Magic at the Musicals - new radio station

If I can pick this up in my car this will be great for my drive to/from work in the morning! Longer journeys I'll still use my iPod, but when you just want something on in the background for a 20 min drive, sounds perfect!

Just saw something on Jonathan Baileys Instagram page about this.
I cant pick up Encore on my radio in London either but listen to it online.

I gave up on Encore as the playlist felt like generic performances rather than original cast recordings. I hope this is different.

It will be London, East England and Southeast England. They have to buy space on digital multiplexes (and the price depends on how full they are) so I imagine that's where they were able to get DAB space that was cost-efficient. If it's successful, I expect they will expand to other areas. But they may be making the (probably invalid) assumption that people who can actually attend West End musicals might be the bigger target audience (as opposed to, say, those who can't get to West End musicals easily).

DAB allows stations to come and go very easily. If this attracts an audience, I'm sure it will expand quickly - if it doesn't, it will rapidly wind down the star-name presenters and become just a music jukebox (as a couple of posters above suggest has happened to Encore Radio)

Possibly naive question...what happens in the bits between the scheduled shows? Do they programme hours of songs from musicals with no talking or is it dead air? Or are all the shows longer than I am expecting?

I listened to Radio Six all the time when I was on maternity leave but have got out of the habit. It introduced me to so much new music. Listening to Radio Six reminded me of when I used to pore over the NME and tape songs off John Peel and Mark Gardiner during my GCSEs.

The enormity of running a radio station is beginning to hit me (and I have watched every season of Fraiser multiple times.) Am going to read about the commercial models. I cannot imagine how they are profitable.

Hopefully the programmes will have a good variety of music and not just a cycle of obvious tracks from a computerised playout system.

Some of their more ambitious programming looks promising. From their web site.....

Magic at the Musicals will broadcast The Olivier Awards live in full, cover West End Live – produced by Westminster City Council and Official London Theatre - in Trafalgar Square and broadcast its own event, Magic at the Musicals Live from the Royal Albert Hall in May 2020.

Has anyone had a listen yet?

Whenever I've tuned in (not often) it's only been a playlist with automated voiceover. No actual presenters, but maybe I've just been unlucky with the times I've chosen.

They have specific times that they do bits, according to what I've heard, but even then i think its all been pre-recorded. As I caught it around 7pm when they have someone on playing 'Their favourite songs from their favourite musicals', and the guy at the time his first one was from Hello Dolly, and he said this hasn't been revived in London for some time, and is well overdue. That was Tuesday night, so Hello Dolly with Imelda was announced last week.


Its got a way to go, and hopefully it'll pick up, so they can start to man in with real people rather then pre-recorded  

So over a month, since the launch and people are maybe getting bored at home, with all that turkey and tinsel, so maybe a couple of you may have dabbled with this new station, so who is listening?

I have given it a good listening and did listen to this station driving into work today, it was a god send during the election, which talk based radio station became unbearable. So what do I actually think? Well it is great having another option, BUT it does also feel like their playlist is still limited, you know those television adverts where you get the best musicals ever CD box set, well it feels the playlist is limited to that, the playlist has no depth like my beloved Elaine Paige Show for example you had 'Ik Lach Om Zwaartekratch,' which to you is Defying Gravity in Dutch sung by Willemijn Verkaik or maybe 'It Not About Me' from the Broadway musical The Prom and both recently played on EP. Maybe in future they will be played, when more songs are added.

I quite like the idea of having no presenter, no real adverts and no news as It allows more to be played.