Absolute Radio

Absolute Radio is a British digital radio station owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK as part of the Absolute Radio Network. It broadcasts nationally across the UK via digital audio broadcasting.

The station focuses on alternative and indie music.

History

1993–1997: Virgin Radio launch and early years

The Broadcasting Act 1990 allowed for the launch of independent national radio (INR) stations in the United Kingdom. The Radio Authority was mandated to award three INR licences, one of which (INR1) had to be for a "non-pop" station (which was awarded to Classic FM), and one of which had to be for a predominantly speech-based service (this would be advertised later as INR3 and awarded to Talk Radio). The remaining licence was to be open to "all-comers". The licences were to be awarded to the highest cash bidder, providing that the applicant met criteria set down in the Broadcasting Act.

The second national licence, INR2, would take over the 1197 kHz and 1215 kHz medium wave (AM) frequencies, which were to be relinquished by BBC Radio 3. The licence was advertised in October 1991 and five organisations bid: the Independent National Broadcasting Company of Sheffield, which bid £4,010,000 per year; a TV-am/Virgin consortium (£1,883,000); Chiltern Radio Network's 20/20 Radio (£1,311,000); Radio Clyde's Score Radio (£701,000); and a consortium of CLT, Harvey Goldsmith and RTÉ (£211,000). The TV-am/Virgin consortium was awarded the licence in April 1992, after the Radio Authority said that it was not satisfied that Independent National Broadcasting would be able to sustain the service. Later that year, TV-am lost its ITV franchise and its stake in the radio station was sold in March 1993 to Apax Partners, JP Morgan Investment Corporation and Sir David Frost.

The station launched as Virgin 1215 at 12:15 pm on 30 April 1993. The original line-up of DJs included Richard Skinner, Russ Williams, Jono Coleman, Mitch Johnson, Graham Dene, Nick Abbot, Wendy Lloyd, Tommy Vance, Emperor Rosko and Dave Fanning. Chris Evans was also hired to present a Saturday morning show, following his success at BBC GLR in the weekend mid-morning slot. The show, ''The Big Red Mug Show'', was sponsored by Nescafé. The first song played was INXS' cover version of the Steppenwolf song " Born to be Wild". Richard Branson was the first voice to be heard, live from the Virgin Megastore in Manchester, with Richard Skinner the first voice back in the London studios. Skinner was also programme director, a role he shared with John Revell. John Pearson was launch sales director, a role he had previously held at LBC. Andy Mollett was launch finance director. David Campbell, previously managing director of one of Virgin's post-production television companies, was the chief executive at launch.

From before its launch on AM, Virgin Radio was campaigning for a national FM network. Initially, it lobbied for Radio 4's FM network to be made available and then, when the Radio Authority launched a consultation on the use of the 105–108 MHz band, it lobbied for it to be set aside as a national network. The Radio Authority decided, however, that 105–108 MHz would be licensed to new local and regional stations and Virgin Radio applied for and won one of the new FM licences advertised in London as a result.

Virgin Radio launched on 105.8 MHz FM in London on 10 April 1995 beginning with a message from broadcaster David Frost at 6 am followed by the ''Russ 'n' Jono breakfast show''. Part of the licence requirements for the London service meant that a daily London opt-out was broadcast on FM, presented initially by Rowland Rivron.

Within a year, Virgin Group was considering the next steps for the radio station, including the option of a flotation or buying back the shares of JP Morgan, Apax and Sir David Frost. In May 1997, it was announced that Capital Radio had agreed to acquire Virgin Radio in an £87 million deal. Capital's plans included moving Virgin Radio from 1 Golden Square to Capital's Leicester Square building and splitting programming between the AM and FM services. The Radio Authority approved the acquisition, but Nigel Griffiths, the Consumer Affairs Minister, referred the takeover to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC). The MMC report into the takeover would not be issued until January 1998, and would recommend that the deal could only go ahead if Capital Gold was sold or Virgin's London FM licence was excluded from the deal. However, the delay in approval of the Capital acquisition would ultimately lead to the deal not going through.

In January 1997, Chris Evans left his role as presenter of the '' Radio 1 Breakfast Show'' as a result of a disagreement between him and the programme controller Matthew Bannister (Evans had asked for Fridays off to allow more time for him to work on his Channel 4 television show, TFI Friday). Evans was keen to return to radio and it had been reported that his agent, Michael Foster, had approached Matthew Bannister to ask if Evans would be allowed to be return to Radio 1, and he had gone as far as commencing negotiations to buy Talk Radio.

Richard Branson wanted Evans to work for Virgin Radio, so much so that he joined him on a Concorde flight to New York to try to persuade him to join as the drive time presenter. In the end, Virgin Radio hired Evans to present the breakfast show, replacing the incumbent ''Russ 'n' Jono show'' (presented by Russ Williams and Jonathan Coleman). His show started on 13 October 1997, the same day that Zoë Ball started as Evans' replacement on Radio 1. The initial contract would only be for ten weeks, until the MMC announced its decision on the Capital Radio takeover. Evans approached David Campbell to discuss buying the radio station and, with Michael Foster's help, they put together a deal to buy it with venture capital supplied by Apax Partners and Paribas, with Virgin Group retaining a 20% stake in the business. The deal was announced on 8 December 1997, and would see the formation of the Ginger Media Group, an umbrella company overseeing Virgin Radio and producing programmes such as TFI Friday.

1998–2000: The Ginger Media Group

Evans' ownership of Virgin Radio started well, with a breakfast show audience increase of 660,000 to 2.2m in his first three months. In August 1998, Evans took a spur of the moment decision one weekend to launch a Saturday afternoon show called ''Rock 'n' Roll Football'', which continues to be broadcast on Absolute Radio. From 5 October 1998, Virgin Radio started simulcasts of the breakfast show on Sky One each morning for an hour between 7.30 and 8.30 am When a track was played on the radio, viewers would see a video at the same time.

The start of the new football season in August 1999 saw Terry Venables join Russ Williams in a show that would precede ''Rock 'n' Roll Football''. At the end of 1999, at a time when TV programme Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? had yet to give away its top prize, Virgin Radio set a broadcasting first when Clare Barwick won £1 million at the culmination of "Someone's Going to Be a Millionaire".

The management team at the Ginger Media Group were considering expansion opportunities, including a plan to acquire the '' Daily Star'' newspaper from United News & Media, and hire Piers Morgan to edit it. Their plans were stalled, however, when the shareholders got cold feet. Evans wrote in his autobiography that "the management wanted to stick to our original brief of expansion, whereas our investors only cared about extracting the added value."

2000–2008: SMG ownership

The management team therefore set itself on a strategy to sell the business three years ahead of schedule. It hired Goldman Sachs to run the sale process, and considered a public flotation, before selling to the Scottish Media Group for £225 million in March 2000. The Scottish Media Group, which owned Scottish Television and the Herald newspaper, fought off other bidders including Clear Channel, NRJ and Guardian Media Group. Evans personally made £75 million out of the sale.

Evans was subsequently fired by his new employer in 2001 for failing to report into work for five consecutive days while reportedly partying with his then wife Billie Piper.

Chief executive John Pearson, who had been with the station since before launch, resigned in April 2005, and was replaced by Fru Hazlitt, who had previously been managing director of Yahoo! UK and Ireland.

On 13 June 2006, SMG plc signed a deal with YooMedia to make Virgin Radio available on Freeview. Long before the station's AM transmitters were closed in January 2023, it had always placed a great emphasis on other methods of transmission than medium wave, as the 1215 kHz frequency suffered from considerable interference, particularly after dark – BBC Radio 1, which used 1215 kHz for its first eleven years on air, moved to higher-quality medium wave frequencies (now used by talkSport) in 1978 primarily for this reason.

2008–2013: Acquisition by Times of India and rebranding as Absolute Radio

On 12 April 2007, it was announced that SMG plc was to sell Virgin Radio, to enable the company to focus on its television station, STV. On 30 May 2008 SMG sold Virgin Radio to TIML Golden Square Limited, a subsidiary of The Times Group for £53.2 million, with £15 million set aside for rebranding. TIML was given 90 days' grace in which to rebrand the station. As part of the deal, Absolute Radio International, operator of two FM licences in Oxford, would manage the station.

On 1 September 2008 it was announced that Virgin Radio would be rebranded as Absolute Radio on 28 September. At the same time, changes to the line-up were made known with JK and Joel, Robin Burke, Tony Hadley and John Osborne leaving the station and Allan Lake, Joanna Russell (of Trent FM's Jo & Twiggy) and Tim Shaw joining, though Osborne would return shortly after. The last song to be played on Virgin Radio was " American Pie" by Don McLean and the first to be played on Absolute Radio was " A Day in the Life" by The Beatles. Listening figures for the final quarter of 2008 showed that almost 20% of former Virgin Radio listeners had been lost since the rebranding to Absolute Radio.

The Virgin Radio brand relaunched via DAB and online on 30 March 2016, following a new partnership with Wireless Group and approval of its digital terrestrial commercial radio licence by Ofcom in March 2015.

2013–present: Acquisition by Bauer Media

On 29 July 2013, Bauer Media Group announced it intended to purchase Absolute from The Times Group for an amount believed to be between £20m and £25m, pending regulatory approval. The deal was cleared by the Office of Fair Trading on 23 December.

Subsequently, by September 2014, all other London-based Bauer stations moved from Mappin House to a refurbished One Golden Square, creating a new national radio hub.

Bauer Radio announced in July 2015 that Absolute Radio would be taking up the 105.2 FM frequency in the West Midlands, previously held by Planet Rock. Absolute launched on 105.2 FM on 7 September 2015. The station ended transmission on that frequency on 16 December 2018, following Bauer's decision to broadcast Greatest Hits Radio on FM across the West Midlands.

In March 2021, Ofcom approved Bauer's application for permission to alter the FM licence held by the London FM relay of Absolute Radio, enabling the frequency to be used to provide a London variant of Greatest Hits Radio. Absolute Radio continued to be available by way of its national AM and digital transmissions. The change took place on 17 May.

At midnight on 20 January 2023, the station stopped broadcasting on AM. Ofcom issued Bauer Radio a £25,000 fine and revoked the medium wave licence on 13 February 2023.

On 12 December 2023, Absolute Radio was removed from Freesat TV platform, followed by Sky and Virgin Media TV platforms on 13 December, along with every other radio station owned by Bauer Media on either of the three TV platforms, including Absolute Radio 80s, Absolute Radio 90s, Absolute Radio Classic Rock, Hits Radio, Greatest Hits Radio, Kiss, Magic, Jazz FM and Planet Rock.

In 2022, Bauer said it would vacate One Golden Square and move to The Lantern, 75 Hampstead Road in Euston. The last broadcasts from the Golden Square studios took place in April 2024.

Programming

Audience and playlist

Virgin Radio launched aiming at a target group of 24-to 44-year-olds and with a focus on album music, arguing that "singles chart shows on Radio 1 and local commercial radio were outdated because albums outsold singles by three to one." It would provide a blend of recent album tracks and chart music from the past 25 years and aim to fill the "hole in the middle" between BBC Radio 1 and local commercial radio, which were specifically aimed at young audiences, and "gold" stations offering classic hits.

A year after launch, David Campbell was quoted as saying that "the music policy was wrong, even though Virgin had lots of research to suggest it was doing what listeners said they wanted. We did something we should never do: pursue critical acclaim, playing obscure tracks, gaining the praise of the music press." The station's approach had been to mix in more familiar music.

Fru Hazlitt, when interviewed for ''The Guardian'' in September 2006, described the type of music the station championed: "It's pretty much mainstream rock festival-type music. Razorlight, Keane. These bands are becoming some of the biggest in the world."

When announcing the rebrand as Absolute Radio on the One Golden Square blog, Clive Dickens, chief operating officer, noted that the station would be "sticking with real music – not manufactured rubbish – and we're building on the amount of live music we do – we're just going to discover more of all of it."

The music policy continues to focus on guitar-based rock, mostly British. In a blog post in February 2009, Head of Music James Curran noted that the 30 most-played artists in the first four months of Absolute Radio had been: Manic Street Preachers, Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys, Snow Patrol, Kings of Leon, The Killers, Oasis