So Radio Today are reporting that Bauer stations are dropping the Vodafone Big Top 40 show at the end of the year, and Global as a result have decided to stop offering the show to the rest of the industry as a result.
I mean that in itself is slightly weird. It doesn't have sound like Global sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the industry, so that only their clique can play with it.
But, for me, this is absolutely a good thing. Global now have stations just about everywhere in the UK, they are the biggest radio group in the UK. So, if they were going to stop offering the chart show to other stations at some point, maybe they were just waiting for a convenient excuse.
Many smaller stations across the country have not been taking the chart show. The likes of Radio Plymouth, Radio Exe, The Breeze, and others have managed to work just fine without the show, and other than for just heritage reasons, there was sometimes little reason for a station to be still taking the show, such as Pirate FM has been since 2012, when Heart Cornwall replaced Atlantic FM, which had not been airing the Big Top 40, and started airing it, meaning both commercial radio stations in Cornwall were simulcasting the programme between 4pm and 7pm on a Sunday.
Bauer just provided the necessary excuse for Global, but it still sounds like they're sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the network in response.
