Smooth Scotland is a Scottish

independent local radio Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. As a result of the buyouts and mergers permitted by the Broadcasting Act 1990, and deregulation resulting from the Communications Act 2003, ...

station owned and operated by

Global Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

as part of the

Smooth Smooth may refer to: Mathematics * Smooth function, a function that is infinitely differentiable; used in calculus and topology * Smooth manifold, a differentiable manifold for which all the transition maps are smooth functions * Smooth algebrai ...

network. The station replaced

Saga 105.2 FM Saga 105.2 FM was an independent local radio station in Glasgow, Scotland, part of the Saga Radio Group. From December 2005 it was also broadcast in the East of Scotland on DAB, serving Edinburgh, Fife and the Lothians. It was the last radio ...

in 2007. As well as being carried on FM in the Glasgow area, the station is also broadcast on DAB radio to the East of Scotland and online via a streaming service. It is also carried on FM in

Wester Ross Wester Ross () is an area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in the council area of Highland. The area is loosely defined, and has never been used as a formal administrative region in its own right, but is generally regarded as lying to the ...

during non-local broadcast hours of

Two Lochs Radio Two Lochs Radio is Britain's smallest commercial radio station, and community broadcaster for the Gairloch, Loch Ewe and Loch Maree areas of Wester Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland. The station broadcasts in stereo on 106.0 and 106.6MHz FM. It ...

for which it forms a sustaining service.

Overview

GMG Radio ownership

The station came into being following

GMG Radio GMG Radio, and for a short while Real and Smooth Limited, was a company that owned the Real Radio and Smooth Radio networks. As GMG Radio, the company was the radio division of the Guardian Media Group until it was bought in 2012 by Global Rad ...

's purchase of the

Saga Radio Group {{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) The Saga Radio Group was a British radio network owned and operated by Saga Services Ltd, and aimed at an audience aged 50 and over. The first Saga station was launched in the West Midlands on ...

in December 2006, and the granting of permission from the regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

to change the format of its Smooth FM stations in London and the North West of England. The decision was made to change both the Smooth FM and Saga stations to Smooth Radio and Saga 105.2 FM was closed at 6pm on Friday 23 March 2007. This was then followed by a preview weekend for the new Smooth Radio giving listeners the opportunity to hear the presenters and music which would be featured on the new station. The station operated a 24-hour schedule of local programming until August 2008 when networked output from London and Manchester was introduced, leading to the firingsof six station presenters. Following the publication of John Myers' recommendations of a regulatory overhaul in commercial radio, and the passing of the

Digital Economy Act 2010 The Digital Economy Act 2010 (c. 24) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act addresses media policy issues related to digital media, including copyright infringement, Internet domain names, Channel 4 media content, local ra ...

, which allowed stations to co-locate or drop all local shows and broadcast on national DAB, Smooth Radio merged its five England-based stations into one quasi-national station, with local news feeds produced from GMG Radio's headquarters in

Salford Quays Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom foll ...

. GMG made the announcement on 29 June 2010, that it wanted to rival

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

by broadcasting on the

Digital 1 Digital One is a national commercial digital radio multiplex in the United Kingdom, owned by Arqiva. , the multiplex covered more than 90% of the population from 137 transmitters. Coverage was extended to Northern Ireland in July 2013. It cont ...

multiplex on DAB Digital Radio to the whole of England and Wales, as well as

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Digital UK. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. Free ...

Freeview Freeview may refer to: * Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia * Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), ...

Virgin Media Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, Cable television, television and Internet access, internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, Berkshire, Reading, Engla ...

and online. A regional flavour would be kept with split news, travel and weather bulletins broadcasting in the FM and DAB regional stations in the North East, North West, West Midlands and East Midlands. London listeners and those tuning nationally would hear national information.

Global ownership

Most of Smooth Radio's output was relocated to new owner

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...

headquarters from 1 October 2013, a move that coincided with a major overhaul of its schedule, and the closure of Smooth 70s after 21 months on air. In November 2016, Smooth Scotland and its sister station

Heart Scotland Heart Scotland is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. The station relaunched as Heart on 6 May 2014, serving Central and Southern Scotland from studios in Glasgow city centre. Heart Scotl ...

moved from its former studios at

Ballieston Baillieston ( sco, Bailiestoun) is a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. It is about east of the city centre. It also gives its name to Ward 20 of Glasgow City Council and forms part of the Glasgow East constituency of the UK Parliament. Geograph ...

in the east end of Glasgow to Global's new Scottish headquarters at West Regent Street in the city centre. In September 2019, following OFCOM's decision to relax local content obligations from commercial radio, Smooth's local Drivetime and weekend shows were replaced by network programming from London. Local news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising were retained, alongside the station's Scottish breakfast show.

Programming

Local programming is produced and broadcast from Global's Glasgow studios from 6-10am on weekdays presented by John Mellis. All networked programming originates from Global's London headquarters, including ''The Smooth Drive Home'' with

Angie Greaves Angie Greaves (born in London) is a British radio presenter. Radio career Greaves started her media career in 1982 as a BBC Administrator at Television Centre. In 1986 she moved to London's Capital Radio, where she began working on the radio afte ...

News

Global's Newsroom broadcasts hourly regional news bulletins. The Glasgow newsroom also produces bulletins for

Capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

and

Heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide t ...

in Scotland. National news updates air hourly from Global's London headquarters at times.Smooth Radio - Scotland public file
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References

External links

Smooth ScotlandSmooth Scotland - Public Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smooth Radio stations in Glasgow Radio stations in Scotland Radio stations established in 2007 2007 establishments in Scotland GMG Radio Global Radio

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...