GMG Radio was a company that owned the Real Radio and Smooth Radio networks. As GMG Radio, the company was the radio division of the Guardian Media Group until it was bought in 2012 by Global Radio, however pending regulatory review of the merger the company was renamed Real and Smooth Limited and operated as a separate entity, until May 2014.
GMG Radio was Guardian Media Group's radio division, which started in early 1999 when former GMG Chief Executive Sir Robert Phillis enlisted the services of John Myers to establish GMG's radio division after seeing Myers on the documentary programme Trouble at the Top.[1] Myers had featured in an episode that followed him as he prepared to launch Century 105 in the North West for Border Radio Holdings. Myers had left the Century stations and, after a brief spell in charge of Radio Investments Ltd, created GMG Radio Holdings Ltd and became its Managing Director.
The Station's first FM licence was won in April 2000 for the South Wales regional FM licence, which went on air on 3 October 2000,[citation needed] but was unsuccessful in its second application, for the West Midlands regional licence application, won by Saga.
In June 2001, Scot FM was brought from The Wireless Group for £25.5m[2][3]John Myers said: "The problem with Scot FM is that it has changed owners faster than I've changed coats. It was badly launched. They gave the impression that they were going to do Radio 4 type speech and then they went and hired Scottie McClue. For the first time, Scot FM will have an owner that might give Scottish Radio Holdings a run for their money."[4]Real Radio Scotland began broadcasting at 8am on Tuesday 8 January 2002 with breakfast presenter Robin Galloway introducing the first song to be played, "A Star is Born".[5]
On 6 July 2001, the company won its second Real Radio licence, a West/South Yorkshire regional FM licence,[6][7] which launched on 25 March 2002.
In May 2002, GMG radio made a bid of £41 million to Jazz FM plc at 180p a share.[8][9] The bid came on the day when the draft Communication Bill was published[10] Jazz FM plc's largest shareholder, Clear Channel had been waiting for a 220p a share bid, but agreed to the 180p a share bid in late May. Herald Investment Management who had a 7.7% stake in the company and Aberforth Partners were not happy with the 180p a share bid.[11][12] On 6 June, GMG raised its bid to 195p a share to secure the institutional shareholders who were holding out for a better bid.[13][14] Richard Wheatly announced that he would leave Jazz FM once the takeover was complete.[15] The offer was declared wholly unconditional on 5 July.[16] In December 2002, GMG moved its sales operation from Clear Channel Radio Sales to the Chrysalis Group, in line with the sales operation for other GMG Radio stations.[17]
On 12 July 2004, GMG Radio relaunched ejazz.fm, a dedicated jazz website. In January 2005 it launched a service, named Hear It, Buy It, Burn It, to permit users to legally download music from its station's websites. In February 2005, Myers announced that they had scrapped plans to launch Channel M Radio, a 24-hour news and talk station for Manchester due to commercial viability issues.
In March 2005, the Guardian Media Group rejected a £115 million bid from the Chrysalis Group for the GMG Radio division.[18][19] In June 2005 London station 102.2 Jazz FM was rebranded to 102.2 Smooth FM after disappointing RAJAR figures. At the same time, ejazz.fm was renamed to jazzfm.com and initially appeared on DAB in Yorkshire, South Wales, and the Severn Estuary and on Sky Digital.
In August 2006, GMG sold its share in Rolling News channel DNN. The five regional stations on DAB were then closed down by Chrysalis to be replaced by LBC. On 18 December 2006, it was announced that GMG Radio had bought the four Saga Radio branded stations.[20] GMG rebranded the Saga stations along with its existing Smooth FM stations in March 2007 to Smooth Radio.[21]
On 6 October 2008, jazzfm.com was relaunched as Jazz FM across several DAB multiplexes in the UK, using space on local and regional multiplexes from existing GMG Radio stations as well as launching on digital television platforms. In November 2008 GMG was awarded the last analogue licence in the UK (covering North and mid Wales). They intend to operate the licence using the Real Radio (Wales) format basing its studios in Wrexham.
On 18 October 2006, it was announced that GMG Radio had bought the two Century branded stations from Gcap Media.[22] The Century brand was originally launched by Myers and Simons in North East England in 1994, while they were at Border Television. On 18 December 2008, it was announced that Century Radio was to be re-branded as Real Radio on 30 March 2009.[23]
In April 2009, the Jazz FM name and branding owned by GMG since 2002 were bought by the chief executive of the since formed Jazz FM Investments Ltd, Richard Wheatly.[24] Jazz FM transitioned from GMG's local and regional DAB slots to a single slot on the Digital One national DAB ensemble bought by Jazz FM Investments Ltd in 2011.[25]
GMG radio announced that out of peak time hours news would be shared by news hubs. As a result, there was one in Glasgow, one in London and the largest, which was Century Radio's headquarters in Manchester, headed by James Rea. During this period, Manchester broadcast a "Sky News" type bulletin, to which all GMG Radio stations in northern England opted in on the hour.
Global Radio buyout of GMG Radio
On 25 June 2012, it was announced Global Radio (the owner of stations such as Capital and Heart) had bought GMG Radio;[26] however, the GMG radio stations would continue to operate separately until a regulatory review into the sale is carried out.[27]
Real and Smooth
On 11 October 2012, The Secretary of State Maria Miller announced that Global Radio's takeover of GMG Radio would not be investigated on the grounds of plurality.[28] The Competition Commission was due to publish its final report on 27 March 2013.[29] On 21 February 2013, it was confirmed that the decision whether Global Radio could take over all GMG Radio's assets would be delayed, until 22 May 2013, two months later than planned.[30]
On 21 May 2013, the Competition Commission published their final report into Global Radio's acquisition of GMG Radio, stating that Global had to sell radio stations in seven areas of the UK. The stations Global would be required to sell were as follows:[31]
Smooth was an adult contemporary radio station that broadcast in five different areas, mainly in northern England, central Scotland and Wales, aimed at an audience 45 years old and over.
Real Radio was an adult contemporary radio station that broadcast in five different areas mainly in northern England, central Scotland and Wales, aimed at an audience 25–45 years old.
Rock Radio was a classic rock station in Glasgow and Manchester.
Related Research Articles
Century Radio was the brand name of a group of Independent Local Radio stations in England. The brand was developed with the launch of 100-102 Century Radio in North East England in 1994, with John Myers as managing director and John Simons as programme director. The brand grew when Myers launched 106 Century FM for the East Midlands, and further when 105.4 Century Radio was launched in North West England in 1998. Ocean FM used the Century format, but not the brand.
102.2 Jazz FM was an Independent Local Radio for London run by GMG Radio. The station was based in and broadcast from Castlereagh Street in London. The station experimented with its core playlist over its fifteen-year history, incorporating smooth jazz, mainstream jazz, soul, jazz fusion, acid jazz, blues and rhythm and blues. In 1994, the station changed its name to JFM to encourage more listeners who were put off by the 'Jazz' in the station's name. Richard Wheatly was appointed in 1995 to turn the station around when there was only three months' money left to run the station. He made a number of sweeping changes to the playlist, selling a sister station and changing the name back to Jazz FM, as well as starting up a record label and spin-off business deals and opportunities which helped Jazz FM swing into the black and make a profit in 2001.
Real Radio was a network of five regional radio stations broadcasting to North East England, North West England, Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire. Each station broadcasts a mix of local and networked programming. On Tuesday 6 May 2014, the stations were merged with the Heart network.
From 2010 to 2014, Smooth Radio was an independent, commercial, national radio station in the United Kingdom. Owned by Real and Smooth—a company formerly known as GMG Radio—the station was aimed at the over-40 demographic, and competed for its audience with BBC Radio 2. It was broadcast on the DAB Digital Radio Digital 1 national multiplex, Sky, Freesat, Freeview, Virgin Media, online and on regional FM and DAB frequencies in the North West, London, North East, West Midlands, Scotland and East Midlands. Nationally the station attracted a weekly average audience of 3 million.
John Myers was a British radio executive, consultant and presenter. He was Chairman of the UK Radio Academy Awards, The Commercial Radio Awards and owner of Myers Media. Myers developed the Century Radio brand for Border Radio Holdings in the early 1990s, launching two more stations later in the decade. He presented programmes under the pseudonym "John Morgan". He then became Chief executive of GMG Radio, developing the Real Radio, Smooth Radio and Rock Radio brands and overseeing GMG Radio's acquisition of the Century network from GCap Media. He served as Chief executive of The Radio Academy from April 2011 until June 2012 and the founding Chairman of TeamRock, retiring in May 2016.
100.4 Jazz FM was an Independent Local Radio station for the North West England playing jazz music. 100.4 Jazz FM played its own music from its Salford studio during the day, whereas specialist shows like Dinner Jazz and Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis were networked from London's 102.2 Jazz FM. The station was replaced by Smooth FM 100.4 in 2004.
Jazz FM is a British digital radio station owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK. It broadcasts across the United Kingdom and Malta predominantly playing jazz music, jazz standards as well as blues and soul music.
MXR West Midlands was a regional commercial digital radio multiplex in the United Kingdom, which served the West Midlands. The multiplex closed on 27 August 2013 after the shareholders Global Radio & Arqiva decided not to renew the licence. The Bromsgrove transmitter frequency block transferred over to MuxCo Herefordshire and Worcestershire in September 2013.
Smooth London is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Smooth Radio network. It broadcasts to the Greater London area from Croydon transmitting station on 102.2 MHz. It broadcasts a soft adult contemporary radio format from Global's studios in Leicester Square, London, and replaced 102.2 Smooth FM on 26 March 2007.
Smooth Scotland is a Scottish Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Smooth network. The station replaced Saga 105.2 FM in 2007.
Global Media & Entertainment Limited, trading as Global, is a British media company formed in 2007. It is the owner of the largest commercial radio company in Europe having expanded through a number of historical acquisitions, including Chrysalis Radio, GCap Media and GMG Radio. Global owns and operates seven core radio brands, all employing a national network strategy, including Capital, Heart, Gold, Classic FM, Smooth and LBC.
Real Radio XS was a classic rock independent local radio service broadcast on DAB in various parts of the United Kingdom. It was formerly part of the Rock Radio group of stations owned by GMG Radio, and whilst initially a separate station, latterly carried programming sourced from 106.1 Real Radio XS in Manchester.
Switch Scotland is a DAB digital radio multiplex broadcasting across Scotland's Central Belt, with its coverage area encompassing major population centres such as Edinburgh and Glasgow and the surrounding area. The service overlaps with local-level DAB multiplexes centred on particular cities and towns, meaning that listeners in central Scotland are able to tune into three levels of coverage - national, regional and local services.
Real Radio XS was a radio station brand operated by Real and Smooth Ltd based in Salford, Greater Manchester, broadcasting a variety of peak-time news, rock music and talk output. The Manchester-based version of the service was broadcast to Greater Manchester on FM, and to a number of areas on DAB: the closure of the MXR regional multiplexes ended most digital carriage of the service, with the last remaining digital transmission, to Yorkshire, ending in 2014. The other Real Radio XS service, covering Paisley and Renfrewshire on FM and central belt Scotland digitally, became Xfm Scotland in 2014 following Global's purchase of the franchise, before closing entirely in 2015. The Manchester frequency now transmits as XS Manchester under the control of Communicorp UK, whilst the Scottish license was re-advertised by Ofcom and now carries Nation Broadcasting-owned Nation Radio Scotland.
XS Manchester is an Independent Local Radio station serving Greater Manchester, broadcasting a mix of indie and alternative rock music, speech and news output. The station is owned and operated by Communicorp UK and broadcasts from studios at Spinningfields in Manchester. It is Communicorp UK's only station that does not broadcast a programme service supplied by Global.
Smooth Radio is a network of local radio stations broadcasting on FM and DAB in the United Kingdom. It retains one outlet on AM. Smooth Radio previously featured a soft adult contemporary radio format but has introduced more upbeat music since 2023. Launched in March 2014, it replaced the national Smooth Radio that had launched in 2010 on FM and DAB, and most outlets of Gold on AM.
This is a timeline of the development of independent radio in the UK.
A timeline of notable events relating to Smooth Radio, a British radio station that first launched in 2004. Note that this article also includes information about the national version of Smooth Radio that existed between 2010 and 2014.
A timeline of notable events relating to Global Radio, a British media company founded in 2007.
This is a list of notable events in the timeline of digital audio broadcasting in the UK.
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