This morning I was driving to work, Chris Moyles was playing a dodgy song on Radio 1 so I skipped through the frequencies to be faced with four stations called ‘Heart’. They were called ‘Heart’, ‘Heart’, ‘Heart’ and ‘Heart’.
What I found was each ‘Heart’ station had a different set of presenters presenting the same-ish Breakfast Show, with the same jingles, the same music playlist, just different news and travel. I was confused.
A little bit of research on the internet I found….
102.6 and 96.3 - ‘Essex FM’ (my local commercial radio station) is now called ‘Heart’.
103.1 and 102.8 - ‘Invicta FM’ (Kent station can be picked up in Essex) is now called ‘Heart’.
96.1 - ‘SGR Colchester’ is now called ‘Heart’.
and
106.2 - ‘Heart’ is the London ‘Heart’ station that can be picked up in Essex.
So, when driving along the A12 what do I listen to? ‘Heart’, ‘Heart’, ‘Heart’ or ‘Heart’? All four stations display ‘Heart’ on the display, all four stations seem to play the same songs, although, the clue is in the advertising. I was listening to 103.1 FM’s ‘Heart’ for a good twenty minutes, the adverts were for Kent companies, no good for me in Essex! ‘Heart’ had successfully attracted an Essex listener to unknowingly listen to Kent based local show with Kent local adverts, I bet Kent specific advertisers love paying for me to listen to their advert, and wonder how many Kent based people are listening to the Essex based frequencies?
What has happened here is that Global Radio UK have bought lots of local radio stations and rebranded them as ‘Heart’. Each Heart frequency has been left so the breakfast time and drive time presenters still present local based shows, but the rest of the day is delivered across the entire network from the London studios. So me listening to the Kent Breakfast Show on ‘Heart’ was an easy mistake, and I’d need to learn all the frequencies in order to get the right local show.
Local radio is not local radio anymore.
Essex FM, was a good station, although towards the end it played the same music all day long, with a guaranteed ‘Chasing Cars’, ‘Wake me up before September ends’, ‘I don’t feel like dancing’ and at least three ‘Take That’ songs every hour.
Heart may attract national advertising budgets by telling advertisers their advert will by played across the entire Heart network at the same time, but what Heart is missing is that local audiences expect local content, and in calling everything ‘Heart’ will they attract local advertising anymore? I guess with all the breakfast shows seeming to be sponsored by double glazing companies the barrel is already being scraped.
Bye bye Essex FM, thanks for the trip in the Essex FM Jam Buster Travel Plane in 1994. I’m going to try Chelmsford Radio now for local stuff.
P.S…. I note you are still playing the same old stuff….
