stands for quality and it can do things other brands can’t do. We are the capital of hit music, that’s how we view the brand. We are spending a lot of time and money to make sure we do it really well”.
It’s interesting to second guess what this might mean for Choice FM, the London black and urban music station that came to Global when it bought GCap in 2008. At the time it was thought Choice would be slowly rebranded as a Galaxy station, the Galaxy network lacking a London frequency. That hasn’t happened, although elements of Choice’s output have arguably moved in the direction of the Galaxy format in the subsequent two years. With the Galaxy network now no more and with Capital FM already a London station, does that mean Choice is safe?
Or, given Global, as of January, will basically be operating four national (or quasi-national) radio networks – Heart, Capital, Gold and Classic FM – should we worry for the future of those remaining Global services that only broadcast in one or two cities – so Choice, LBC and Xfm? Or are they distinct enough brands to justify a place in the Global portfolio, brands which will stand out when – as internet radio takes off – all stations are national. Time will tell I guess.
