Switch Scotland is a DAB digital radio multiplex broadcasting across

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 ...

, with its coverage area encompassing major population centres such as

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 ...

and

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 the surrounding area. The service overlaps with local-level DAB multiplexes centred on particular cities and towns (such as Score Glasgow and Score Edinburgh), meaning that listeners in central Scotland are able to tune into three levels of coverage - national, regional and local services. Stations carried on Switch Scotland include relays of local FM/MW services and also of stations only available in that area on DAB. Many of the DAB-only stations are relays of programmes from other areas:

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 ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

originate in London and Kerrang! Radio in Birmingham. Prior to Smooth Radio parent

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 ...

taking over the former Saga 105.2, the regional multiplex carried a relay of 102.2 Smooth Radio from London, with Glasgow-based Saga on the Glasgow and Edinburgh local multiplexes (in Edinburgh, the Glasgow service was relayed in place of the defunct Saga Digital.) After the Saga-Smooth changeover, Smooth London on the regional multiplex gave way to a relay of Glasgow's Smooth, and the ex-Saga slot on the local multiplexes was used by the GMG-owned jazzfm.com; in Glasgow this later became the new

Jazz FM (UK) Jazz FM is a Radio in the United Kingdom, British digital radio station owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK. It broadcasts across the digital radio in the United Kingdom, United Kingdom and Malta predominantly playing jazz music, jazz s ...

, but in Edinburgh this slot was then used to relay another GMG-owned Glasgow-based station, 96.3 Rock Radio, instead. Two more recent changes to services on this multiplex had both been actioned by Global Radio: the removal of rock station The Arrow in favour of a relay of the London version of

, and the relaunch of Xfm Scotland as Galaxy (which resulted in a change to the DAB arrangement, which had been carrying Xfm Scotland and Yorkshire-based Galaxy Digital, and changed to carrying Xfm London and Galaxy Scotland). Following the merger of Galaxy into the

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 in January 2011, Galaxy Scotland was rebranded as Capital Scotland. Following the relocation of Jazz FM to the

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 ...

multiplex, and the relaunch of Manchester's Rock Radio as

106.1 Real Radio XS XS Manchester was an Independent Local Radio station serving Greater Manchester, broadcasting a mix of Indie rock, indie and Alternative rock, alternative rock music, speech and news output. The station was owned and operated by Communicorp UK an ...

, GMG made changes to their station lineup on DAB in Scotland. Smooth Radio (Glasgow) was removed from the regional multiplex and rolled down to the Glasgow local multiplex, which also continues to carry 96.3 Real Radio XS. Programme sharing between the Manchester and Glasgow rock stations ceased as GMG were initially proposing to sell the Glasgow station (though this plan was later abandoned). The ex-Smooth slot on the Central Scotland multiplex was then taken up by the Manchester-based Real XS. The ultimate aim of these changes appears to be to continue carriage of the Glasgow-area local FM franchises of Real XS and Smooth to the Glasgow DAB multiplex, whilst providing listeners in Edinburgh and elsewhere with access to the network versions of the stations.

BBC Radio Scotland BBC Radio Scotland is a Scottish national radio network owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts a wide variety of programmes. It replaced the Scottish BBC Radio 4 opt-out service of the same name from 23 N ...

is not carried on this regional multiplex as it is instead carried on the local-level multiplexes around Scotland. Conversely, BBC Radio nan Gaidheal is carried on the regional multiplex, so is not on the local multiplexes.

Transmitter sites

Switch Scotland currently broadcasts using block 11D (222.064 MHz) on the following sites:

Current line-up of services

The stations currently carried on Switch Scotland are:

References

{{Radio in Scotland Digital audio broadcasting multiplexes