I wanted to let you know the news that sadly we’ll be closing our Boom Rock station at the end of the month.

It was an idea we were really keen to try, but sadly it’s not proven sustainable. You’ll appreciate that as a small, independent company, we have to make sure that everything we do makes its contribution. Whilst Boom Rock was certainly building audiences, making progress and we were proud of its achievements, it was difficult to see a time when it would be able to start paying for itself.

We know it’ll be missed by those who listened. We’ll do our best to accommodate periodically within the broader Boom family some of the strands of programming we know have been valued particularly on Boom Rock.

Overall, five years on, we are delighted with the progress of Boom, with our own audience measurement showing further year-on-year audience growth for all our stations. 

That means the company is in a solid position, despite a tough financial climate, and the savings from closing Boom Rock will help us to invest in both our remaining services to give them a boost.

Whilst you - our existing audiences – listen loyally, one major goal is to make sure more people know about us! So, we’re planning our most significant marketing campaign to date - and one of the benefits of the difficult decision above is we can now make that even more powerful.  You’ll see our ads on TV and elsewhere – and they feature you, our listeners.

Sorry to have to break the news about Boom Rock, but we’re not sorry to have tried something. Whether it’s our wealth of special programming, our Boom ’66 day-long pop-up station, or indeed Boom Radio itself, you can count on us to take an idea forward and give it a shot!

Thanks for listening.

Phil Riley, Chief Executive, Boom Radio.

FAQs

Why not close Boom Light?  Boom Light has a larger audience with more advertisers and is paying its way. This decision wasn't just about closing any station - it was about closing a station which we feel would sadly not be able to pay its way in the foreseeable future.

Could you not invest in it and grow it? That's what we have done inch-by-inch over the period of its life, but sadly the signs have not been sufficiently encouraging.

Surely it would have succeeded had it been on DAB+ as audiences would have been bigger?  It was on DAB+ in some areas including notably London as a trial, but sadly that did not give us sufficient confidence for the enormous investment further DAB+ coverage across the UK would have required.

I'm worried. Will Boom Radio carry more Rock music. No. Research amongst our Boom Radio listeners suggests very high levels of satisfaction and we plan no changes to our music mix.  Some presenters who are on Rock and not on Boom Radio may appear in due course on Boom Radio, and we may accommodate specials  periodically (in the same way we've often had one hour occasional specials of various sorts on Boom Radio in the past) - but we plan no general changes to Boom Radio.

You'll lose me to another rock station!  We're sorry to hear that, but we quite understand. There are several of them - and that was always one of the challenges for Boom Rock. We hope you may dip in to Boom Radio for some programmes though!

Are you really shutting a radio station...for an ad campaign? Many people are not yet aware of Boom Radio - and we want to change that. It's an expensive job, and running the business well helps us fund that work. But this decision by no means pays the bill for this campaign!

Can you accommodate particular programmes from Boom Rock on Boom Radio.  Several of the presenters on Boom Rock are already on Boom Radio and we hope you enjoy their programmes. We do not have plans to have dedicated regular rock shows on Boom Radio - as it is not a rock station. There may, however be opportunities in the future for tailored occasional programme specials - for example one which explores a further depth of '60s material as did Roger's Sunday show on Boom Rock or one which builds appropriately on some of Nicky's programme content.