Capital (radio network)


Capital is a network of twelve independent contemporary hit radio stations in the United Kingdom, broadcasting a mix of local and networked programming. Ten of the stations are owned and operated by Global, while the other two are owned and operated under separate franchise agreements.
As of September 2024, the stations serve a combined weekly audience of 7.5 million listeners and target a core audience in the 15–34 age group; 57% of all listeners are within this demographic. The national version of the network is widely available on Global Player, Freeview, Sky, Freesat, Virgin Media and Digital One DAB. Capital is the fifth most-popular radio network in the UK by listeners, and the second largest of the commercial stations after Heart.
Capital has a playlist which is updated weekly, and up until around February 2022, featured songs from the last one or two years. Since 2022, Capital has started playing older songs from the 2010s, 2000s, and late 1990s, with most of them played on their sister station Capital Anthems; although unlike fellow hit music station BBC Radio 1, it doesn't usually play any rock or alternative music while other genres such as drill and occasional drum and bass were played on Capital Xtra and Capital Dance respectively.

History

Capital Radio, GWR and GCap Media

Capital started as the independent music radio station for London in the early 1970s.
In the 1990s, Capital Radio became one of the UK's major radio groups via acquisition of a number of local radio stations including Red Dragon FM, BRMB and Power FM. Rival GWR Group also acquired a number of local radio stations in the 1990s, including Leicester Sound, Ram FM, GWR FM, Chiltern FM, Hereward FM, Marcher Sound and Trent FM, which operated as part of the 33-station Mix network.
Capital Radio and GWR Group's merger in 2005 to form GCap Media resulted in the stations being amalgamated into the One Network. This continued until June 2009 when most of the stations, now in the ownership of Global Radio — who had purchased GCap in 2008 — were rebranded as part of The Heart Network. This left Leicester Sound, Ram FM, Red Dragon FM and Trent FM, which, in 2008, were grouped together to form The Hit Music Network with networked content produced in Nottingham, although, apart from The Big Top 40 Show, the networked content did not appear on Red Dragon. In January 2011, these stations were rebranded as part of Capital, with the Leicester, Derby and Nottingham stations merged to form one regional station for the East Midlands.

Galaxy

The first Galaxy radio station, Galaxy 97.2, was launched in 1990 in South West England – initially broadcasting solely from Bristol – and operated under the Chiltern Radio Group. In 1994 the station won the first regional FM licence and moved frequency to 101.0 MHz, rebranded as Galaxy 101 and expanded coverage to include South Wales. At the same time a second studio was opened in Cardiff to provide some programming alongside the existing Bristol studio. Chrysalis Radio purchased the station in 1996 and, a year later, expanded the network by buying Faze FM's stations: Kiss 102 in Manchester and Kiss 105 in Yorkshire. In 1998, black community station Choice FM was acquired in Birmingham. Chrysalis Radio won the North East regional licence in 1999 and sold the original station, Galaxy 101, to the GWR Group in 2002.
In 2007, Chrysalis Radio was sold to Global Radio and following their subsequent acquisition of GCap in 2008, XFM Scotland and Power FM were rebranded under the Galaxy moniker in November 2008. Another rebrand followed in January 2011 when all Galaxy stations were rebranded as Capital.

Capital

Within the first five months of the network, Capital's flagship London station regained its position as the most listened-to commercial station in London. However, Manchester, the North East, South Wales and Yorkshire lost listeners, contrasting with Birmingham, Central Scotland and the South Coast where listening figures increased.
On 1 July 2011, Global Radio requested changes to the formats of Capital Birmingham and Capital Scotland, which had inherited obligations from previous owners. This was to enable format consistency within all nine Capital stations. On 17 November 2011, Ofcom approved both format change requests.
On 6 February 2014, Global Radio announced it would be selling two of its Capital stations, in Scotland and South Wales, to Communicorp. Capital's network programming and brand name is still used by both stations under contract.
Two ex-Heart stations were added to the network on 6 May 2014: Capital Cymru and Capital North West and Wales, broadcasting from Wrexham.
On 18 January 2016, Global added the former Juice FM station in Liverpool to the network, after approval was given to buy the station from UTV Media for £10 million.
In January 2018, Global added the former Juice 107.2 in Brighton and announced it would launch Capital Brighton on 3 September 2018.
In July 2018, Global brought 2BR in Lancashire from UKRD. The station was merged with the Manchester station and joined the network on 8 April 2019.
In February 2019, following Ofcom's decision to relax local content obligations for commercial radio, it was announced Capital would replace its local breakfast and weekend shows with additional networked programming from London as of Monday 8 April 2019. This reduced total weekly hours of local programming on each station from 43 to 15.
Capital Cymru retained its own local breakfast and weekend shows due to separate Welsh-language obligations. In May 2019, the station dropped all networked output and introduced a full schedule of local programming, including additional Welsh-language shows. Capital Cymru also retains the network's branding and much of its CHR music playlist.
Local Drivetime shows were retained, but some are now shared between stations. Local news, traffic updates and advertising is retained across all licence areas.
In September 2019, Quidem, the owners of six local radio stations in the English Midlands, announced it had entered a brand licensing agreement with Global, citing financial losses. Two months later, following Ofcom permission to change the stations' formats, it was confirmed they would merge and join the Capital network on 2 December 2019. Quidem continued to own Capital Mid-Counties as a franchise until August 2021 when Global took ownership, although Communicorp continues to own their franchises.
On 2 November 2022, Capital rebranded their stations to no longer use the word "FM" in their names; FM had already been removed from their on-air branding. The station logos with the Capital FM name and the station's frequency range were replaced with a blue and orange single-word logo, and Capital Xtra's branding had a colour change.
In April 2023, it was announced Capital Scotland would reintroduce local breakfast, daytime and weekend programming from 2 May 2023, as part of a major expansion of Global's Scottish radio operations.
Capital stations in England ended local and regional programming on 21 February 2025. Scotland and Wales retained their respective local programming.

List of Capital stations

As of 2 December 2019, Capital's regional network consisted of twelve stations.
YearsCapital stationStudios
2014–Capital Anglesey & GwyneddCardiff
2016–Capital Liverpool
1973–Capital LondonLondon
2019–2025Capital Manchester and Lancashire
2019–2025Capital Mid-Counties
2019–Capital Midlands
2011–Capital North East
2014–Capital North West and North WalesCardiff
2011–Capital Scotland Glasgow
2019–Capital South
2011–Capital South Wales Cardiff
2011–Capital Yorkshire

Production and programming

Capital stations based in Central Scotland and Birmingham produced and transmitted specialist output for the network on Saturday and Sunday overnights respectively. However, in July 2012, this was replaced with content from 95.8 Capital studios in Leicester Square, London, where all the networked programming is now produced. Drivetime programming on weekdays originated from the local stations' studios until February 2025 when Global adopted their new 'nations strategy'. Only Scotland and Wales retained their respective local programming. Capital also broadcasts via a number of DAB ensembles that do not correspond with a local FM station, and as an audio channel on the Digital Terrestrial Television and Digital Satellite platforms. These platforms take a national feed with programming identical to that of 95.8 Capital London.
Prior to January 2011, Leicester Sound, Ram FM and Trent FM shared off-peak programming from Trent's studios in Nottingham, whilst Galaxy programming came from studios in Leeds. Red Dragon FM and Capital were entirely autonomous, producing all of their own output.
The Capital radio network production and station sound was created by former Capital producer Arden Hanley and was then overseen by Chris Nicoll, who also runs production brand Wizz FX, until his departure in 2015 to join Wisebuddah. Howard Ritchie, Helen Austin and Kayne Harrison were the voiceover artists for 95-106 Capital until 2022. Since 2022, Remel London, Dan O'Connell and Becca Dudley are the voiceover artists for the Capital network. The current station sound was created by Reelworld, and Global's inhouse production team, which is led by Ashley Bard.
Virgin Media became the first sponsor of 95-106 Capital. The six-figure deal begun on 4 January 2011, with weekday drive-time shows branded as The Virgin Media Home Run across all nine stations for a six-month period.
The Official Big Top 40, broadcast on Sundays, is simulcast with Capital's sister network, Heart.