There’s no surprise in today’s news that Global Radio has swallowed up Liverpool’s Juice FM. It will be part of the Capital network as soon as Ofcom say ‘ok’ and Juice will be gone.
In its time on air Juice FM has made its mark in Liverpool and beyond. The station introduced Christian O’Connell to breakfast radio. He was putting in the innovative and comedic shows he’s become well known for at Juice in the early part of the century.
The station doubled its market share over the past 5 years. It has been a model of radio programming, an example of how to get it right. Juice decided what it was and put those values into everything it did and struck rigidly to it.
It was the station for a fun and young Liverpool. To use a football analogy it was more Jordan Henderson than Terry McDermott.
Nothing summed that up better than their Orange Wednesdays feature: they’d spend every Wednesday giving away treatments at tanning salons. Genius.
By sticking with its attitude and outlook for the long term Juice became the number one commercial station for under 45s in Liverpool. I’m sure the city will take Capital to heart but Juice will be missed by many also. For that they should be proud.
