Global Media & Entertainment Limited,

trading as A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

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 Chrysalis Radio,

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 ...

and

GMG Radio GMG Radio 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 Radio, however pending regulatory review of the me ...

. Global owns and operates seven core radio brands, all employing a national network strategy, including

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

, Radio X,

Gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

, Classic FM and

LBC LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadc ...

. Global is also one of the leading

out-of-home advertising Outdoor advertising or out-of-home (OOH) advertising includes public billboards, wallscapes, and posters seen while "on the go". OOH advertising formats fall into four main categories: billboards, street furniture, Transit media, transit, and a ...

(OOH) companies in the UK.

History

Global was founded by

Ashley Tabor-King Ashley Daniel Tabor-King (; born May 1977) is a British businessman who is the founder and executive president of Global Media & Entertainment, the largest commercial radio group in Europe and one of the leading outdoor (OOH) advertising compa ...

in 2007, with financial backing from his father

Michael Tabor Michael Barry Tabor (born 28 October 1941) is a British racehorse owner. As a partner in Coolmore Stud, he is one of only four racehorse owners to have won both the Epsom Derby and the Kentucky Derby. Tabor has extensive business interest ...

, and purchased Chrysalis Radio, where Global took control of the radio brands Heart, Galaxy, LBC and The Arrow. A year later on 31 October 2008 Global Radio officially took control of all GCap Media and its brands. The GCap Media name was dropped at this time. The GCap purchase gave Global the network of FM stations which GCap had operated as

The One Network The One Network was the collective name for thirty-eight regional Independent Local Radio licences operated by GCap Media in the United Kingdom. It was formed from the combination of GWR Group's 'The Mix Network' and Capital Radio Group's 'The ...

(many of which are now part of the

networks), plus Classic FM,

XFM 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 ...

Choice FM Capital XTRA (formerly Choice FM) is a British digital radio station owned and operated by Global. It broadcasts on 96.9 and 107.1 FM in Greater London, and nationally on DAB, Global Player and television platforms. It specialises in hip ho ...

and

Chill In computing, CHILL (an acronym for CCITT High Level Language) is a procedural programming language designed for use in telecommunication switches (the hardware used inside telephone exchanges). The language is still used for legacy systems ...

. Following the acquisition of GCap Media, Global was required to sell off a number of stations in the Midlands. The stations were bought by

Orion Media Orion Media was a UK commercial radio group, founded in 2009 after a management buy-in, with backing from Lloyds Development Capital. It was created from the enforced sale of several radio stations in the English Midlands previously owned by Gl ...

, headed by Phil Riley, former Chief Executive of Chrysalis Radio. Heritage local radio stations in areas not already served by Heart FM were gradually rebranded and incorporated into a larger Heart Network that covers most of southern England and parts of North Wales – the stations which would become Heart in the North were acquired later. The remaining stations briefly formed

The Hit Music Network Capital is a network of twelve independent contemporary hit radio stations in the United Kingdom, broadcasting a mix of local and networked programming. Ten of the stations are owned and operated by Global, while the other two are owned and ope ...

before being merged with 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 and

Capital London Capital London is an Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment as part of its national Capital Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Britain's first two commerci ...

into the

network. On 25 June 2012, Global acquired

for a sum thought to be between £50 and £70 million; it continued to be run separately while a regulatory review was conducted. In May 2013, the

Competition Commission The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under t ...

ruled that Global would be required to sell seven stations across the network. The company initially offered to dispose of three stations, Real XS in Manchester and Scotland, and Gold in the East Midlands, to try to prevent the sale of the seven stations mentioned in the ruling. When this failed Global Radio launched an appeal against the decision. The appeal was based on three grounds: (a) Real and Smooth as alternatives to the Greater Manchester stations, (b) reliance on "significant adverse effects" in the North-West (c) Global's remedy proposal (see above). The appeal was rejected on all grounds and the company must sell the seven stations it was ordered to in the original judgement, Global said it was disappointed with the decision and was considering it further. On 6 February 2014, it was announced that a number of stations would be sold to the Irish broadcaster

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 ...

, with programming generally to be supplied by Global under contract. The deal involved control of Smooth Radio in the North East, the North West and the West Midlands, of Capital in South Wales and Scotland, of Real Radio in North Wales and Yorkshire, and of Real XS in Manchester. Most stayed under their previous brands though the Real stations were renamed Heart and carried the Heart network off-peak programming as provided by Global. Global retained control of all other stations, relaunching the existing Heart North West and Wales as Capital to allow Real North Wales (under Communicorp) to take on the Heart affiliation. Real XS in Paisley was retained by Global and joined the XFM network; Real XS in Manchester is still a separate station owned by Communicorp as

XS Manchester XS Manchester was an Independent Local Radio station serving Greater Manchester, broadcasting a mix of indie and alternative rock music, speech and news output. The station was owned and operated by Communicorp UK and broadcast from studios at ...

. Most of the Gold AM stations switched to taking the Smooth London/Network output; all but one no longer broadcasts on that platform. It was announced in June 2015 that Darren Singer would be appointed as Global's chief financial officer. In February 2017, Global changed its company name from 'This is Global Limited' to 'Global Media & Entertainment Limited'. It also changed all its social media handles from 'thisisglobal' to 'global' and its web domain to global.com. Global also combined the three sub-companies, Global Radio, Global Entertainment and Global Television into just 'Global'. On 1 March 2018, Global launched a brand new awards show called The Global Awards celebrating the stars of music, news & entertainment across genres in the UK and from around the world. It took place at London's

Eventim Apollo The Hammersmith Apollo, currently called the Eventim Apollo for sponsorship reasons, and formerly and still commonly known as the Hammersmith Odeon, is a live entertainment performance venue, originally built as a cinema called the Gaumont Pa ...

. In September 2018, Global announced the acquisition of two

outdoor advertising Outdoor advertising or out-of-home (OOH) advertising includes public billboards, wallscapes, and posters seen while "on the go". OOH advertising formats fall into four main categories: billboards, street furniture, Transit media, transit, and a ...

companies, Primesight and Outdoor Plus, creating Global's Outdoor Division. The acquisitions were reported to be worth £200 million. On 19 September 2018, rival commercial radio group Bauer announced that they were pulling out of the biggest networked commercial radio chart show, The Official Vodafone Big Top 40, produced by Global's

. The move led to Global discontinuing the Sunday evening show for all stations outside of their own Heart and Capital networks, on which the show continues to air. On 26 February 2019, Global Radio announced plans to replace the regional breakfast shows on

and

with a single national breakfast show for each network, whilst Smooth kept its regional breakfast shows, instead turning its drive time show national. Capital's new breakfast show launched in April with Roman Kemp, Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden launched in June and Smooth Drivetime with Angie Grieves launched in September. In September 2019, it was announced that Quidem, the owners of

Banbury Sound Banbury Sound was an Independent Local Radio station serving the Banbury and Brackley areas of north Oxfordshire. Before its closure, it was owned and operated by Quidem and broadcast from studios at Honiley, Warwickshire. History Banbury Sound ...

, Rugby FM and

Touch FM {{Use British English, date=June 2016 The Touch FM network was a group of Independent Local Radio stations owned by Quidem. The network included stations in Coventry, South Staffordshire, Warwick, Stratford-upon-Avon, Nuneaton & Hinckley, Loughboro ...

had entered into a brand-licensing agreement with Global Radio. This change will see the Quidem stations rebrand under the Global brands. At the beginning of October,

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

opened a consultation following Quidem's request for its six stations to make significant changes to their formats. On 20 December 2021 it was announced that Global has acquired the UK podcast hosting, distribution and monetisation startup, Captivate with founders Mark Asquith and Kieran McKeefery joining the Global team in order to continue to grow Global's presence in the digital audio and podcasting space. On 22 February 2022,

Emily Maitlis Emily Maitlis (born 6 September 1970) is a Canadian-born British journalist and former newsreader for the BBC who was the lead anchor of the BBC Two news and current affairs programme ''Newsnight'' until the end of 2021. She has since been a pre ...

and

Jon Sopel Jonathan B. Sopel (born 22 May 1959) is a British journalist, television presenter and podcaster. He was formerly BBC News's North America editor; chief political correspondent for the domestic news channel BBC News; a presenter on the '' Polit ...

announced they were joining Global to launch a new podcast. On 30 August 2022, '' The News Agents'' launched as a daily

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

presented by

, and

Lewis Goodall Lewis Goodall (born 1 July 1989) is a British journalist, broadcaster and author. He worked as a researcher for Granada Studios before becoming a political correspondent for Sky News. He later became policy editor of the BBC's flagship current a ...

. Episodes are released every weekday afternoon. On 26 May 2023, it was announced that a weekly US version of the podcast would launch on 20 June. ''The News Agents USA'' is hosted by Maitlis and Sopel. On 29 September 2023, Global announced a further spin-off podcast, ''The News Agents Investigates'', would launch on 1 October and be presented by Goodall. In March 2024, Simon Pitts was appointed Group Chief Executive of Global Media. He will take up his role in early 2025. In the first week of September 2024, Global announced that they would introduce an additional twelve radio stations, via a week long advertisement campaign on their social media pages. Additional spin-off stations of Heart, Capital, Radio X and Classic FM would be introduced on the 12th September 2024. This brings the total number of stations operated by Global up to 33.

Radio stations

Capital

The Capital network consists of eleven contemporary hit stations which currently broadcast in numerous areas of England, Wales and central Scotland, alongside a digital UK-wide version. On 3 January 2011,

and the

network became part of the nine-station

radio network; two former Heart stations became Capital in May 2014. Local news hours were extended as part of the agreement to increase programme-sharing, and advertising remains locally sold. Programming outside local hours originates from Capital's network studios in

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised town square, square in the West End of London, England, and is the centre of London's entertainment district. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leice ...

, London. Unlike its competitor

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 ...

, Capital only plays dance-pop music (which they shorten for timings unlike their sister station

Capital Dance Capital Dance is a national digital radio station in the United Kingdom, owned and operated by Global and run as a spin-off from Capital. The station broadcasts from studios at Leicester Square in London alongside its siblings Capital, Capital ...

) and doesn't usually play any rock or alternative music (which they usually play pop rock songs). Capital runs two major multi-artist events each year, Capital's

Summertime Ball Capital's Summertime Ball is a mini-festival in London, usually held on either first or second Saturday or Sunday of June by the radio station Capital (radio network), Capital. The first ball was at Emirates Stadium in 2009, and it has since b ...

and Capital's

Jingle Bell Ball The Jingle Bell Ball is a concert held annually in December since 2008 (except for 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic), by the radio station Capital (radio network), Capital FM at The O2 Arena. Various notable artists have headlined the con ...

Capital Dance

Capital Dance is a national digital radio station operated as a spin-off from the main Capital station. The station broadcasts from studios at Leicester Square in London alongside its sister stations Capital and Capital XTRA. The station predominantly plays contemporary electronic dance music.

Capital XTRA

An urban music station based in London, originally named Choice FM. Until Summer 2010 it was sold as part of the Galaxy network for marketing purposes only, but retained its own separate branding and programming. From then on, with Galaxy ultimately absorbed into Capital, Choice was a separate station within Global's line-up. On 7 October 2013 Choice FM was rebranded as Capital XTRA and made available nationally via DAB radio.

Capital Xtra Reloaded

Capital Xtra Reloaded broadcasts from Birmingham and is available on DAB+ on Sound Digital and online via Global Player. Its output consists primarily of hip-hop, dance, garage, R&B and grime classics from the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

Heart

Heart is a contemporary radio station which currently broadcasts in numerous areas of England, Wales and central Scotland, alongside a digital UK-wide version. The network began with a single regional station in the West Midlands and subsequently a second station in London. The third station, Heart 106 in the East Midlands (previously Century 106) was sold to Orion Media and run as a franchise retaining the Heart name until the start of 2011, when it was rebranded as

Gem 106 Hits Radio East Midlands is an Independent Local Radio, Independent Regional Radio station based in Nottingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to the East Midlands. As of Septe ...

. In 2009 many of the heritage CHR stations which had formed part of the One Network were renamed Heart, as were Ocean and South Hams Radio (which were not part of the One Network). Heart Hertfordshire is owned by Communicorp and uses the Heart name and format under licence from Global; Heart South Devon was partly owned by UKRD Group; and Heart stations in North Wales and Yorkshire (both formerly Real Radio licences) are operated by Communicorp; all other Heart stations are wholly Global-owned. All of the Real Radio stations were rebranded as Heart on 6 May 2014. Heart is also available on DAB in some areas where there is not a local Heart station on FM; these areas generally receive

Heart UK Heart UK (formerly Heart Extra) is a digital radio station owned and operated by Global as a national version of Heart, and broadcast from studios at Leicester Square in London. On 2 February 2016, Global announced that the station would launch ...

, which is a relay of Heart London. Heart has five sister stations:

Heart 70s Heart 70s is a national digital radio station owned and operated by Global as a spin-off from Heart.Heart 80s Heart 80s is a national digital radio station owned and operated by Global as a spin-off from Heart. The station broadcasts from studios at Leicester Square in London. Launched on 14 March 2017, Heart 80s is a rolling music service playing non ...

Heart 90s Heart 90s is a national digital radio station owned and operated by Global as a spin-off from Heart. The station broadcasts from studios at Leicester Square in London. Launched on 29 August 2019, Heart 90s is a rolling music service playing ...

Heart 00s Heart 00s is a national digital radio broadcasting, radio station owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment as a spin-off from the Heart (radio network), Heart radio network. The station broadcasts from studios at Leicester Square in Lo ...

and

Heart Dance Heart Dance is a national digital radio station (within the United Kingdom) owned and operated by Global as a spin-off from Heart. The station broadcasts from the Global studios at Leicester Square in London. Launched on 21 June 2019, Heart D ...

. On 11 April 2023, it was announced that

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 ...

would reintroduce local breakfast, daytime and weekend shows as part of an expansion of Global's Scottish radio operations. This saw drive time presenters Des Clarke and Jennifer Reoch move to Breakfast. Sister station

Capital Scotland Capital Scotland (formerly known as Beat 106, XFM Scotland, and later Galaxy Scotland) is a regional radio station owned by Communicorp UK and operated by Global. It broadcasts to Scotland's Central Belt, an area surrounding the two cities o ...

(owned and operated under a brand licence by

) has also reintroduced local programming.

Classic FM

Classic FM is a classical music station broadcast nationally on FM and DAB, and also available on

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 Everyone TV (itself owned by all of the four UK Public broadcasting, public service broadcasters, BBC, ...

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

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), a ...

and

Virgin Media Virgin Media Limited is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 ...

. It is one of three

Independent National Radio Independent National Radio (INR) is the official term for the three national commercial radio stations currently or previously broadcasting on analogue radio in the United Kingdom, beginning in 1992. One station was allocated an FM licence, and t ...

franchises, and the only one to broadcast on FM. On 3 January 2024 it was announced that Dan Walker was joining to host Classic FM's breakfast show.

Smooth

Acquired as part of the takeover of Real & Smooth Ltd, Smooth Radio broadcasts

soft adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

music on FM in six areas, and from March 2014 on MW in a number of areas previously served by Gold. After taking over Smooth, Global reversed the "national" format that Smooth had taken in 2010 – whereby a network version of the station was broadcast nationally on DAB with all English FM stations sharing this content – and reintroduced local breakfast and drivetime shows. Two of the Smooth areas had previously been Jazz FM stations, and three had originally been Saga stations; the North-East service launched as Smooth on a licence originally awarded to Saga.

LBC

LBC is a news and talk radio station, focusing on stories and issues from across the UK and internationally by phone-in discussion programmes. It launched on 8 October 1973 as the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, with

Capital Radio Capital London is an Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment as part of its national Capital (radio network), Capital Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Bri ...

launching a week later on 16 October. Since 2014, LBC has been broadcasting nationally on DAB, television and Global Player, and FM in London only.

LBC News

On 28 October 2019, what had been LBC London News changed its name to LBC News; since that date, it has been available on DAB+ via the D1 multiplex nationwide, using the space vacated by Radio X switching to DAB+. It continued to broadcast on 1152 AM in London until October 2024. It has reverted to a 24-hour station, dropping its simulcast of LBC, but otherwise keeping the same format of rolling twenty minute bulletins, but with a UK wide focus. Its news presenters include

Lisa Aziz Lisa Soraya Aziz (born 19 June 1962) is a British news presenter. She is best known as the presenter of the ''Morning News'' on LBC. Before this she worked for ITV Westcountry as a co-presenter for the evening news programme ''The West Country ...

and

Martin Stanford Martin Stanford (born 2 May 1958) is an English journalist and former news presenter for ''Sky News'', having worked for the channel from 1991 to 2016. He was the first British newsreader to announce the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and ...

, whilst

John Kettley John Graham Kettley (born 11 July 1952 in Halifax, West Yorkshire) is a British freelance weather forecaster. Early life His father Harold lived at 75 Hollins Road in Walsden, the son of Fred Kettley. His father was a trumpet player in brass b ...

is one of the weather presenters.

Radio X

Radio X (formerly XFM) broadcasts alternative rock and independent music. It began officially in 1997 as an independent London station, it was purchased by Capital Radio Group (now Global) in 1998. Radio X is available nationally on DAB+ digital radio, Global Player, Virgin Media channel 960, Sky channel 0113, and on FM in London 104.9 and Manchester 97.7.

Gold Radio

Gold is a national DAB station mostly playing music from the 1950s to the 1980s, which grew out of a network of AM and later DAB stations. Many of these were the AM sister stations to heritage CHR stations which are now Heart or Capital stations, though Gold Manchester was originally a standalone station

Fortune 1458 Fortune 1458 was an Independent Local Radio station based in Trafford Park, Manchester, England. History The station began broadcasting in 1994 on the old BBC Radio Manchester medium wave frequency. It was seen as a direct competitor to Piccadil ...

and Lite AM before becoming part of the Big-AM and later Capital Gold networks. In the West Midlands, after the divestiture of some radio holdings to

, the Gold brand continued as a franchise, however, in late 2012 these stations were rebranded as

Free Radio 80s Greatest Hits Radio Birmingham & The West Midlands is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer Radio, Bauer as part of the Greatest Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to the West Midlands (regio ...

and no longer carried Gold network programming. Most Gold stations on AM/local DAB transferred to receive their network programming provision from

Smooth Radio Smooth Radio may refer to: * Smooth Radio (2010), the original national network in the UK * Smooth Radio (2014) See also * Smoothfm smoothfm is an Australian commercial radio network owned and operated by Nova Entertainment. From original l ...

on 24 March 2014; local news, travel and advertising drop-ins into the network programming feed continue as previously provided under Gold, and the former Gold stations in Wales continue to offer a four-hour local show as

Smooth Wales Smooth Wales is an Independent Local Radio station broadcasting from Cardiff for South Wales and North Wales, as well as parts of Cheshire in England. All programming content is now shared to both areas. There are no longer any stations within t ...

. Three Gold areas where Smooth is already provided on FM – London, Manchester and the East Midlands – retained a reduced Gold service on AM and (bar Manchester, where capacity is unavailable) local DAB, with most presented shows (aside from a daily morning show) ceasing. However these were subsequently switched off as part of Global's decision to withdraw from AM broadcasting - the last to go being

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

at the end of April 2024. A number of areas gained or regained Gold as a DAB service in September 2015 in space vacated by XFM, following XFM's move from local to national transmission as Radio X. This was then in turn superseded by the transmission of Gold nationally over

Digital One 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 conta ...

in the DAB+ format from 2019, with most of the prior Gold capacity outside London reallocated to Smooth Country. With the closure of Gold's last AM transmission in 2024, Gold Radio - as the station was officially rebranded that year - is now a digital-only offering.

Streaming-only stations

Global currently operates the following stations exclusively broadcast via web-based platforms:

Smooth Extra

Smooth Extra Smooth Radio is a network of local radio stations broadcasting on FM and DAB in the United Kingdom. It no longer broadcasts any outlets on AM since the last outlet on medium wave ceased at 1:00pm on Friday 28th February 2025. Smooth Radio pr ...

'' launched at the end of 2014 to broadcast nationally on

(in the slot previously occupied by the network Smooth Radio service) with a 'melodic music from past decades' format (some programming is simulcast with

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 ...

). A previous plan to launch a service of "music from the 70s, 80s and 90s" in the Digital One capacity ultimately did not go ahead. Smooth added two further digital siblings on 3 September 2019; Smooth Country (previously a Global Player stream) and Smooth Chill, the successor to

. A pop-up digital Christmas music station, Smooth Christmas, was operated by R&S in the run-up to Christmas of 2011 and 2012, and having not run in 2013 was revived by Global in 2014 but was in 2015. In 2016, Smooth Christmas was not revived, instead Heart Extra Xmas, a pop-up digital Christmas music station, appeared from 12 November 2016 until 27 December 2016. It returned on 9 November 2017.

Heart brand

Heart 80s Heart 80s is a national digital radio station owned and operated by Global as a spin-off from Heart. The station broadcasts from studios at Leicester Square in London. Launched on 14 March 2017, Heart 80s is a rolling music service playing non ...

launched in March 2017; the conversion of these stations to DAB+ in 2019 permitted the launch of further stations including

Heart 70s Heart 70s is a national digital radio station owned and operated by Global as a spin-off from Heart.Heart 90s Heart 90s is a national digital radio station owned and operated by Global as a spin-off from Heart. The station broadcasts from studios at Leicester Square in London. Launched on 29 August 2019, Heart 90s is a rolling music service playing ...

, followed by

in 2022 and Heart 10s,

Heart Musicals The heart is a muscular 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 nutrients to the tissue ...

& Heart Love in 2024 as part of Global's network expansion on 12th September.

PopBuzz

''PopBuzz'' is a cultural platform of interviews, articles, podcast, videos, and GIFs, combined with a music stream of the fastest trending tracks in social media with digital goodness from around the web. It also has an online radio station called PopBuzz Radio. PopBuzz podcast is released weekly. PopBuzz Presents, introduced in 2017, is an original live program produced in partnership with

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

. Founded in 2014, the site is targeted to

millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s a ...

and

Gen Z Generation Z (often shortened to Gen Z), also known as zoomers, is the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1990s as starting birth years and the early 20 ...

Events

Global produce over 150 events for its radio brands annually. These include Capital's

and

, Heart Live and Classic FM Live at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

. It also produces its own Global Awards, which recognizes the most popular songs across its radio stations. In March 2018, Global launched a new awards show (The Global Awards) celebrating the stars of music, news and entertainment across genres in the UK and from around the world.

Global Academy

The Global Academy UTC opened on 12 September 2016 and is sponsored by Global and

University of the Arts London The University of the Arts London is a public collegiate university in London, England, United Kingdom. It specialises in arts, design, fashion, and the performing arts. The university is a federation of six arts colleges: Camberwell College of ...

. It is located on the site of the Old Vinyl Factory in

Hayes, Hillingdon Hayes is a town in west London. Historically situated within the county of Middlesex, it is now part of the London Borough of Hillingdon. The town's population, including its localities Hayes End, Harlington and Yeading, was recorded in the ...

. On 20 January 2017, The Global Academy was officially opened by the

Duke of Cambridge Duke of Cambridge is a hereditary title of nobility in the British royal family, one of several royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom. The title is named after the city of Cambridge in England. It is heritable by agnatic, male descendants by pr ...

and

Prince Harry Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984) is a member of the British royal family. As the younger son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales, he is fifth in the line of succession to ...

. Two Breakfast shows from the

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 ...

brands were broadcasting Live from the academy,

Heart London Heart London is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. Across London and its neighbouring counties, it can be heard on 106.2 MHz. History In 1994 Chrysalis Radio was awarded a London-wide licen ...

Breakfast with

Jamie Theakston James Paul Theakston (born 21 December 1970) is an English television presenter, producer, narrator and actor. He has hosted television programmes for the BBC, ITV (TV network), ITV, Channel 4 and 5 (British TV channel), Channel 5. He co-present ...

and

Emma Bunton Emma Lee Bunton (born 21 January 1976) is an English singer, songwriter, media personality, and actress. She rose to fame in the 1990s as a member of the Pop music, pop group the Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Baby Spice, reflecting the ...

and

Nick Ferrari Nicolo Ferrari (born 31 January 1959) is a British right-wing conservative radio host, television presenter and broadcast journalist. He lives in Lewisham in London. He is best known as the host of the weekday breakfast show on the London-based ...

Global's Newsroom

All of Global's stations broadcast news updates under the name Global's Newsroom. Local and national bulletins are produced and Global's Newsroom also provides the news to Global's news station LBC. In terms of weekly audience reach, Global's Newsroom is the second largest news broadcaster in the UK, second only to the BBC.

The Global Awards

The Global Awards which started on 1 March 2018 are held by Global and reward music played on its own stations. The Global Awards returned in 2019.

List of ceremonies

Charity

Global's Make Some Noise is Global's in-house charity. Every year Global's Make Some Noise has an annual appeal day where its radio stations come together to raise money for small projects supporting youngsters and their families living with illness, disability or lack of opportunity, in their local communities. Before Global's Make Some Noise, some of Global's stations ran their own charity's such as Help a Capital Child, Have a Heart and the Classic FM Foundation. In 1975, Capital FM's charity Help a London Child was established by the late Sir

Richard Attenborough Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, film director, and Film producer, producer. Attenborough was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Acade ...

, to help disadvantaged young people in the capital. He once said: "Disadvantaged children don't have less imagination, just less opportunity to express it." In 2014, Global's Make Some Noise was formed. 9 October it was Make Some Noise day, where all of Global's brands came together. Make Some Noise raised more than 1 million pounds. In 2015, Global's Make Some Noise ran its second year on 8 October they came all came together. They raised £1,955,869. In 2016, Global's Make Some Noise returned on 7 October. In total £2,860,897 was raised. In the financial year 2016-2017 £0.98M was spent by Global Charities on fund raising. In 2017, Global's Make Some Noise returned on 6 October and raised a record breaking £3,534,628.

Criticism

In February 2009, Global and

were the subject of criticism by technical and scientific bloggers following their threat of legal action against medical journalist

Ben Goldacre Ben Michael Goldacre (born 20 May 1974) is a British physician, academic and science writer. He is the first Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford ...

for publishing part of an LBC 97.3 broadcast by

Jeni Barnett Jeni Barnett (born 24 March 1949 in London) is an English TV presenter. Early life Barnett grew up in Borehamwood. Television career As an actress, Barnett appeared on several TV shows, including ''Revolting Women'' (BBC2, 1981) and ''Doctors'' ...

on his website. The move was interpreted as an attempt to suppress criticism and debate rather than enforcement of copyright. The broadcast itself was described as irresponsible by

David Aaronovitch David Morris Aaronovitch (born 8 July 1954) is an English journalist, television presenter and author. He was a regular columnist for ''The Times'' and the author of ''Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country'' (2000), ''Voodo ...

in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', and LBC and Barnett were specifically identified in a critical

Early Day Motion In the Westminster parliamentary system, an early day motion (EDM) is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by a member of Parliament, which the Government (in charge of parliamentary business) has not yet scheduled for debate. Hi ...

Norman Lamb Sir Norman Peter Lamb (born 16 September 1957) is a British politician and solicitor. He was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for North Norfolk from 2001 to 2019, and was the chair of the Science and Technology Select Commit ...

MP. In May 2015, Global was criticised for dropping coverage of the

Swiss Leaks Swiss Leaks (or SwissLeaks) is a journalistic investigation, released in February 2015, of a giant tax evasion scheme allegedly operated with the knowledge and encouragement of the British multinational bank HSBC via its Swiss subsidiary, HSBC ...

story in February that year. Coverage of the story was resumed "some days later". In July 2020, Global was criticised for failing to investigate multiple online allegations that Capital Xtra DJ

Tim Westwood Timothy Westwood (born 3 October 1957), often known professionally simply as Westwood, is a British DJ and presenter. He was described by ''The Guardian'' in 2022 as "a veteran of the hip-hop scene whose opinions have been able to make or bre ...

had behaved inappropriately with young female fans.

Corporate Watch Corporate Watch (The Corporate Watch Co-Operative Ltd.) is a research group based in the UK. It describes itself as a "research group that helps people stand up against corporations and capitalism." And as a "not-for-profit co-operative providing ...

has criticised Global's use of

shareholder loan Shareholder loan is a debt-like form of financing provided by shareholders. Usually, it is the most junior debt in the company's debt portfolio. On the other hand, if this loan belongs to shareholders it could be treated as equity. Maturity of sha ...

s to avoid tax.

References

External links

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''PopBuzz'' official website ''Heart'' official website ''Smooth Radio'' official website
{{Media in the United Kingdom, comporg 2007 establishments in England Advertising agencies of the United Kingdom British companies established in 2007 Mass media companies based in London Mass media companies established in 2007 Outdoor advertising agencies Radio broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom