Capital Scotland

Capital Scotland

City of license	Glasgow
Broadcast area	Central Scotland
Branding	105–106 Capital
Slogan	Scotland's No.1 Hit Music Station
Frequency	FM: 105.7, 106.1 MHz DAB: 11C (Glasgow) 12D (Edinburgh) RDS: Capital
First air date	19 November 1999 as Beat 106; 4 January 2006 as XFM Scotland; 7 November 2008 as Galaxy Scotland; 3 January 2011 as 105–106 Capital
Format	Contemporary hit radio
Audience share	7.7% (December 2013, RAJAR)
Owner	Global Radio
Sister stations	Capital Birmingham Capital East Midlands Capital London Capital Manchester Capital North East Capital South Coast Capital South Wales Capital Yorkshire
Website	Edinburgh Glasgow

Capital Scotland (formerly known as Beat 106, XFM Scotland as part of the XFM franchise and then as Galaxy Scotland) is a regional radio station broadcasting to Scotland's Central Belt, an area surrounding the two cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and the kingdom of Fife. The station launched as part of the Galaxy network on Friday 7 November 2008. It is owned by Global Radio and operates under the nine-station Capital network from 3 January 2011.

History

Beat 106

The station originally began on 19 November 1999 as Beat 106, a new rock and dance station. The first presenter on-air, at 1:06 pm on launch day, was Matt Finlay, who stayed at the station until late 2005. His first words were "Is this thing on?". The first song on the station was 'Revolution No.9' by The Beatles followed by Fatboy Slim's 'Right Here, Right Now'. Other presenters at launch included George Bowie, Gina McKie, Graham Stewart and Jim Gellatly. Beat 106 closed on 1 January 2006, playing a countdown of the top 1000 tracks voted for by visitors to its website, entitled "The X-List".

Beat 106 was originally established by the Big Beat Group, headed up by a group of nightclub promoters from Glasgow. However, just a few months into its existence, in July 2000, it was bought by the Capital Radio Group who turned the focus more towards dance music (later changing it back to more of a rock/dance format). In 2005, Capital Radio merged with the GWR Group to form GCap Media, creating the UK's largest commercial radio group.

XFM Scotland

The rebranding of Beat 106 to XFM was one of a number of measures announced by GCap to improve their corporate performance following the merger. The original XFM station was XFM London and the rebranding in Scotland occurred four months before the expected launch of XFM Manchester.

XFM Scotland programmes were launched by breakfast presenter Dominik Diamond on 4 January 2006 with 'Loaded' by Primal Scream as the first song played on the relaunched station. A major marketing campaign was launched a year later in a bid to try to regain lost listeners since the rebrand.^[1] By September 2007, the station was only reaching audience shares of 2.6% in the West and 4.1% in the East.

On 11 February 2008 GCap Media announced that they would be selling the analogue licence for the station.^[2] GCap later became part of Global Radio and it was decided to keep the licence.

On 28 August 2008, Jim Gellatly announced that his last show would be broadcast that day and he would be leaving the station together with a number of colleagues.^[3] By the time of XFM's rebrand as Galaxy, station audience shares had fallen further to 2.4% in the West and 2.6% in the East.^[4]

Galaxy Scotland

On 27 August 2008 new owners Global Radio announced they would re-brand XFM Scotland as Galaxy Scotland.^[5] The rebrand was part of Global Radio’s major strategy to expand the brand across outside of Scotland and into parts of England. Local programming on the station consisted of daily breakfast, weekday drivetime and specialist shows with networked programming broadcast from Leeds.

Galaxy Scotland joined the Galaxy Network on 7 November 2008. XFM finished on air at approximately 3.30 pm that day, followed immediately by a 15-minute launch sequence for Galaxy. Galaxy programming started by 4 pm the same afternoon, with Gary Spence from the former Vibe 105-108 FM first to open the mic live on-air on the newly launched Galaxy. Networked programming from the Galaxy network went out as normal that evening, although Dave Kelly presented his show from Glasgow on this occasion instead of from the usual Leeds studios at Galaxy 105 Yorkshire. However, the live show he did on this occasion went out on Scotland only, with the remainder of the network taking a pre-recorded show.

Since launching in November 2008, Galaxy Scotland gained 429,000 listeners providing almost 3.2 million listening hours per week. In the 12 months up to May 2010, the station doubled its number of listeners. As of Monday 12 July 2010, Galaxy Scotland changed their tagline from "Love Music" to "Scotland's No 1 Hit Music Station" in line with the other Galaxy stations across the UK.

105–106 Capital

The station was re-branded as 105–106 Capital on 3 January 2011 as part of a merger of Global Radio's Galaxy and Hit Music networks to form the nine-station Capital radio network.^[6] Local breakfast and drivetime output was retained with most networked programming now broadcast from the network's London studios.

Galaxy Scotland breakfast presenters Des Clarke and Jennie Cook, drivetime presenter Garry Spence and weekend breakfast presenter Ryan Morrison all retained their jobs with the relaunched station.^[7] Former Clyde 1 breakfast presenter/producer Adele Cunningham replaced Morrison as the station's Saturday morning presenter from 2 July 2011^[8] and took over the Sunday morning slot in January 2012 following the departure of Dave Connor.

In addition to local output, Capital Scotland also produced a networked dance music show on Saturday overnights, which was networked across the Capital network until July 2012.^[9]

On 1 July 2011, Global Radio requested to change the formats of Capital Birmingham and Capital Scotland which have obligations from previous owners – this is to enable all nine Capital FM stations to be inline.^[10] On 17 November 2011 it was announced Ofcom approved two format change requests.^[11]

On 6 February 2014, Global Radio announced it would be selling Capital Scotland to Communicorp. Capital's network programming and brand name will remain and be used under contract.^[12]

Presenters

Local presenters

Network presenters

Syndicated presenters

Former presenters

References

External links

• Edinburgh at 105–106 Capital
• Glasgow at 105–106 Capital