City Talk's first year nerves

The station launched with high profile names such as Margi Clarke, Simon O'Brien, Trisha Goddard, Michael Brandon, Pete Price, Ian St John and Rob McLoughlin alongside journalists from Liverpool's Daily Post on board. From this line up it is clear that the station was always going to take a more entertainment led approach to covering the news and current affairs from within the city than Talk 107 initially did in Edinburgh.

In the run up to City Talk's first RAJAR's, station director, Richard Maddock, shared his thoughts on the station's first year on air exclusively with The Drum.

"It has been an incredible year for City Talk 105.9," he says. "There have been so many successes that it is hard to choose just a few to mention. Initially, launching on time and on budget was a huge achievement that not many new stations can boast. The visits of the likes of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the City Talk Tower and hearing him saying he has heard the station, likes it and appreciates how we are trying to help the people of Liverpool was also great for us.

"Other highs have included championing local causes that have made a real difference on our city's streets and also managing to juggle the positioning of three stations (Radio City, Magic 1548 and City Talk) in the market effectively.

"With the resources and facilities we have available to us, I honestly wouldn't have done anything differently at this stage."

It is now just matter of days now until the first RAJARs are revealed for the station, are Maddock and his team confident that they will meet their forecasts?

"For us, our first RAJARs will be the true start of the story and give us the opportunity to grow the station with a solid listener base. City Talk 105.9 is a long term project for us and while we do have some goals that we are looking to achieve, I think it is really important not to second guess what RAJAR will deliver. All too often we have seen how unpredictable the results can be, but we are very optimistic and have a great belief in the product."

One of the causes of Talk 107's failure in Edinburgh has been put down to the fact that station bosses tried to second guess what listeners wanted without doing any tangible pre-launch research. So, what was City Talk's approach to research?

Maddock says: "We did a massive amount of research before we even applied for the licence and then pretty much constantly throughout the development of the plans. It is fair to say that the results were pretty consistent during that time, and the model for City Talk has been based around what the people in Merseyside said they wanted to hear.

"The only real research since launch has been product related, using our database. We have on average 10,000 new users of our website every month, so we have used that database to ask those people abut their opinions."

Obviously, advertising revenues across the all media are up against it at the moment, but for a start up radio station with no heritage to trade persuading clients to believe in the talk radio format must be an even harder task.

So, how are advertising revenues holding up at City Talk?

"It is very tough. The whole of commercial radio is having a challenging time right now, and this challenge is obviously even bigger for City Talk as at this moment in time, we don't have any published RAJAR figures yet. We always knew this would be the situation for the first year and allowed for it, but with the currently economic situation, we are having to find new and original ways to bring revenue in - but there is no getting away with it is tough."

So, with RAJAR looming large on the horizon and the failure of Talk 107 in Edinburgh still very fresh in everyone's mind, the question remains, can talk-based radio succeed in the UK at a regional and city-based level as it does in the USA, especially when it has the local and national BBC radio station to compete with?

Maddock says: "Talk is arguably the leading format in most of the major radio markets around the world. In the USA for example there are over 2,300 commercial talk stations, many of them dominating the rankings in their cities.

"In the UK we do obviously have the challenge of the BBC with their immense budgets and resources, but it is only the Nationals that are pure talk stations. In Liverpool, 'LOCAL' is king and listeners are looking for something new and exciting to engage with - hopefully City Talk can prove to be that station."

Maddock is obviously bullish, but clock is now counting down even faster. Hopefully he will be just as bullish as he sips his morning coffee on 28 January, with something infinitely more interesting than The Sun to read.