Bauer Radio

Bauer Radio is a UK-based radio division of the Bauer Media Group.

The Bauer network is divisible into two main groups, the Bauer City & Bauer National portfolios, with Place consisting of locally focused services primarily broadcast on FM/AM and local digital platforms, and Passion consisting of national and quasi-national music-genre services delivered nationally and quasi-nationally, mainly through digital platforms.

History

Bauer's The Place network was originally known as the Big City Network. In 2006, many of the former Scottish Radio Holdings stations were added to the network and branded as Big City Network Scotland and Northern Ireland, although all stations kept their original logos, with the exception of CFM. West Sound was the only AM station in the network although it did not carry any of the networked programming carried by the FM stations.

In April 2011 Bauer Radio announced it would be restructuring its radio portfolio into two divisions: locally focused and heritage stations, including many of the Big City stations, South Coast station Wave 105 and London station Magic 105.4 FM would also become part of the "Bauer Place" division, with branded music-category stations such as Kiss and Kerrang Radio forming a second sub-brand, "Bauer Passion" - the Big City Network identity was dropped as part of the restructuring.^[1]

In April 2013, Bauer announced it would merge its two North East England stations, Metro Radio and TFM. Both stations broadcast shared programming from Newcastle and Manchester while carrying separate branding, news bulletins and advertising.^[2]

In September 2014, Bauer announced it would be restructuring its radio portfolio as from January 2015. Magic AM in England was dropped in favour of the stations reverting to their heritage station names.^[3][4] The stations now form part of the new 'City 2' network serving both Scotland and Northern England. A 'City 3' network on DAB replacing The Hits Radio (in most areas) launched on Monday 19 January 2015.

Radio

Bauer City

• Bauer City 1 – 16 CHR local radio stations on FM in Northern England and Scotland
• Bauer City 2 – 15 Hot AC local radio stations on AM in Northern England and Scotland
• Bauer City 3 – 12 CHR local radio stations on DAB in Northern England and Scotland

Bauer National

• Bauer National – 7 national radio stations available across the UK, including Absolute Radio and Kiss

Other

• City Talk 105.9 – a speech and light music radio station Liverpool
• Cool FM – CHR local radio station on FM in Northern Ireland
• Downtown Radio – Hot AC local radio station on AM in Northern Ireland
• Wave 105 – Hot AC local radio station in Solent

DAB multiplexes

Bauer operates twelve wholly owned DAB multiplexes and also six jointly owned multiplexes with other operators (three with UTV Radio and three with Global Radio). Bauer operates the following DAB multiplexes:

Bauer Digital Radio

Bauer's wholly owned digital multiplexes are primarily located in areas where the firm operates local FM stations; the original group of Bauer (formerly Emap) DAB multiplexes are located in the following areas:

• Central Lancashire - Bauer Central Lancashire
• Humberside - Bauer Humberside
• Leeds - Bauer Leeds
• Liverpool - Bauer Liverpool
• South Yorkshire - Bauer South Yorkshire
• Teesside - Bauer Teesside
• Tyne and Wear - Bauer Tyne & Wear

Score Digital

As part of Emap's takeover of Scottish Radio Holdings, the firm gained control of Score Digital, the DAB multiplex operator owned by SRH. Competition guidelines required the merged firm to divest of one of the multiplexes obtained in this deal, and so the Ayr multiplex formerly run by Score was sold on to Arqiva. The remaining Score multiplexes have since been relabelled as Bauer multiplexes.^[5]

The ex-Score DAB multiplexes are located in:

• Dundee - Score Dundee
• Edinburgh - Score Edinburgh
• Glasgow - Score Glasgow
• Inverness - Score Inverness
• Northern Ireland - Score Northern Ireland

UTV Bauer Digital

The Wireless Group and Emap entered into a venture to run the following three DAB multiplexes. These multiplexes were initially branded as TWG-Emap multiplexes; following the sale of TWG to UTV (creating UTV Radio), the multiplexes were relabelled as UTV-Emap, and following the sale of Emap's radio assets to Bauer, the blocks were renamed again as UTV-Bauer. Bauer owns 30 per cent of the UTV-Bauer venture, with UTV holding the remaining 70 per cent.

• Stoke-on-Trent - UTV-Bauer Stoke-on-Trent
• Swansea - UTV-Bauer Swansea
• West Yorkshire - UTV-Bauer West Yorkshire

CE Digital

Bauer and Global Radio jointly own CE Digital Ltd, each holding 50% of the venture. The CE operation was established by Emap in partnership with the Capital Radio Group, which through mergers subsequently became part of GCap Media and later Global Radio. The 'CE' multiplexes take their name from the initials of Capital and Emap, and have not been renamed despite the identity changes of both operators.

CE Digital operate the following DAB multiplexes:

• Birmingham - CE Birmingham
• London - CE London (also known as Greater London I)
• Manchester - CE Manchester

References

1. ^ "Bauer drops Big City image", Radio Today, 14 Apr 2011
2. ^ TFM leaves Teesside to share with Metro, RadioToday, 5 April 2013
3. ^ Greatest Hits Network Change request form Ofcom
4. ^ Magic Changes Ofcom Request Form Ofcom
5. ^ "DAB Ensembles WorldWide - UK Local & Minimuxes". wohnort.org. 

External links

• Bauer Group
• Bauer Radio
• Big City Network
• Kiss Network
• Magic Network
• Planet Rock Radio
• Kerrang! Radio
• What's On, web streams of Bauer stations
• DAB local stations in the UK
• The Radio Academy