105.2 Smooth Radio - Station Format

Station Format

105.2 Smooth Radio plays adult contemporary music, aimed at listeners aged 35 and over. It bears very few similarities to its predecessor. Though some of the presenters who worked on Saga 105.2 FM initially hosted shows on 105.2 Smooth Radio, very few of the specialist shows from the Saga days have survived, and Smooth's initial slogan "Your life, Your music.", which was used on Saga stations, has now been modified to "Love Life, Love Music"

The station operated a 24-hour schedule of local programming until August 2008 when networked output from London and Manchester was introduced, leading to the sackings of six station presenters.

Following the publication of John Myers' recommendations of a regulatory overhaul in commercial radio, and the passing of the 2010 Digital Economy Act, which allowed stations to co-locate or drop all local shows and broadcast on national DAB, Smooth Radio merged its five England-based stations into one quasi-national station, with local news feeds produced from GMG Radio's headquarters in Salford Quays. GMG made the announcement on 29 June 2010, that it wanted to rival BBC Radio 2 by broadcasting on the Digital 1 multiplex on DAB Digital Radio to the whole of England and Wales, as well as Sky, Freesat, Freeview, Virgin Media and online. A regional flavour would be kept with split news, travel and weather bulletins broadcasting in the FM and DAB regional stations in the North East, North West, West Midlands and East Midlands. London listeners and those tuning nationally would hear national information.

In Scotland, 105.2 Smooth Radio continued to retain some of its local output, but networked evening and overnight shows, as well as some daytime programming. Currently, the weekday breakfast and drivetime shows together with some weekend morning shows are produced locally from Glasgow, while news and traffic bulletins are also produced locally.