Talk:Smooth Radio (2010)

Differences between Smooth and Jazz FM, prior to the changeover

Arthurvasey (talk) 11:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The station I used to listen to called Smooth originally had, for the most part, just back-to-back easy listening music with almost no presenters - they had a guy on doing the breakfast show, but he never spoke much.

The breakfast and drivetime shows featured news on the hour, relevant to the area, regional travel news at quarter past and quarter to the hour and regional sport on the half-hour, with non-stop music in between.

Meanwhile, Jazz FM - which had previously played jazz, as its name implied, started blending it with soul.

Then it was announced that Jazz FM was to become Smooth FM - Jazz FM just started broadcasting as Smooth FM on Smooth's frequency on DAB and Jazz FM's frequency just started to adopt a similar format to Smooth, playing back-to-back unidentifiable muzak with no speech or ads, but news on the hour. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthurvasey (talk • contribs) 11:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Article moved, uncontested ~~ GB fan ~~ 06:24, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

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Smooth Network → Smooth Radio — The station's actual name. TheRetroGuy (talk) 18:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Refdump

In a drive to get this article ready for a potential GA nomination, I have created a refdump of sources relating to Smooth Radio. There is practically everything concerning the network from the radio industry's journal Radio Today which contains lots of useful little information on its history. To save space on this page the list can be found at User:Paul MacDermott/Smooth Radio/references. Paul MacDermott (talk) 22:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

image request

Have added a few, but am looking for an image of GMG/Smooth HQ at Salford Quays or London if possible. I'd like to take this to GA in the not too distant future. Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Audience

Official quarterly audience figures collated by Radio Joint Authority Research Limited (RAJAR) indicate Smooth Radio to have an average weekly audience of just over 3 million listeners. Figures for the third quarter of 2010, released in October of that year showed that collectively, the six regional Smooth stations had reached 3 million on a weekly basis at the time Smooth became a national broadcaster. The figures were for the third quarter of 2010 as the changeover was about to occur, and at the time John Simons, Group Programme Director for GMG Radio expressed his delight: “The scope for Smooth Radio is huge and we’re looking forward to seeing this growth continue as more and more people discover the station across the UK. We firmly believe Smooth has the potential to become the UK’s biggest national commercial station and these figures show it’s heading in the right direction!.”

For Smooth's first three months as a national station during the final quarter of 2010, listeners rose to 3.08 million. The figure remained unchanged in the first quarter of 2011, although listeners in London increased by 29 percent, largely thanks to the arrival of Simon Bates on the breakfast show.

Smooth continued to increase its audience share in the second quarter of 2011, with an average weekly total of 3.2 million, which rose once again in the third quarter to 3.328m, meaning that for the first time Smooth overtook one of its national rival, talkSPORT. Smooth enjoyed an audience of 3.3 million in the final quarter of the year, a figure that made it the second most listened to national commercial radio station in the United Kingdom. 3,317,000 listeners were tuning in during the first quarter of 2012, though that number dropped slightly in the second quarter to 3.2 million.

Replacement refs

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Removed text

From 'Special programmong and events':

On 16 January 2012 Smooth Radio launched a phone-in competition titled the Smooth Secret Songs in which listeners were invited to call in to identify a short excerpt from three songs, winning a cash prize if they could name the tracks correctly. The prize money started at £5,000, with each wrong answer generating a £100 increase until they were guessed correctly. A contestant from Birmingham won £18,000 on 3 February after identifying the songs as Got to Be There by Michael Jackson, Smooth Operator by Sade and On the Radio by Donna Summer. A previous version of the competition requiring contestants to guess one song correctly was separately held by London's 102.2 Smooth FM and Manchester's 100.4 Smooth FM in 2006. A listener to the London station won £118,454 after identifying Diana Ross's My Old Piano, while a contestant in the Northwest picked up £86,500 after correctly guessing the track as Quincy Jones's Razzamatazz.

I removed this because commercial stations run lots of promotions and this doesn't seem important enough to warrant mention in the article. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 01:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

That's fine. I think I may have been expecting the prize to reach quite a significant amount, but it was guessed quite quickly in the end. Paul MacDermott (talk) 20:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah I see the point now - if it were a record prize payout I guess it would be significant! :-) Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 02:49, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

From header: "Bates has revived some of his popular features from his days at BBC Radio 1, including Our Tune. - no longer mentioned in the body. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 02:49, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

More removed text

Adding removed section as I may need to refs to update the presenters. Paul MacDermott (talk) 17:51, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Presenter history

Smooth Radio's presenters have become well-known broadcasting personae. Kevin Greening was a presenter on 102.2 Smooth Radio, and had worked for its predecessor, 102.2 Smooth FM. Lynn Parsons joined 102.2 Smooth Radio along with Capital FM's Mike Allen in March 2007. Mark Goodier also joined Smooth in London in March 2007 to present his first daily radio programme for a decade, which was networked from September of that year. In September 2012 he announced he would leave Smooth in mid-December to focus on his company, Wise Buddah Productions.

Carlos hosted a show on 105.7 Smooth Radio in Birmingham until joining the national Smooth Radio in 2010. After joining 102.2 Smooth Radio in February 2008, veteran broadcaster Tony Blackburn presented a syndicated weekend breakfast show for Smooth later that year. He left the station in October 2010 to present Pick of the Pops on BBC Radio 2 because the BBC would not allow him to continue working for a rival broadcaster.

Fiona Phillips was signed to present a networked Sunday afternoon show from 23 March 2008, but after disappointing audience figures she was dropped from the schedule a year later. Chris Tarrant joined the station in 2008 and presented a weekly Saturday morning show for several GMG stations to compete with Jonathan Ross's programme on Radio 2. The show aired for twelve months, after which Tarrant's contract with GMG Radio was not renewed.

Andy Peebles began presenting a networked weekday evening show from March 2009, having presented Soul Train on 100.4 Smooth Radio upon its launch in 2004. Former head of music at GMG Radio Terry Underhill joined the network in 2009, but left in 2011 to take up the position at UTV Media as director of programming. In September 2009 record producer Pete Waterman was signed to present a programme featuring some of his favourite hits from the 1970s and 1980s.

Since GMG launched Smooth as a national station in 2010, Simon Bates left Classic FM after 13 years to join Smooth Radio as its new weekday breakfast presenter from January 2011. Bates revived The Golden Hour and Our Tune, two popular features from his Radio 1 days. David "Kid" Jensen was signed in November 2010 to present an afternoon show from 2011. later confirmed to begin from April.

Pat Sharp was appointed as Tony Blackburn's replacement in January 2011. Emma B joined the network in March 2011 to host a Sunday afternoon show, In January 2012 Graham Torrington joined the station to host his Late Night Love show on Sunday evenings, but the show was axed after three months and replaced by a syndicated programme from the United States presented by Donny Osmond. In October 2012 Smooth announced stand-in presenter David Prever would become a permanent host from December, taking over from Lynn Parsons at weekends, who was confirmed as Mark Goodier's replacement on the weekday mid morning show.

One-off presenters

Denise Van Outen has hosted one-off shows for Smooth, covering for Emma B in May 2011, presenting a special programme on Christmas Eve, and again on Easter Monday 2012. The former BBC Royal Correspondent Jennie Bond reported on the royal wedding for Smooth on 29 April 2011. The astrologer Russell Grant joined the network to present a one-off programme on 27 August (Bank Holiday Monday) featuring some of his favourite songs from the 1960s.

Possible article split

Plans have been announced this week to take Smooth Radio off the national Digital One multiplex, and to roll out the Smooth Radio brand across the existing Gold network. As this would effectively end Smooth's status as a national radio station, when it happens, I propose to begin a new article covering that topic, perhaps briefly summarising this one then adding any fresh information there. We have articles for previous incarnations of this station, i.e., 102.2 Jazz FM, 102.2 Smooth FM and 102.2 Smooth Radio, and their various regional stablemates, so this would just be a continuation of that, and it would be a shame to wreck a page with Good Article status by adding a load of additional detail, some of which it may not be possible to source. Also, Global plan to partially restore a regional service, so we'll probably need to create a few fresh articles. Please feel free to contact me about this, or add any thoughts here. Thanks. Paul MacDermott (talk) 13:51, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

An update on this. Now we have confirmation of the relaunch, I propose to move this article to Smooth Radio (2010), and create Smooth Radio (2014) for the new station. This seems sensible as we have articles on the station's previous incarnations. Feel free to add any thoughts on this. If nobody objects, I'll make the changes once the relaunch happens. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 19:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)