Smooth Radio

[Ian H]

Radios 3 & 6Music for me (amongst other things). I find inoffensive music offensive.

 

[Glow worm]

Radio Caroline pretty much 24/7 here. A seemingly limitless playlist, terrific, knowledgeable presenters, no news or tedious traffic reports, just great music. I really like the album format, and the fact the station plays plenty of new stuff too.

Not part of a huge soulless mega- corporate radio group like your Smooth/ Heart/ Magnolia FM etc or the BBC, who fought so hard to have them shut down for so many years - and failed.

On good old fashioned medium wave too (648khz am here in East Anglia/ Kent and the low countries) or DAB in some cities or on the web of course)

 

[mistyoptic]

Not just Smooth with a limited playlist. All the Planetradio group are similar. Magic etc

 

[JPBoothy]

Not just Smooth with a limited playlist. All the Planetradio group are similar. Magic etc

I gave up trying to station hop in an attempt to avoid the constant over dramatised news, puerile advertising and DJ's trying to be funny, and eventually opted for Spotify which gives me constant music all day. Initially I was reluctant to pay for music that I already had on vinyl or CD but, when I discovered it was only around £15 for a family of 4 (possibly more) and instant access to endless music it was a good alternative IMO

 

[Beebo]

Not just Smooth with a limited playlist. All the Planetradio group are similar. Magic etc

Global and Bauer (planet) basically control the commercial radio network and each station is getting more niche.
Absolute Radio has 8 different stations playing different stations playing music from a smaller and smaller pool of tracks.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I listen to BBC Radio Lancashire https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_lancashire. I hate commercials. I'm too lazy to tune my old crackly radio into another station every time those 2-3 minute slots of mind numbing adverts start on commercial radio. Same goes for my car radio. I can't be bothered to start fiddling (not safe while driving) so i just have Radio Lancs on, when not listening to cd's.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

They play what tests well, and the testing (if it's anything like what went on when I worked in commercial radio) is laughable. You get a room of say 150 people, play tracks and get them to rank them A, B or C. Tracks voted A will go onto the heaviest rotation, C the lowest. The tracks will be about 70% stuff the testers have heard before, 30% "new" stuff.

The problem is that testing session details are sent out to folk who already listen to the station, so they knows what they likes. This is intentional, because losing that core of listeners means losing audience reach and therefore advertisers.

So Smooth (and all commercial radio stations) could have a far more diverse playlist, but won't because Betty really likes Lionel Richie and will listen all day to get her fix and keep advertisers sweet.

Do they have unrestricted access to all music, I know when I ran a warehouse I had to buy an annual license (wasn't cheap) which then allowed me to play any music station/CD's I wanted (I think). Smooth only seem to have a small selection of music, are you saying they are self limiting, I wondered if there was a fee they paid to the copyright industry somewhere that they could only play certain tracks?

 

[Glow worm]

I keep hearing good things about Devon's Radio Exe. This thread prompted me to look into them, and they are one of the very few independently owned (ie not Bauer or Global) UK stations left.

Probably a bit mainstream for me (now playing Whitney Houston!) but the impressively wide playlist for the last hour includes the Killers, the 1975, Cornershop and The Coral. Might be an option for some, bored with same old same old.

 

[AndyRM]

Do they have unrestricted access to all music, I know when I ran a warehouse I had to buy an annual license (wasn't cheap) which then allowed me to play any music station/CD's I wanted (I think). Smooth only seem to have a small selection of music, are you saying they are self limiting, I wondered if there was a fee they paid to the copyright industry somewhere that they could only play certain tracks?

I believe they do, yes, but because of the way they are set up essentially are self limiting.

 

[Brandane]

I keep hearing good things about Devon's Radio Exe. This thread prompted me to look into them, and they are one of the very few independently owned (ie not Bauer or Global) UK stations left.

Probably a bit mainstream for me (now playing Whitney Houston!) but the impressively wide playlist for the last hour includes the Killers, the 1975, Cornershop and The Coral. Might be an option for some, bored with same old same old.

I just put that station on, and it played my anthem, in keeping with my avatar. Travis, Why does it always rain on me!

 

[GM]

Mostly Radio Paradise and Ken Bruce's Pop Master.

 

[the_mikey]

Radio Caroline pretty much 24/7 here. A seemingly limitless playlist, terrific, knowledgeable presenters, no news or tedious traffic reports, just great music. I really like the album format, and the fact the station plays plenty of new stuff too.

Not part of a huge soulless mega- corporate radio group like your Smooth/ Heart/ Magnolia FM etc or the BBC, who fought so hard to have them shut down for so many years - and failed.

On good old fashioned medium wave too (648khz am here in East Anglia/ Kent and the low countries) or DAB in some cities or on the web of course)

I can sometimes hear it on 648kHz down in the southwest of England.

 

[Glow worm]

I can sometimes hear it on 648kHz down in the southwest of England.

That's pretty good going! The signal certainly packs a punch (for just 1kw). It sounds great on medium wave.

Last summer, I cycled from Dieppe to the Hook of Holland and had 648 on all the way round- rock solid. It has quite a following in the Netherlands and Belgium. Just like old times.

 

[Paulus]

My normal radio station to have on during the working day is BBC R4, however since the lockdown it became apparent very early on they had an agenda to make a meal of the pandemic & instil a mentality of total dread in their listeners, every single program was turned over to doom & gloom. So for my own sanity I switched to Smooth Radio, pretty bland music catering to my late 50's tastes, completely unoffensive & fairly mundane. But now having listen to them for 8(?) weeks I am trying to work out their model, they only appear to have a very restrictive number of tracks, less than 500 possibly, is there a magic number they can play to not pay royalties so something like that?

BBC6 music is quite good. A wide selection from across the music spectrum.

 

[Drago]

When I was a young Bobby Talk Radio leaped into existence, and I spent many a short listening to that. They then ruined it by making it Talk Sport.