Capital Scotland (formerly known as Beat 106, XFM Scotland, and later Galaxy Scotland) is a regional

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

owned by Communicorp UK and operated by

Global Global may refer to: General *Globe, a spherical model of celestial bodies *Earth, the third planet from the Sun Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 198 ...

. It broadcasts to

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Central Belt The Central Belt of Scotland is the Demographics of Scotland, area of highest population density within Scotland. Depending on the definition used, it has a population of between 2.4 and 4.2 million (the country's total was around 5.4 million in ...

, an area surrounding the two cities of

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

and

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

History

Beat 106

Beat 106 was established by the Big Beat Group, headed up by a group of

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

promoters from

, and first aired on 19 November 1999 as a new rock and dance station. Notable presenters at launch included

Graham Stewart Graham Stewart (born 1975 in Perth, Scotland) is a Scottish radio and television broadcaster who currently presents Reporting Scotland for BBC Scotland. He has previously presented on BBC Radio Scotland, Radio Clyde, Radio Tay and on various Ed ...

and Jim Gellatly. After being sold to Capital Radio Group in July 2000 it switched towards playing more dance music, later changing back to a more rock/dance format. In 2005 Capital Radio merged with the

GWR Group GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed on 9 May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Inde ...

to form

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 on 9 May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index ...

, creating the UK's largest commercial radio group. Beat 106 closed on 1 January 2006.

XFM Scotland

The rebranding of Beat 106 to XFM was one of a number of measures announced by GCap to improve their corporate performance following the merger. The original XFM station was

XFM London Radio X is a British national commercial radio station focused on alternative music, primarily indie rock, and owned by Global. The station launched in 1989 as a pirate radio station named Q102, before being renamed Xfm in 1992. The station b ...

and the rebranding in Scotland occurred four months before the expected launch of XFM Manchester. XFM Scotland programmes were launched by breakfast presenter

Dominik Diamond Dominik Paul Diamond (born 31 December 1969) is a Scottish television, radio presenter and newspaper columnist. He is best known as the original presenter of Channel 4's video gaming programme ''GamesMaster'', as host of ''The Dominik Diamond B ...

on 4 January 2006 with ''Loaded'' by Primal Scream as the first song played on the relaunched station. A major marketing campaign was launched a year later in a bid to try to regain lost listeners since the rebrand. By September 2007, the station was only reaching audience shares of 2.6% in the West and 4.1% in the East. On 11 February 2008

announced that they would be selling the analogue licence for the station. GCap later became part of

Global Radio Global Media & Entertainment Limited, trading as Global, is a British media company formed in 2007. It is the owner of the largest commercial radio company in Europe having expanded through a number of historical acquisitions, including Chrysal ...

and it was decided to keep the licence. On 28 August 2008, Jim Gellatly announced that his last show would be broadcast that day and he would be leaving the station together with a number of colleagues. By the time of XFM's rebrand as Galaxy, station audience shares had fallen further to 2.4% in the West and 2.6% in the East.

Galaxy Scotland

On 27 August 2008, new owners

announced they would re-brand XFM Scotland as Galaxy Scotland. The rebrand was part of Global Radio's major strategy to expand the brand across outside

and into parts of England. Local programming on the station consisted of daily breakfast, weekday drivetime and specialist shows with networked programming broadcast from Leeds. Galaxy Scotland joined the

Galaxy A galaxy is a Physical system, system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar medium, interstellar gas, cosmic dust, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek ' (), literally 'milky', ...

network on 7 November 2008. XFM closed at approximately 3.30pm that day, followed immediately by a 15-minute launch sequence for Galaxy. Galaxy programming started by 4pm the same afternoon, with Gary Spence as the first voice on the air, followed by a special evening show with networked presenter Dave Kelly. From its launch, Galaxy Scotland gained 429,000 listeners providing almost 3.2 million listening hours per week. In the 12 months up to May 2010, the station doubled its number of listeners. As of Monday 12 July 2010, Galaxy Scotland changed their tagline from "Love Music" to "Scotland's No 1 Hit Music Station" in line with the other Galaxy stations across the UK.

Capital Scotland

The station was re-branded as Capital Scotland on 3 January 2011 as part of a merger of Global's

and

Hit Music ''Hit Music'' was a weekly British chart newsletter; sister publication to ''Music Week''. ''Hit Music'' existed for almost nine years, supplying the official UK music charts (as compiled by The Gallup Organization, Gallup and later Official Cha ...

networks to form the nine-station

Capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

network. Local breakfast and drivetime output was retained with most networked programming now broadcast from the network's London studios. The station also produced a networked dance music show on Saturday overnights, which was networked across the Capital network until July 2012. On 1 July 2011, Global requested to change the formats of Capital Birmingham and Capital Scotland which have obligations from previous owners, enabling all nine Capital stations to fall inline. The two format change requests were approved in November. On 6 February 2014, Global announced it would be selling Capital Scotland to

Communicorp Bauer Media Audio Ireland (formerly Communicorp Group) is a media holding company based in Ireland, owned by Bauer Media Group. History Communicorp Group Ltd was formed by Denis O'Brien in 1989. It launched its radio operations in Ireland that ...

. Capital's network programming and brand name remain in use under contract with Global. On 26 February 2019, Global confirmed the station's local breakfast and weekend shows would be replaced with networked programming from April 2019. The weekday Drivetime show was retained alongside news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising. On 11 April 2023, it was announced that Capital Scotland would reintroduce local breakfast, daytime and weekend shows as part of an expansion of Global's Scottish radio operations. Sister station

Heart Scotland Heart Scotland is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global 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 Scotland o ...

(owned and operated by Global) will also reintroduce local programming.

Programming

All networked programming originates from Global's London headquarters. Local programming is produced and broadcast from Global's Glasgow studios from 6am-7pm on weekdays and 9am-12pm on weekends.

News

Global's Newsroom broadcasts hourly regional news updates from 5am-7pm on weekdays and 5am-1pm at weekends. The bulletins are produced for Communicorp by Global's Glasgow newsroom, which also produces bulletins for

and Smooth Scotland.Capital FM – Scotland public file
/ref>

Former notable presenters

* Sacha Brooks ( Capital XTRA Reloaded) * Des Clarke (

) *

* David Dunne * Andi Durrant (

Kiss Fresh Kiss XTRA (formerly Kiss Fresh), is a British digital radio station owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK as part of the Kiss Network. As of May 2025, the station has a weekly audience of 209,000 listeners, according to RAJAR. History I ...

) * Jim Gellatly ( BFBS Radio) * Jo Good *

Stephanie Hirst Stephanie Hirst is an English radio and television presenter on Hits Radio. She has hosted '' Hit40UK'' and the weekday breakfast show on Capital Yorkshire '' Hirsty's Daily Dose''. Career Hirst started her career at 96.3 Radio Aire in Le ...

(

Hits Radio Hits Radio is a network of 26 contemporary hit radio stations in the United Kingdom, owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK. The network launched in 2018 with the rebranding of Bauer's Manchester station Key 103 and its merger with The Hi ...

) *Dave Kelly (Hits Radio) * Amy Irons (Heart Scotland) *

John Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

* Adele Roberts (

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...

) * Julyan Sinclair * Steve Sutherland (deceased) * Margherita Taylor ( Classic FM &

Smooth London Smooth London is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Smooth Radio network. It broadcasts to the Greater London area from Croydon transmitting station on 102.2 MHz. It broadcasts a soft adult contemporary radio ...

) *

Tiësto Tijs Michiel Verwest (; born 17 January 1969), known professionally as Tiësto ( , ), is a Dutch DJ and record producer. He was voted "The Greatest DJ of All Time" by ''Mix (magazine), Mix'' magazine in a 2010/2011 poll amongst fans. In 2013, h ...

* Matt Wilkinson (

Heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

) * Tom Wilson

References

External links

Capital Scotland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Capital Scotland

Communicorp Radio stations established in 1999 Radio stations in Scotland Radio stations in Edinburgh Radio stations in Glasgow 1999 establishments in Scotland Contemporary hit radio stations in the United Kingdom