Capital Life, also known as Life, was a digital radio station broadcasting across the UK on the Digital One network and streamed online. Capital Life was due to be available on DTV but never launched due to the closure of the station.

About

Capital Life was owned by

GCap Media GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed in May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. ...

, having been launched by

Capital Radio PLC 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 fo ...

before the company merged with the

GWR Group PLC GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed in May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. ...

. It was one of the first DAB Digital Radio stations to launch in the UK in 1999 on the Digital One multiplex. The station had two presenters to start with. It was based in a news studio used by Capital Gold London outside of breakfast hours. Later it moved into a newly created Digital Broadcast studio in Leicester Square, which it in turn shared with Capital Disney and Century London Until 2005, Paul Phear Magic 105.4 presented the breakfast show on weekday mornings, culminating in "The Life Top Ten At Ten" - a chart from years gone by - any year from 1975 onwards - the chart was, in fact, not actual historic chart positions but the order chosen by the programme controller to avoid playing certain novelty songs and those that did not reflect the musical style. After the Life Top Ten At Ten, the station was automated all day - news from IRN hourly, but music at all other times. Paul Phear then returned to present a late night love song show from 10 pm. For a short spell, Jon o'Neill presented in the drivetime slot. On Saturday morning, there was a show presented by Phillip Chryssikos. Sunday, it was non-stop music. After a successful year presenting 'The Life Coach' a quirky weekend breakfast show, comedian Anthony Davis replaced Paul Phear, hosting the weekday breakfast show live, instead of pre-recording, a rare event for a Digital radio station, making Capital Life one of the very few digital radio stations to have live presentation. (Along with sister station Capital Disney, which provided mostly live programming). Unlike other radio stations, there were no travel bulletins (due to the limited number of DAB Radios in households at the time, and the fact the station provided blanket national coverage), commercials or interviews with celebrities and politicians and sports reports - the emphasis was on music and there was a playlist similar to that of

Century Digital Century Digital was a radio station for London and Birmingham established in 2001 and disestablished in 2007. About the station When CE Digital won the licence to operate a Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) multiplex in London, one of the stat ...

Relaunch and demise

'Life' relaunched as Capital Life in 2005, under Programme Controller

Micky Gavin Micky or Mickie can be a given name, but it is most often a nickname for Michael or non-Anglo Saxon equivalents, such as "Mikhail". People with the name include: Men * Micky Adams (born 1961), English football manager and former player * Micky Ari ...

(who left very shortly afterwards to run Hereward FM) and Digital Content Director Kevin Palmer, and a full presenter line up joined the station, along with a new sung jingle package from Reelworld. These presenters (with subsequent positions/station) included: Susan Spence (now LBC 97.3 & BBC Radio 5 Live), Nicola Bonn ( Classic FM and Heart Network), Ali Wheeler ( Invicta FM), Leigh Jones ( Red Dragon), Tom Rudolph, Brian O'Neill ( GMTV), Pam Sharpless, Micky Gavin ( Real Radio Scotland), Jonathan Miles ( BBC Radio Newcastle) Ali Jones ( Fox FM) and Anthony Davis ( LBC 97.3 and Jazz FM) Upon the merger of Capital Radio PLC and GWR Group PLC, 'Capital Life' was mooted to become the Digital alternative to

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 ...

and preparations were made for

Capital Gold The Capital Gold radio station started in London in 1988 on Capital Radio's AM frequency, after the Independent Broadcasting Authority had urged stations to end simulcasting (broadcasting the same programmes simultaneously on AM and FM) and t ...

and Capital Life to be merged into one 'super station'. Later, these plans were quietly abandoned by GCap Media, and

rebranded to 'Gold'. In its final two years, Life had no presenters. Quietly, the weekend presenters were dropped, later followed by all weekday programming aside from the live breakfast show. This too was later dropped, and the station broadcast non-stop music with news bulletins every hour for the remainder of its life. The only other non music items heard were promotions for

products such as CD releases associated with its other radio stations, Classic FM and theJazz, and an afternoon 'showbiz' report, which was produced internally by the GCap News team.

Closure

On 11 January 2008, newly appointed GCap Chief Executive Fru Hazlitt announced a package of measures to save GCap Media from being taken over and prevent the company from slipping further into the red due to bad trading conditions within the radio industry. Under Fru Hazlitt, GCap announced a complete retreat from DAB Digital Radio. (A bold move, after the

Ralph Bernard Ralph Mitchell Bernard (born 11 February 1953) is a British journalist, and a former chief executive of commercial radio group GCap Media. Early life He attended Caterham High School in north-east London. Career He started his career as a journa ...

years in charge of the company, who had been a big supporter of Digital Radio, both while in charge of

and

.) It had already been announced in 2007 that Life, along with sister station Core were to close with all investment in them ceasing. It was only now that there had been any announcement that TheJazz was to close and that

Planet Rock Planet Rock may refer to: * "Planet Rock" (song), a 1982 song by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force ** '' Planet Rock: The Album'', a 1986 album containing the song * Planet Rock (radio station) Planet Rock may refer to: * "Planet Rock" ...

would be sold. Life continued to broadcast with continuous music until 31 March, when it went off air at just after 11pm, along with theJazz.

References

{{Global Radio Digital-only radio stations Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio stations established in 1999 Radio stations disestablished in 2008 GCap Media 1999 establishments in the United Kingdom