Six-figure marketing campaign to be developed for Bauer's scottish radio stations

He told business writer Mark Williamson: “This isn’t a simple job. There are 13 stations in Scotland, which do quite significant revenues and profits.

“It was the challenge and excitement of bringing Scotland together and revitalizing the brands and products that was the excitement for me, and also working within Bauer.”

The Herald reports that when he was appointed two years ago Bryce talked about achieving a step change in the business Bryce says whenever people make changes in an organisation some employees will be concerned. However, he said he has never experienced any hostility.

“I think there was an inherent feeling in the business that maybe things had to change - maybe that we had to refresh the way we were doing things. I certainly have met no resistance internally,” he insisted, which Williamson pointed out may be surprising given the scale of the changes Bryce has made - particularly at Clyde and Forth.

He quotes Bryce as saying: “What we have spent most time on is two things. The central belt is the most competitive place that we are in. When I came in Radio Forth was struggling from an audience point of view. We’ve refreshed that.

“Clyde was struggling like a lot of number one businesses to understand how to go forward - not back, I think, and we’ve spent a huge amount of work with the team, bringing them together, making them part of the process... a huge project about what the brand stands for, getting back to basics about who is Radio Clyde, what are we, what do we stand for, what don’t we stand for so we can nail that to the mast.”

Asked what Clyde does stand for, Bryce explained: “It’s a brand that is all about connecting people in the west of Scotland, it’s about creating conversations; it’s about being a companion to people’s lives here.”

A believer in the importance of brand values since his XFM days, Bryce said extensive efforts had been spent on ensuring staff bought in to the Clyde identity and that all its operations reflected its values. A brand book is on prominent display in the company’s HQ.

“We have been through that exercise, we’ve literally changed the whole presenter line-up in the daytime; we’ve changed the music policy; we’ve changed the on-air imaging in terms of what we stand for, the whole thing is about bringing Clyde back to life.”

He admitted that he had not yet achieved the desired step change and expected it would take another six months to reinvigorate Radio Forth, where he believes a less radical approach is required than at Clyde.

An evolutionary approach will also be adopted at the other 11 stations - including NorthSound 1 and 2 in Aberdeen. If all goes to plan, he explained, this should be completed within the next 12 months.

However Bryce stressed that he is convinced that the company is on the right lines - with Clyde’s audiences at a five-year high in terms of reach ...and “Forth is back to number one on all measures.”

Last month Bauer said the latest Rajar audience data showed that Clyde 1 and Clyde 2 reached 701,000 listeners weekly, a combined five-year high for the stations.

“Despite the difficult economic climate our revenues and profits grew last year. I think for any business in this climate we’re pretty happy with that,” said Bryce.

In coming months, he indicated, moves could be expected to enhance the stations’ multi-media offering that will include attempts to develop one-to-one relationships with customers. And there was scope to generate new revenue streams from events such as Radio Clyde-promoted concerts.

The head of the family-owned company, Heinz Bauer, has been a frequent visitor to Scotland since Bryce was appointed. “He is a very hands-on operator, very interested in the business and very product-orientated. He loves coming in and meeting people, he comes over regularly and talks to us,” says Bryce.

“You don’t get to where he is without being a good businessman but he is a gentleman, courteous and respectful.”

Bryce admitted that he would one day like to own his own business but is in no rush to move on to the next course. “There’s so much more that we can do here,” he pointed out.

As a young chartered accountant, Graham Bryce got a life-changing glimpse of the high life - in the south of France.

Reports Williamson: “As a member of accountancy giant KPMG’s specialist media unit, Bryce had to help schmooze potential clients at a round of parties around the Cannes film festival.

He quotes Bryce: “I thought I had won the Lottery. I’ve gone from a boring accountancy thing to hosting champagne parties on a yacht at Cannes and thinking the media industry is a brilliant place to be.”

By the time he turned 30, Bryce, now 44, was head of strategy at the former Capital Radio group in London where his responsibilities included leading the development of the XFM station.

Williamson wrote: “Besides providing a launch pad for the careers of the likes of Ricky Gervais and Zoe Ball, this successfully cultivated the kind of audiences that advertisers would pay top dollar to woo, Mr Bryce went on to play a key part in the management of radio stations stretching from Romania to Finland at Amsterdam-based SBS and then with CommuniCorp in Dublin.

Asked why he decided to downshift from a glamorous sounding life striding the European stage to a role on the periphery of the continent, Bryce said: “It’s a very good question and it’s a question I ask myself. I said is this a move back, because, with the best will in the world, in the media, London is the hub, but actually I thought to myself it’s not as simple as that.

“It’s about does the role excite you? Is it something you want to do? Is it something that you feel you can make a difference in? Sometimes you have to go a little bit sideways to move forward if that makes any sense.

“Also I wanted a bit of a better lifestyle, the idea of globe trotting around the world for the rest of my life wasn’t really very appealing.”

“On closer inspection Mr Bryce found the new job was likely to be a lot more challenging than metropolitan outsiders might think.

“The business studies graduate was the first person to fill the head of Scotland role that privately-owned Bauer created after it acquired the stations through the purchase of EMAP Media in 2008.

“Paul Cooney, the Radio Clyde veteran who was managing director of EMAP’s central Scotland radio business, left after Mr Bryce was appointed.”