New Gold Network Releases Schedule
GCap Media’s new Gold network has released its on-air schedule, which will come into effect from Monday 6 August, featuring a new national Breakfast Show, a national Drivetime Show and a series of weekend specialist music shows.
David Jensen takes over the coveted weekday Breakfast Show slot, which he will present alongside co-host Erica North from 6am to 10am.
Mike Sweeney takes over the weekday Drivetime helm from 4pm to 8pm, followed by Sam Hughes who presents late evenings from 8pm to midnight, Monday to Thursday.
Each network area has its own locally presented weekday afternoon show from 12pm to 4pm except for in London where the show will broadcast between 1pm and 4pm.
Paul Coyte takes up the Weekend Breakfast Show slot on Saturday and Sunday and David Jensen will continue to present his Saturday Celebrity Show with OK! Magazine from 9am to 12pm.
On Sundays Gold has an array of specialist music programmes such as the Classic Album Show with Nicky Horne, the Gold Rewind – featuring legendary live performances from the archive, and the ’60s classics show with Mike Sweeney.
With the strapline “It’s all about the music”, Gold is aiming to distinguish itself from other classic hits formats by playing “the widest breadth of music currently available on commercial radio covering music from the last five decades”.
The new Gold network will also provide three-minute news bulletins per hour, which includes local news, traffic and travel, weather and sports updates.
“We’re delighted to be where we are today but it’s all work in progress as we continue to merge the two networks over the summer to create the UK’s No 1 Classic Hits Station,” said Andy Turner, Gold’s station director.
“We will continue to develop the brand into the autumn when we will add new programmes, features and music specials to the schedule”.
GCap announced it was to merge eight AM and DAB digital Classic Gold radio stations with the seven AM and DAB digital Capital Gold stations to form the national Gold network last week (see GCap To Launch Gold Network).
The company bought the network from UBC Media for just shy of £4 million in cash earlier this year (see GCap Nabs Classic Gold Network In Almost £4 Million Cash Deal).