UK Radio Advertisements Don't Mention Dial Position, Just Brand Name

[Gregg.]

I was looking at some video of streets in London. I noticed on the side of a double decker bus was an ad for "Smooth Radio." There were pictures of Whitney Houston, Adele and Lionel Richie with the slogan "Always the Best Music."

It's a Soft AC format. According to Wikipedia, it had been called 102.2 Smooth FM London. But except for regional breakfast shows, all the co-owned Smooth stations run the same program nationwide in middays, afternoons, evenings and overnight.

If you have an FM radio in London, you can still hear it on 102.2 MHz. But it's also on DAB, which I guess is another way to hear radio. Is it like Sirius XM, a subscription service?

I find it a bit disappointing that even on a London bus, there's no dial position in the ad. The assumption is that you will figure out on your own how to hear the station. Maybe DAB, maybe streaming off the website (how I listened in the U.S.), maybe on an FM radio... but they won't even bother to tell you to find it at 102.2. Even though the playlist is aimed at upper demos, the advertising agency feels the dial position is wasted ink.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Switzerland to phase out analog FM broadcasts by end of 2024

Time to upgrade that receiver if you're one of the few Swiss that still don't have one able to receive DAB+ signals

www.theregister.com

Is the UK phasing out FM radio like Switzerland just did.

44 of 47 AM radio stations in Japan to switch to FM by 2028 - The Japan Online Trends Channel

TBS Radio Inc. Chairman Kiyohiko Irie is seen during a news conference in Tokyo's Minato Ward, on June 15, 2021. (Photo courtesy of the Wide FM receiver

thejapanonlinechannel.com

Japan is Phasing out AM in 2028. Don't know when the UK will do something similar.

 

[Miss Tuned]

I was looking at some video of streets in London. I noticed on the side of a double decker bus was an ad for "Smooth Radio." There were pictures of Whitney Houston, Adele and Lionel Richie with the slogan "Always the Best Music."

It's a Soft AC format. According to Wikipedia, it had been called 102.2 Smooth FM London. But except for regional breakfast shows, all the co-owned Smooth stations run the same program nationwide in middays, afternoons, evenings and overnight.

If you have an FM radio in London, you can still hear it on 102.2 MHz. But it's also on DAB, which I guess is another way to hear radio. Is it like Sirius XM, a subscription service?

I find it a bit disappointing that even on a London bus, there's no dial position in the ad. The assumption is that you will figure out on your own how to hear the station. Maybe DAB, maybe streaming off the website (how I listened in the U.S.), maybe on an FM radio... but they won't even bother to tell you to find it at 102.2. Even though the playlist is aimed at upper demos, the advertising agency feels the dial position is wasted ink.

DAB is a free-to-air terrestrial system and has come in all new cars for over a decade - it's pretty much the main broadcast standard in the UK now. You choose the station on an alphabetical list/menu on the radio display which automatically shows all the stations in your location, so you go to S for Smooth and it's there, no frequency or dial position needed. That's without mentioning the large numbers of people listening on smart speakers. More people in the UK are listening to the radio online than on FM now.

Smooth is a national station on DAB, but it isn't available on FM in all parts of the country, and where it is available the frequency differs (where I live, it's on 100.4). These ads on buses, billboards etc are done nationally, so it's easier just to put the name of the station and let people find it - it's a very well known station in the UK, it's in the top 5, so people will generally know where they can find it. They've just done a music repositioning from straight-up Soft AC ("your relaxing music mix") further into Classic Hits ("always the best music"), hence the promotion. Global, who own the station, also own most of the billboards and advertising sites in the UK including London buses, so their stations are heavily advertised outdoors.

Incidentally, Smooth (and all the other stations owned by Global) have just dropped their regional shows in England:

Global introduces new ‘nations strategy’ and drops local and regional shows in England

Global is to end all local and regional shows on Heart, Smooth and Capital brands in England, adopting a new Nations Strategy.

radiotoday.co.uk

 

[kevtronics]

In addition to DAB, Europe has long used the ability of RDS (Radio Data System) to automatically re-tune your FM radio to whatever is the strongest signal carrying a particular network in your area. So for example BBC Radio 2 just advertises itself as "88 to 91 FM" rather than listing the exact frequencies of all of their transmitters.

 

[Miss Tuned]

In addition to DAB, Europe has long used the ability of RDS (Radio Data System) to automatically re-tune your FM radio to whatever is the strongest signal carrying a particular network in your area. So for example BBC Radio 2 just advertises itself as "88 to 91 FM" rather than listing the exact frequencies of all of their transmitters.

I'd like to hear the legal ID for all 217 transmitters of BBC Radio 2 every hour (it might be an improvement on the programming of late)

 

[Mediafrog+]

Japan is Phasing out AM in 2028. Don't know when the UK will do something similar.

The BBC has already stated that it wants to get out of the AM radio business, though I suspect their FM transmitters will survive another five to ten years.

The BBC Radio 4 longwave transmitters on 198 kHz are supposedly shutting down sometime this year, but there hasn’t been any recent news about a specific date.

 

[Miss Tuned]

The BBC has already stated that it wants to get out of the AM radio business, though I suspect their FM transmitters will survive another five to ten years.

The BBC Radio 4 longwave transmitters on 198 kHz are supposedly shutting down sometime this year, but there hasn’t been any recent news about a specific date.

The UK has already pretty much "phased out AM". The big commercial radio owners have closed down the vast majority of their AM transmitters in favor of DAB over the past few years, and there's not much left on AM. There's the BBC (but not their local stations, which have signed off AM), TalkSport and a few small, mostly ethnic stations.

If I scan the AM dial locally in daytime with a good receiver, I get BBC Radio 5 Live, TalkSport, and a South Asian station called Lyca - that's it, in a major UK city. We're still behind France, Germany and most other major European countries in terms of AM switch-off, but we're not far off a complete shutdown now.

 

[TheTVExplorer]

The UK has already pretty much "phased out AM". The big commercial radio owners have closed down the vast majority of their AM transmitters in favor of DAB over the past few years, and there's not much left on AM. There's the BBC (but not their local stations, which have signed off AM), TalkSport and a few small, mostly ethnic stations.

If I scan the AM dial locally in daytime with a good receiver, I get BBC Radio 5 Live, TalkSport, and a South Asian station called Lyca - that's it, in a major UK city. We're still behind France, Germany and most other major European countries in terms of AM switch-off, but we're not far off a complete shutdown now.

In fact, when I went to London back in October, LBC News was still on the air. A few weeks later, Global announced that they would be shutting down LBC News on AM. That shows you how fast some broadcasters are trying to get out of AM.

 

[fybush]

In fact, when I went to London back in October, LBC News was still on the air. A few weeks later, Global announced that they would be shutting down LBC News on AM. That shows you how fast some broadcasters are trying to get out of AM.

That was probably less Global and more whichever contractor operated the old IBA MW site north of London that had been carrying LNC News, Gold and I think also Lyca. They were eager to shut that four-tower site down and redevelop the property.

 

[gr8oldies]

In fact, when I went to London back in October, LBC News was still on the air. A few weeks later, Global announced that they would be shutting down LBC News on AM. That shows you how fast some broadcasters are trying to get out of AM.

I think even 1548 Gold is gone, last time I checked SDRs

(Edit) If I had read the previous post I'd have confirmed that

 

[Miss Tuned]

That was probably less Global and more whichever contractor operated the old IBA MW site north of London that had been carrying LNC News, Gold and I think also Lyca. They were eager to shut that four-tower site down and redevelop the property.

The site (Brookmans Park) is still there and broadcasting BBC 5 Live, TalkSport and the London outlet of Lyca. It has a secondary use, as a satellite ground station close to London, and is still being developed for that purpose. When the AM stuff goes, the site will likely remain as a communications station for the satellite stuff - they've just built some brand new satellite/digital infrastructure there.

My location is Manchester, rather than London. London has a few additional AMs still on the air compared to Manchester - a second station from Lyca (Lyca Gold, playing older music) on 1035, another South Asian station called Sunrise on 963/972, a Punjabi station on the nice low-dial position of 558 with great coverage and a fourth South Asian station called Desi Radio on the unenviable high-dial position of 1602. There's also a Christian station on various low-power AMs in the 1300-1400 range around London. All of these bar Desi are on DAB, so it's unclear how many people are actually listening to the AMs.

 

[fybush]

Brookmans Park is indeed still there - that's the historic BBC site. The ILR site was a different site, at Saffron Green along the A1. With the end of LBC News, the Saffron Green site is no longer in active use.

(I was incorrect about Lyca 1458 being at Saffron Green. It's at Brookmans Park, which makes sense because it's on the former BBC Radio London MW frequency.)

 

[mightynine]

As someone who picked up a Sony portable DAB radio when I visited London a few years back (this one, actually), I found the experience of scrolling through a list of stations far more enjoyable than a random scan.

Still have the radio actually, works just fine for regular FM and does have RDS too.

DAB is also how I discovered Classic FM, which I still enjoy to this day on the Global Player. Big fan of their recent Movies sub-channel too.

 

[Michi]

Japan has been working towards phasing out AM stations, at least on the commercial broadcast side for several years. Last decade, Japan expanded their FM band from 76~90 MHz to 76~95 MHz under a campaign called ワイドFM, or "Wide FM", which recovered TV Channel 1 that was discontinued when Japan (like most of the rest of the world) went to all-UHF terrestrial digital television. This "phase out" of AM appears to be a commercial initiative only. I have not heard about any plans for NHK to drop AM. NHK operates two AM radio networks using both very high and lower powered AM facilities centered around regional broadcast centers. NHK also runs one FM network in the legacy 76~90 MHz band. The penetration of the new Wide-FM receivers has been very successful. The Wide-FM radios do tune the entire 76~108 MHz band. There is still room in the 95~108 MHz band for Japan to further widen the band. It is also important to remember that there are far fewer radio stations (AM and FM) in Japan as compared to the same area within the United States.

Brazil, which uses the Region 2 broadcasting allocations is also in the process of expanding their FM band, utilizing the entire 76~88 MHz band, replacing former analog TV channels 5 and 6 to provide a replacement for AM radio. CITEL, the spectrum coordinating body for the entire Western Hemisphere has already adopted recommendations that would allow administrations in Region 2 to use 76~88 MHz for sound broadcasting in lieu of television. Other nations in South America have been considering doing the same thing.

In the USA, despite of the high density of broadcast stations, an expansion of the broadcast band to 76~88 could be done, albeit stepping on the toes of a very small number of full-service Channel 5 and 6 TV stations, would be able to accommodate a majority of AM station allocations. Unfortunately, the influence of companies like Disney (who has the only major market network affiliate in the spectrum), the differing attitude of Americans where it comes to radio and the horrible job done over the past couple of decades by the NAB and the consumer electronics industry in promoting radio in the USA (just think, HD Radio), pretty much selling the shop to streaming services has stifled much support and perceived public support for such a band expansion in the United States. Adding 76~88 MHz (60 channels) to the FM band and eliminating certain restrictions that date back to the days of older design receivers, such as the need to provide interference protection on third and even second-adjacent channels could result in a robust environment that could provide a future for AM broadcasters, much more than a 250 watt translator inside the interfering contour of other stations could ever provide. Such a change can be done and would be compliant with the fair distribution language in the Communications Act and with the Local Community Radio Act.

 

[Miss Tuned]

As someone who picked up a Sony portable DAB radio when I visited London a few years back (this one, actually), I found the experience of scrolling through a list of stations far more enjoyable than a random scan.

Still have the radio actually, works just fine for regular FM and does have RDS too.

DAB is also how I discovered Classic FM, which I still enjoy to this day on the Global Player. Big fan of their recent Movies sub-channel too.

I have the slightly larger variant of this radio. I don't use it at home, because I stream everything (I prefer American radio, I've been listening to WTTS all afternoon), but it always goes in my suitcase if I'm traveling somewhere new because it's fun to scan the dial in a new place and see what's on. In the UK, FM is pretty dull - same old Smooth, Greatest Hits Radio, Capital on different frequencies for the most part - but DAB is where you tend to find the stations with a bit of local color. It's sensitive enough to get all the stations in a given market, and then some - I was on the west coast of England a couple of months ago and enjoyed using it to listen to the Isle of Man's three stations from over the sea.

I've also used it in the U.S. and while the DAB function is of course useless, it has a really useful FM scan function that generates a station list from the available FM stations. The only downside in the U.S. is the use of scrolling RDS names to show track info and ads, so you end up with half an ad for an injury lawyer stored on the list instead of the brand or call letters.

 

[Miss Tuned]

Brookmans Park is indeed still there - that's the historic BBC site. The ILR site was a different site, at Saffron Green along the A1. With the end of LBC News, the Saffron Green site is no longer in active use.

(I was incorrect about Lyca 1458 being at Saffron Green. It's at Brookmans Park, which makes sense because it's on the former BBC Radio London MW frequency.)

I also got them muddled up! Not my market, and Lyca being on the old BBC site escaped my memory.

 

[Reverend]

I'd like to hear the legal ID for all 217 transmitters of BBC Radio 2 every hour (it might be an improvement on the programming of late)

The idea of listing frequencies when you have a large network begins to get a bit silly. Below is a logo for 'Capital FM'. Originally a London station on 95.8 (where it still transmits) it began buying up stations elsewhere in the country. Whilst they did originally make adverts with the local frequencies on them, they eventually just kept expanding the range of frequencies onto a single logo. Saying that you are on '95 to 108' seems rather pointless, as it doesn't help listeners to find the station in any given locality.

The points made here on DAB are also true, as DAB receivers do not show a frequency, just a list of stations though oddly some stations use their current (or in some cases defunct) FM frequency in their station name - such as Centreforce88.3 who are a DAB only station. 88.3 refers to their old FM frequency which they used... when they were a pirate!

 

[Miss Tuned]

The idea of listing frequencies when you have a large network begins to get a bit silly. Below is a logo for 'Capital FM'. Originally a London station on 95.8 (where it still transmits) it began buying up stations elsewhere in the country. Whilst they did originally make adverts with the local frequencies on them, they eventually just kept expanding the range of frequencies onto a single logo. Saying that you are on '95 to 108' seems rather pointless, as it doesn't help listeners to find the station in any given locality.

The points made here on DAB are also true, as DAB receivers do not show a frequency, just a list of stations though oddly some stations use their current (or in some cases defunct) FM frequency in their station name - such as Centreforce88.3 who are a DAB only station. 88.3 refers to their old FM frequency which they used... when they were a pirate!

View attachment 8973

View attachment 8974View attachment 8975
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They've dumped this now, and they just use one logo, with no frequencies:



Heart was the silliest, as they had a single transmitter way down the dial at 88.0 MHz in Wales, and others as far up as 107.7. I'm not sure they ever used "88-107" in a logo.

Centreforce often refer to themselves on air as "8-8-3 D-A-B" which rhymes, but one of the main reasons they use the old frequency is that it puts them right at the top of the station list on DAB radios, which list stations alphabetically (they're "88.3 CENTREFORCE" on DAB station lists). The name "Absolute Radio" was chosen in part for similar reasons, back in 2008 when DAB was just becoming mainstream.

 

[Reverend]

Heart North Wales is on 88.0, 102.8, 105.7, 106.0, 106.9, 107.2, 107.3 and 107.7 You're almost certainly right that they never had a logo which said 'Heart 88-108'. This seems to be the nearest they came. Just as silly as the Capital logo.