Global buys Atlantic FM: There are no winners here.

I am disappointed at the recent news that Global Radio is buying Atlantic FM and rebranding it to Heart.

Programming will no longer come from Atlantic's studios in St Agnes but from the old Gemini FM studios in Exeter.  Programmes from Exeter, for a Cornish audience.  That's really going to get an audience... NOT!

You see Heart's owner, Global Radio, is a combination of all the worst parts of UK broadcast history.
It goes all the way back to 1980.  Back then, a radio station called Radio West started broadcasting in Bristol.  By 1985 though, it and nearby station Wiltshire Radio were losing money hand over fist.  The IBA, the regulator at the time, examined the situation and was presented by the stations with a proposal.  Allow the two stations to merge, and broadcasts could continue, otherwise, both stations would have failed and the licences would have to be readvertised. 

The IBA knew that re-adveritisng licences for areas where stations had failed could be problematic.  The IBA had previously disallowed a takeover of Centre Radio in Leicestershire in 1983, and the station had gone off air.  The owners of Radio Trent offered to start a new station in Leicestershire, called Leicester Sound, and 11 months after Centre Radio went off air, Leicester Sound signed on.  So the IBA had previous experience of the difficulties of re-advertising a licence.  They were determined not to make the same mistake again.

So the IBA basically allowed the merger to go ahead.  But in the process, a monster was born, that thought that expansionism was the way to go.  Once the IBA had been replaced by The Radio Authority and the ITC by Margaret Thatcher's government, GWR began expaniding it's reach.  GWR teamed up with Capital to buy Plymouth Sound and DevonAir Radio.  DevonAir was replaced by Gemini FM in a franchise auction, and Capital basically sold the rest of Plymouth Sound to GWR.  GWR continued to pick up stations including the Chiltern Radio network and would begin the process of slowly eroding localness from it's output.  First, all the AM stations were replaced by a networked Classic Gold service with just 4 hours of local output per day for 6 days out of 7, a total of 24 hours of local programming a week.

Then GWR tried to get local programming cut down to just 13 hours a day across their network, but the regulator said that it had to be 16 hours a day.  As a deliberate move, they made 3 of the local hours 3am to 6am in the morning, at the most unprofitable time of the day.  It was as though they were trying to send a message to the regulator that local doesn't work.  Network programming ran from 7pm till 3am.

Eventually, OFCOM backed down and basically local programming has been slashed on Heart ever since.  There is now only 7 hours of "local" programming on Heart on weekdays, and 4 hours at weekends, a total of 43 hours a week.  The company behind Heart, Global Radio, basically these days is a mixture of the GCap attitudes and the attitude of Charles Allen, who basically oversaw the downgrading of ITV from a serious regional broadcaster with a unique selling point, to a company that is little different from the myriad of digital TV broadcasters.  In short, it is the worst of all media worlds, joined together in one place.

People have said this will increase choice.  It won't.  Heart were already broadcasting in Cornwall via DAB Digital Radio, relaying the Devon service with Plymouth ads.  The least I can hope for is that on the Cornwall mux they arrange to playout the Cornwall ads instead.  Other than that, there would be no discernable difference in output, and we have lost the Atlantic FM sound on FM, to make way for Heart.  Jermey Scott called this an upgrade for Atlantic.  it is not, it is a downgrade, and most listeners in Cornwall will know this.
Expect the listenership figures for Atlantic/Heart to plummet from the current 71,000, to a level nearer 17,000 or even maybe nearer 7,000.

Pirate FM and BBC Radio Cornwall will undoubtedly be the beneficiaries.  There's enough history as well to back that up.  In 1999, Plymouth Sound AM was replaced by Classic Gold.   The figures dropped from 67,000 to 20,000.  Pirate FM picked up most of the listeners who deserted.  Now, history will repeat itself, and Global Radio haven't learned the lessons of the past.  If you don't learn from the past, you are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past, which is what Global will do.

The worst part is whilst Atlantic FM never made a profit, they were almost as well respected as Pirate FM.  They knew they were coming into a tough market with both Pirate FM and BBC Radio Cornwall being long established and successful stations.  That Atlantic FM couldn't be profitable despite their best efforts is regrettable, and understandable.  But the fact that Global haven't understood the dynamics of the area they are proposing to move into and are going to output to Cornwall from Exeter and London, shows how much the company is out of touch with actuality. 

Global Radio haven't even been profitable the last 2 financial years, yet Ashley Tabor has taken home about £6million in bonuses.  Bonuses for failure.  Failing to grow in terms of listeners, and failing to grow in terms of credibility and respect.

Global is about as hated as GWR Group and GCap Media were before them.  That sort of baggage only weighs a company down.  Global is a company that needs to change it's whole direction and priorities.  Being overfocused on cutting costs, does not lead to making profits.  Their whole mindset, has to turn towards growth, growing the company and investing in its future.  ITV know all about that.  Since Charles Allen left ITV, they have been trying to grow their business, but the market does not have faith in ITV.  It was in 2007 that ITV last saw their share price above the £1 level that indicates market confidence in a company, and even though they have recovered from their March 2009 lows of around 18p per share, they have still yet to recover above the £1 level.  Global is not a plc, unlike ITV, so it's shares do not trade.  But I would imagine that if they did trade on the stock exchange,they would similarly trade below £1.

This move is not good for commercial radio as a whole, and further reinforces the image that Global, through their actions, are slowly destroying local radio, in the same way that ITV decimated regional television.  And whilst that definitely isn't what they are trying to do, that is the perception they are giving off, and as I always say, perception IS reality.