Broader Range stns & others that don’t fit our neat categories!

Ok, so we’ve got some stations that have basically made it plain that they are throwing the usual radio rule book out of the window, and are setting out to play a whole load of different stuff and/or up the variety stakes, plus a couple of others, Jazz FM (Bauer) and BBC Asian Network which plough their own furrow and don’t really have any direct UK competitors with such a wide national coverage.

Of the “big variety” genre stations, even the one with the smallest playlist, Jack FM, was actually playing about double the number of songs that most mainstream players would contemplate, but even a commercial versions of a “variety” station like Jack was completely dwarfed by BBC 6 Music with a shelf groaning 6000 distinct songs played in 30 days! The non corporately owned Cheesy FM, it turns out, is not just home to some guilty pleasures but in fact has a pretty wide spectrum of songs it is prepared to wheel out too! 

Yes, Heart Xmas DOES run throughout the year (!), but Sam FM in Bristol ceased to exist from 6th Sept 2021. It was a “Jack” type station which Bauer had inherited a few years previously, and it was only a matter of time before they were going to close it and use the transmitters for one of their already established “brands.” In the build up to transferring it to the Hits Network, it’s broad playlist was narrowed about 3 months before the closure, then with one month to go the music style was mostly “flipped” from oldies with lots of variety, to a tighter and more contemporary list of songs. We keep the SAM listing below for nostalgia lovers (!), but the analysis shown is from the last month that Sam still did it’s own thing and not what the new Hits masters were telling it to! 

Jack FM in Oxfordshire was similarly bought by Bauer and then bit the dust on Sun 29th Oct 2023 at 10pm. Two of the last songs played were the Reynolds Girls, “I’d rather Jack, than Fleetwood Mac” (a subtle dig at the Greatest Hits Radio replacement) and Ray Charles “Hit the Road, Jack, and don’t you come back no more..”, Aaah, so some thought clearly went into Jack’s last gasps… This was followed by the usual localised version of the standard Dawn French welcome to Greatest Hits intro and a bespoke Andy Crane welcome to the new order, which promptly then crashed off air for the next 45 minutes until someone could recover it… clearly this was to demonstrate to the listeners how the Bauer networking was likely to behave going forward from there, so to get used to long gaps or stuff crashing over other stuff etc, and nobody paying much attention to what is actually going out on air!!  An older typical Jack FM sample is included in our list here… (… for the last few weeks they were certainly in “GHR is coming” mode rather than the previous diet of slightly more edgy Jack standards, so it’s from the proper Jack FM era before that).

Top 11 Most Played:

1 [50 plays] Gossip – Give It Up For Love
2 [47 plays] Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Wild God
3 [38 plays] John Grant – It’s A Bit Disconcerting
4= [37 plays] each for…
+ Elbow – Balu
+ English Teacher – R&B
6= [36 plays] each for…
+ Richard Hawley – Two for His Heels
+ The Streets – Bright Sunny Day
8 [35 plays] Bob Vylan – Makes Me Violent
9 [32 plays] porij – Unpredictable
10= [31 plays] each for…
+ Four Tet – Daydream Repeat
+ Lava La Rue – Push N Shuv

Top 12 Most Played:

1 [15 plays] Snow White – Heigh Ho
2 [13 plays] Take That – These Days
3 [10 plays] Barry Manilow – Copacabana (At The Copa) (Remix)
4= [9 plays] each for…
+ Frank Sinatra – Love and Marriage
+ Sound Of Music – Do-Re-M
6= [8 plays] each for…
+ Elton John – Passengers
+ Jive Bunny – Can Can You Party
+ Jive Bunny – Swing The Mood
+ Olivia Newton-John – A Little More Love
+ Smokie – Dont Play Your Rock N Roll To Me
+ Vanessa Paradis – Be My Baby
+ Wet Wet Wet – Love Is All Around

Top 11 Most Played:

1 [60 plays] Mama Terra – Novo
2 [53 plays] Earth-O-Naut – Call Me
3 [50 plays] Monty Alexander – V.E. Swing
4 [39 plays] Ledisi, Butcher Brown – Quality Time
5 [37 plays] Jalen Ngonda – Illusions
6 [36 plays] Nuovi Fratelli with Nimbus Sextet [Featuring Russell Stewart and lissappear] – Searching
7 [35 plays] Gary Clark Jr. – What About The Children – Radio Edit
8 [29 plays] Baltic Jazz Recordings / Lois Levin – Pheremones
9 [24 plays] The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble – Solid Air
10= [20 plays] each for…
+ Emily Saunders – Sideways
+ Joe Armon-Jones – Nubya’s Side of Town

Top 10 Most Played:

1= [58 plays] each for…
+ Ahadadream, Priya Ragu & Skrillex – TAKA
+ Shreya Ghoshal & Tayc – Yimmy Yimmy
3 [50 plays] Diljit Dosanjh & Saweetie – Khutti
4 [47 plays] Zack Knight & Simran Kaur – Pyaar Mein
5 [43 plays] S.A.M – Where Your Daughter At?
6 [42 plays] Jasmine Sandlas – Tola
7= [40 plays] each for…
+ Raghav – Choro
+ Roach Killa, Arif Lohar & Deep Jandu – Aa
9 [38 plays] Rekky & Naz6m – One Night
10 [37 plays] Aashir Wajahat, NAYEL & Nehaal Naseem – Sadqay

Top 10 Most Played:

1= [254 plays] each for…
+ John Lennon / Yoko Ono – Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
+ Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmastime
+ Shakin’ Stevens – Merry Christmas Everyone
4= [253 plays] each for…
+ Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas
+ Carpenters – Merry Christmas Darling
+ Kelly Clarkson – Underneath The Tree
+ Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody
8 [252 plays] Wizzard – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday
9 [245 plays] Nat King Cole – The Christmas Song
10 [242 plays] Ariana Grande – Santa Tell Me

Top 14 Most Played:

1 [35 plays] Elvis Aint Dead – Scouting For Girls
2 [25 plays] Wake Up Boo – Boo Radleys
3= [23 plays] each for…
+ Size Of A Cow – Wonderstuff
+ Turn Around – Phats And Small
5= [22 plays] each for…
+ A Girl Like You – Edwyn Collins
+ Mrs Robinson – Lemonheads
7= [21 plays] each for…
+ Brimful Of Asha (Remix) – Cornershop
+ Can’t Stop The Feeling – Justin Timberlake
+ Gonna Make You Sweat – C/C Music Factory
+ Happy – Pharrell
+ Pumped Up Kicks – Foster The People
+ Ready To Go – Republica
+ Tubthumping – Chumbawamba
+ Two Can Play That Game – Bobby Brown

Most Played Top 13:

1= [34 plays] Bryan Adams – Run To You
1= [34 plays] Daryl Hall and John Oates – Maneater
1= [34 plays] Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy
4= [33 plays] Bryan Adams – Summer Of ’69
4= [33 plays] Steve Winwood – Higher Love
4= [33 plays] T’Pau – China In Your Hand
4= [33 plays] Tears For Fears – Everybody Wants To Rule The World
4= [33 plays] The La’s – There She Goes
4= [33 plays] Tina Turner – The Best
10= [32 plays] Billy Joel – Uptown Girl
10= [32 plays] Fleetwood Mac – Little Lies
10= [32 plays] James – Sit Down
10= [32 plays] Michael Jackson – Beat It

We’re monitoring all the most important UK radio stations 24-7, so if you’d like the full “chapter and verse” on what they’ve all been playing, and the full month most played songs lists, then we can provide them – We’ve even got some data going back to 2008!!  Our charges start at just £12 (exc VAT) for one station, so that’s a FULL LISTING of every song or classical piece a station has played, with dates and times, plus a stats package with the full “most played” chart for the month listing EVERY song they’ve played and how many times, ranked from most played to least…  so if they’ve played 3174 different songs, that’ll be a 1 to 3174 chart! 

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If you want an idea of how we can work with your business, don’t forget to tell us what you’re aiming to achieve – For Radio Monitoring, which genres or which particular stations do you want data on? We can provide full lists of songs played and how many times per week or per month etc, they aired.

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