Next week, the UK’s Global Radio will slash local programming on their Heart and Galaxy station networks. Outside of the breakfast and afternoon shifts, programming will be mainly fed to all stations from a central location creating a quasi-national network.

Is this a bad thing? Is it a surprise? Will listeners even notice? My answers, in no particular order are no, no and no.

Business side first. Heart and Galaxy have been quasi-national brands for some time both on air and behind the scenes. The stations have shared the same playlists, management and jingles for years. However having several local versions of the same brand has made it difficult to sell advertising cross-network. By sharing the same presenter and output across all the stations makes sense, especially during mid-morning, mid-afternoon and evening slots. Crucially it means the group now have a real advertising and sponsorship proposition. The bottom line is costs are down, sales are up and that’s good business.

What about the listeners? Let’s face it, they buy into these stations for the music. They’re still getting local content in the key morning and late afternoon dayparts, when time and relevancy are key, while during busier times they’ve got great music and a great talent presenting it. A win for them too!

But how could it be made even better? Technology allows us broadcasters to do many things many ways. With some creative planning there is nothing to stop the centralised dj hitting a jingle, promo or information spot and have different versions play in different locations. So Heart dj hit’s button in London and Londoners hear the Heart “London” jingle, Brummies their Heart “West Midlands” jingle and so on. Roll that out to promos or even info slots such as traffic or info slots relevant to each local area … and bingo - high quality networked “local radio”! Something tells me though this won’t happen

Finally on networking, great note from Matt Deegan concerning the CN Group. CN are networking their Touch radio stations with the exception of the new Warwick station which has to wait two years to keep with it’s application proposals. Matts solution - broadcast all the networked shows from Warwick!