Travelling along the M6 between Birmingham and Cheshire twice in the past week gave me a chance to review the radio offerings in a part of the country i'm not regularly in. I have to say i wasn't impressed. To say there is no choice is putting it mildly. Almost every ILR on the dial is doing the same thing. Gem 106, Signal 1, Free Radio, Heart and Capital are interchangeable. There might be mild differences between the brands of banal pop they peddle, but nobody is doing anything remotely interesting. The highest level of variety between the stations is the adverts.
If this is the "variety" being offered by a regulated market, then the regulator has failed.
The variety is more stark between BBC locals in the area. Treasure Hunts, Gardening phone-ins, Football commentary, Minority programmes, a bloke who sounds like he really wants to be Simon Bates(1).
BBC Radio Stoke sounds like it is actively chasing the Smooth audience and promoting the same bland "the greatest hits from the 60s, 70s and 80s" schtick that all the b-grade ILRs are up to. Its a shame because James Watt (weekday afternoons) is much better than the playlist and slow pace of the show suggests.
(1) - Colin Young, BBC Radio Shropshire. If there was an Olympic event in talking slowly and leaving unneccessary pauses, he'd be the odds on favourite.
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