Media Week

Smooth Radio have just announced that they're due to launch Smooth Radio North East at the beginning of January. In the article there's a quote from the new PD, Kevin Howard: "the latest listening figures for the brand across the country were very impressive and I’m sure that the new Smooth Radio in the north-east will replicate that success next year."

It will be interesting to see if the station does indeed manage a good launch. If it does it will buck the trend of pretty much every other station that's launched since 2005. Nearly all of which have significantly undershot their launch projections.

I think much of this is down to the amount of media noise is around. In ye olde days there was a certain excitement when a new station appeared. Today, in the mult-channel world no-one really cares. 

There's been a great deal of discussion recently about EMAP demerging its business or selling off chunks to anyone with a large enough cheque.

The nature of EMAP's business is going to make that difficult for whoever's going to cast an eye over the main consumer brands. 

EMAP has led the way in producing cross-platform entities, all of which reinforce each other. Would Smash Hits Radio do (apparently) so well, if there wasn't a TV station that supported it? What happens to the support Heat magazine is giving the relaunched Heat Radio if they go their separate ways?

In an ideal world the buyer would scoop up all the branded bits together, for Kerrang this would include the magazine, website, events, TV and radio - but are the potential buyers - GCap, GMG and Global have all been mooted - really geared up to run all of those different businesses? And if they stretch their core competencies will the brands they've paid handsomely for start to lose their value.

There is also a fly in the ointment with regards the TV channels. EMAP has of course just flogged off half of the TV operation (The Hits, Smash Hits, Kerrang, The Box, Kiss, Magic, Q) to Channel 4. EMAP's had enough trouble keeping each of the platforms 'on brand' and that's when they own them all, it's going to be hugely difficult when these are all owned by separate companies.

Interesting to read about the new line-up for 'Gold' - the combination of Capital Gold and Classic Gold. Is it just me, or is it odd that a station called 'Gold' as a silver logo?