Big-name presenters such as breakfast's Johnny Vaughan and drivetime's Richard Bacon remain in place, and are joined by fellow TV personality Craig Doyle, who has been hired to front an entertainment-led Saturday morning show.
Some new voices have been introduced, with Neil Bentley making way for Chris Brooks in the early afternoon and Paul Gillies taking over the 8pm-11pm Monday-Thursday slot from Schooly, who moves to Saturday afternoon.
There is a new Capital logo and the station's name has changed from 95.8 Capital FM to simply Capital Radio.
The real changes, station bosses say, are the refined music policy focusing on a wider, less repeated playlist of melodic, adult music, particularly singer-songwriters, and steering away from manufactured pop, and a concerted effort to represent Londoners and London life on-air, including running a 24-hour London newsroom.
Listeners were leaving because the old Capital had lost its distinctiveness in a crowded market, according to Steve Orchard, the GWR executive who has risen to the top of GCap while colleagues from the Capital side of the company, including chief executive David Mansfield, departed last year.
"Music-wise, we tried to cover all bases and ended up owning no particular position in people's minds about what music we represent, and we ceased to represent London on-air," Orchard said.
However, Orchard, Capital managing director Keith Pringle, GCap chief executive Ralph Bernard and GCap's consumer insight team have come up with the formula to "re-tune" the station after consulting hundreds of listeners.
The listener consultation started in October after GCap was stung into action by Capital's declining audience share. The third-quarter Rajar share of listening figures showed Capital falling into third place for the first time, behind Heart and Magic.
"The Rajar result was the trigger for this. We got everybody together and asked whether they were happy with [being number three]. We got everybody's commitment to sort the thing out. Everybody wants to be number one," Orchard said.
Current and lapsed listeners who had registered on Capital's VIP Club of 100,000 online members were emailed and involved in quantitative and face-to-face market research. Their complaints and feedback input helped develop the repositioning, as well as the "fewer ads" policy and, to begin with, the online community will be the ones Capital will tell about the changes.
More traditional marketing activity, including TV, press and events, will be brought to bear in the second and third quarters.
However, Capital's fightback is seen as a long-term project after a sustained period of decline. "No one silver bullet can fix the problems Capital has had. We have lost about 12m listening hours over the last five years," Orchard said.
In that time, London's other commercial stations have gained 1m or 2m hours, but Radio 1 and Radio 2 have gained 13m, he points out.
"Commercial radio in London is suffering from Radio 1 and Radio 2's growth. We believe it's important to the entire commercial industry for Capital to be the leading station in London."
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)