Heritage Stations: Why the Explosion? (Part 1)

By Paul Dempsey

If, like me, you’re an avid listener and consumer of radio and, in particular, music radio then the last 10 years have proved to be something quite extraordinary, perhaps even revolutionary. I am of course referring to the emergence of the ‘heritage’ station – dedicated to music from a specific decade. Absolute, Greatest Hits and Smooth, to name just a few, all now have decade-specific stations. Initially I greeted this development with open arms (ears??) and these stations became my staple form of consumption.

Where did these new stations come from? What drove their development? Who is their target audience? Now this is not intended to be a fully realised article but it’s worthy of some thought, some investigation. Britain has always been radio friendly. For the older listeners amongst us we can probably remember a time when breakfast shows would garner audiences of over 10 million – 1979 to be precise. As the BBC and the commercial stations started to haemorrhage listeners in the late 1980s the management at the BBC attempted to chase the audience. To no avail. The younger the presenters, the more niche the music, the more the audiences shrank.

In some ways I believe they were fighting a losing battle. Music had always been tribal but these were ‘nations’ – Goths, Punks, Mods, Metallers etc. The birth of Rave, Dance, Rap and modern RnB plus dozens of niche sub genres led to a fracturing of the playlist with a lowest common denominator, ersatz feel to the major national stations output. By the turn of the millennium the listeners were growing older and were being overlooked or actively discouraged from Radio One, migrating to Radio Two or Virgin, Capital et al. This led to a more eclectic playlist for Radio Two and similar to be sure -  but again the demographic seemed uncertain, the aims unclear and a direction that sort a musical utilitarianism. One could argue it was ever thus but by 2010 something had to give. There were so many ways in which people could access music that radio was facing an existential crisis – a crisis that was going to be met by the birth of the heritage station!

NEXT TIME – Part 2

Paul Dempsey