Classic FM Unveils New Presenters

GCap Media’s Classic FM has signed Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, Margherita Taylor and Alex James and is introducing a daily jazz show for the first time in its 15-year history.

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, who makes his radio presenting debut with The Sunday Spa. Starting at 9am, the programme will provide two-hours of laid-back classics.

Ex-Blur bassist Alex James returns to Classic FM for a major new 100-part series, The A-Z of Classical Music, broadcast every Sunday from 11am.

Margherita Taylor joins Classic FM to present the all-new Smooth Classics At Six every evening between 6pm and 9pm. The newly-extended show features three-hours of relaxing classics.

Classic FM Jazz, presented by Helen Mayhew Monday to Fridays and Tim Lihoreau on Saturday and Sundays, will be broadcast every day between midnight and 2am.

A new jazz channel will also be introduced to myclassicfm.com, alongside the six current exclusive classical music channels.

On Monday, GCap unveiled a “radical but realistic” set of measures aimed at boosting profits and maintaining long term growth, which dealt a significant blow to DAB digital radio (see DAB Dealt A Blow As Gcap Unveils Radical Measures).

Chief executive Fru Hazlitt confirmed the closure of digital stations theJazz and Planet Rock and the intended sale of the group’s majority stake in Digital One.

She also said the company believed that “DAB is not an economically viable platform for the company. In the short term, without massive investment and improbable changes in government policy, it is not a platform in which we can grow.”

GCap Media: 0207 663 7000 www.gcapmedia.com