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Can Global Radio walk the walk?
With GCap Radio safely pouched for £371m chairman Charles Allen and CEO Ashley Tabor (son of bookmaker Michael Tabor, one of Global's backers) now have to show that they can turn radio consolidation into money.

On the face of it its ownership of Heart and Galaxy. alongside GCap's Capital and Classic, should give them the opportunity but it's hard to see that many economies of scale in the radio business.

They could (and probably will) use one sales team to sell ads across their station portfolio but that can lead to problems as the salespeople inevitably become detached from individual brands.

They might sell some stations, indeed Ofcom might require them too.

And Allen, who showed he was at least good at cost-cutting at ITV, presumably has some big cuts to personnel and marketing already in mind.

But has commercial radio been left behind in the internet age?

It's interesting that former GCap CEO Fru Hazlitt's strategy for its stations was almost to use radio as a marketing tool for the company's websites, which is something the BBC does very well.

But the BBC doesn't need to earn revenue from radio.

And the BBC is the problem.

'Today' presenters might moan and groan about losing their reporters through cutbacks but the Beeb is still a huge, generously funded and extremely competent radio operator.

It's hard to see how a gaggle of slimmed-down commercial stations can stem the tide of audience flow from the commercial sector to the BBC.

Traders call an end to the credit crunch
This week, Radio 4 is running a series on the Marshall Plan, US General George Marshall's post World War Two rescue of Europe's shattered economy by chucking bucket loads of dollars at it.

That's exactly what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been doing to his own economy recently and (yesterday at least) traders were betting it that it was working.

Nobody expected bank shares to soar amid news of still more write-offs (Deutsche Bank is going to write off a further $3.9bn on mortgages today) but they did.

Shares in Switzerland's UBS soared 12% after it announced it would tap shareholders for $15bn in new capital and Lehman Brothers also rose sharply as it increased its own capital raising exercise from $3bn to $4bn on heavy investor demand.

The Dow Jones Index in New York rose nearly 400 points yesterday, leading every worldwide market sharply up. In the Far East this morning (Wednesday) the Japanese Nikkei rose 3.7% and the Hong Kong Hang Seng rose 4.4%, prompting some brave analysts to call an end to the credit crunch.

Well we'l see. Shares in London opened higher Wednesday before slipping back a little.

The stock market rises were variously attributed to traders covering short positions (ie, their bets on markets falling) and also some pretty slight evidence from the US that things weren't quite as bad as people feared.

As to the banks, it was probably relief that they were willing to go to their shareholders to raise new money rather than hoarding what they already had.

If they raise these new billions they will presumably start lending to each other again, which will be good news all round.

Analysts reckon that stock markets start to rise about six months before the real economy recovers so those companies that don't benefit directly from Big Ben's munificence are still facing a tough few months.

As are consumers. British mortgage minnow First Direct announced this morning that it is to restrict new mortgages to existing customers.

This follows news that the Nationwide is whacking up its mortgage rates and also restricting demand.

These UK lenders seem to have decided that the mortgage game isn't worth playing at the moment, until they find out the true medium-term cost of money.

In part, this depends on the Bank of England's imminent (one hopes) decision on interest rates.

Time for the UK to do its bit.

Time for Rose and the City to kiss and make up
There's a mother and father of a row going on at Marks & Spencer over CEO Stuart Rose's plan to move up to executive chairman as the company looks for an eventual successor for him.

Nobody seemed to mind too much when Michael Grade was appointed executive chairman of ITV and the last thing M&S needs is for Rose to stomp off in a huff.

Chairman Terry Burns, a former Whitehall mandarin, is already on his way and if Rose were to walk it would be a disaster.

But that's what angry shareholders led by Legal & General and Schroders seem willing to contemplate.

There's obviously a case for not putting too much power in the hands of one person in a huge company like M&S. Doing exactly this is one reason why so many Wall Street banks have run into such spectacular trouble.

But the UK is hardly awash with world class retail executives and many of the good younger ones are either at M&S already or happy to take their chances on making a fortune as the front men for private equity groups with an interest in retail.

I wonder what Arcadia's Philip Green, whose bid for M&S was thwarted by Rose, makes of it all?

Stephen Foster is a former news editor of ±±¾©Èü³µpk10, former editor of Marketing Week and Evening Standard ad columnist. He is a partner in Editorial Partnership and writes the blog and Politics of the Media for Brand Republic.