24March
Saga Radio's turn-off yesterday was a very low-key affair. The RDS had switched to SMOOTH at about 3pm. At 5.48, Mike Baker read a traffic bulletin, and promises a warmer week next week. At 5.50, some commercials are followed by Mike introducing Fleetwood Mac's Dreams
. At 5.56, he segues into Telstar
by the Tornadoes. The first sign that Mike had finished came when the 6pm news began without a jingle or station ident, just the newsreader announcing the time. After the bulletin, at 6.06, the test transmission begins with Sade's Smooth operator
. The station launches at 6am on Monday, just 59 hours later.
Saga Radio officially launched on 16 October 2001; test transmissions had begun around 20 September. The first presenter was David Hamilton, and the schedule included specialist music programmes between 8 and 10pm each weeknight. These were taken off air in 2004, though week-end nostalgia programmes continued until the end.
On DAB, Smooth London was taken off air at about 6.20 on Friday, replaced by jazzfm.com; Saga 105.7 was renamed Smooth at the same time. It's worth remembering that when the West Midlands multiplex launched in summer 2001, the digital label Smooth was a rebranded Real Radio, alongside Jazz FM from London. When Jazz dropped the jazz and became Smooth London in June 2005, it moved to the station labelled Smooth, and Jazz became Real. Now Saga has taken the label Smooth from Jazz, the original Smooth is Jazz FM, and the original Jazz FM is still Real.
(Does anyone understand that last sentence, because we don't.)
Meanwhile, GWR's The Jazz has announced its launch line-up. After providing a continuous stream of music since 25 December, proper programmes begin on 6 April with a Jazz 500. Proper programming starts on 9 April: Mark Forrest (a free transfer from Classic FM) takes breakfast, Anthony Davis (Capital Life) 10-2, David "Kid" Jensen (Capital Gold) the afternoon show, with Margherita Taylor (yes, her from E4) and Helen Mayhew (ex-Radio 3) doing the evening shift. Week-end highlights include Mike Chadwick (Smooth) doing contemporary material on Friday night, Claire Anderson (Jazz FM) takes week-end breakfast, Tim Lihoreau (ex-Classic) does a new releases show, and there are history shows from Ramsey Lewis (Smooth), Digby Fairweather (ex-Radio 2), Courtney Pine, and Campbell Burnap (Smooth). The schedule also includes a show by Jamie Cullum, but we can't have everything.
It's worth noting that Smooth Radio's website includes no line-up for the West Midlands. Thanks for caring, people.
