The web URL (dick-stone.com) and this blog site, on WordPress, will cease to exist from Oct 1st 2025. Well, that said, it will probably remain, just that I'm not renewing the subs, so the URL will go, but the posts probably stay. I've copied them all over to a Substack home just in case it all vanishes. Some of the hyperlinks to other posts from the blog will therefore not work, and many of the images have not transferred, but the rest have for those vaguely interested and in case someday I decide to re-engage with it.

Recently, the place I called my "work home" for many years, Chapel Quarter in Nottingham, closed its doors as a broadcast centre for the last time. With the exception of Smooth East Midlands for Communicorp, local and regional broadcasting had stopped there some time ago, with the wider regional output coming from Birmingham. That being the impact of the last Ofcom relaxation of localisation rules prior to the…

I've not been blogging for a while- I’ve not really had a lot of time and now have a new job outside of media entirely, for the first time in my working life, which was a thing to get used to for a while. Hence the (pardon the pun), radio silence. The Media Act has taken hold, and the latest change, just the other week, was the news that Global is ending local/ regional programming in Capital, Heart and Smooth- following a new "Nations Strategy".

It was in 1996 I think, when BBC Radio 2 repositioned itself and moved its tanks onto the lawn of commercial radio, perhaps for the first time. The changes to the music policy, targeting a 35+ audience and a more AOR/ AC format, propelled it to the number one position, overtaking Radio 1. The more diligent older diary respondents within the target age are largely responsible for that.