Job fears in Kerrang radio station shake-up
Last week it emerged that news bulletins on the station may be produced in Manchester under plans to close Kerrang!’s newsroom in the Jewellery Quarter. The four-strong news team producing West Midlands-focused bulletins are among those being offered redundancy, with the potential for two positions to relocate to Manchester. Kerrang!, which is owned by Bauer Media, is considering using its Manchester-based sister brand Key 103 to produce news for the Birmingham station.
The station, which is based on Lionel Street in the Jewellery Quarter, has been one of the rising stars of the region’s media, recently taking the gold prize in the Station of the Year category for stations with more than one million listeners at the Sony Radio Academy Awards, known as the radio “Oscars”.
Radio industry listening figures published in March saw the station continue to increase its weekly reach, broadcasting to 374,000 people across the West Midlands.
Kerrang!’s nationwide DAB broadcast also recently made it into the top ten of the list of stations on a national level measured in terms of listening hours.
The restructure at Kerrang! is part of a wider programme of redundancies at Bauer’s portfolio of stations across the country, which it is understood the German-owned private group is carrying out on a station-by-station basis.
Last month Bauer said it was cutting staff at its network of Big City stations based in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These include Key 103 in Manchester, Metro Radio in Newcastle, Radio City in Liverpool and Radio Aire in Leeds.
It was reported last week that several presenters on a number of Scottish Bauer-owned AM stations have lost their jobs after the company introduced pooled programming between stations.
Bauer was one of the groups which lost out in the bidding for Global Radio’s Midland stations, including BRMB, after the stations were sold.
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