I've bought one of these recently, mainly for the bedroom where my TV is not smart and at £15 it's easier than arsing about hooking the laptop up to the telly for a bit of iPlayer.

I did, however, use it yesterday to get a day pass for the Leicester City game. How come the game itself was decidedly SD, but the ads were 720p?

What is the big obsession with television presenters - particularly, but not exclusively, at Global? With so many genuine radio people out of work at the moment one wonders if television is now the new route into radio?

Does anyone have for sale, or know anyone who would have for sale, two second hand broadcast processors? Dont have to be particularly fancy, just do the job.

Cheers in advance!

Does anyone know how to do the above?

Actually; in reality, it's not the Mic channel I want to activate this but its line equivalent as it's going through a DBX phantom power & processor first, which outputs at line-level.

Does it also work when you PFL the channel? I've seen a DX1000 which was in what's now Jack Oxford's studio in its Passion 107.9 days that did this, so I know it's possible to do...

Really sad about this. It wasn't a massive station but not exactly Star Stroud either! The first station that got me into radio.

Good luck to all affected, let's hope something can rise from the ashes.

Abother sad day in a decade of disaster at Lime Kiln.

The problem with the license, frankly, is it's been doomed from the start.

I think they were on their third, possibly fourth PD by the time it launched. The launch lineup all moved on within a year. TLRC then sold it to Laser and despite the flack I got on the forums at the time, everything I predicted came true. Not that I take any pleasure in being right.

Whilst Laser and its' various incarnations were tearing themselves apart, GWR FM became Heart and Global's marketing, research, focus, budget and general Jedi mastery at doing music radio frankly just blew it out the water. It was such damaged goods by that point that clearly even Celador couldn't save it.

A really sad end to a station I helped launch nearly ten years ago. I wonder though if with this news and Oak FM turning their back on the rocky male format under ATR Media, the wheels are falling off the "jukebox" format?

Given their backing some sort of exit plan is inevitable - that's how private equity works.

Bauer seem to be the bookies' favourite (well, if there were a market) and it would bring them into a market they've only got Absolute W Mids in. There's also the opportunity to put Magic on Gem but I would advise removing Sam and Amy on breakfast with caution as they're incredibly successful and the local angle does help that station.

Communicorp can't take on Gem AFAIK. However, the opportunity is there to put Capital on Free as a franchise and then convert Birmingham 102.2 to Capital Xtra, or potentially even Radio X. The rules which have caused a number of ownership changes at 106 though means Heart won't be returning there.

TWG could take it on, but there's an overlap with Signal 107 to consider.

Naturally RT and DS are clamorouing for the restoration of heritage names, but I'm not sure this is necessary. If the Free brand stays, then it's more about how the brand is marketed and executed, than what the name is, surely? Bringing back Mercia and BRMB et al won't change the station.

Making Radio X and Absolute 112k stereo must be a priority.

Ofcom have been absolutely right to uphold this complaint. Who in their right mind signed this off? Is this really what perfectly good presenters have been sent to the JobCentre in favour of?

Big question is will more follow? Global are clearly prepared to pay for stations they really want. UTV's Signal Radio and Wave Blackpool, and Lincs FM Group's Lincs FM and KCFM are obvious bets for either them or Communicorp to fill in gaps in the North. Any others?

It's marked as Freelance - it's quite a way into the wordy description before they drop the bombshell that it's unpaid.

I'm thinking Orion or Communicorp for the big ones and UKRD for the small ones.

Bauer:

• Wave 105 becomes Magic, taking the national feed.
• A switch off plan for Absolute’s AM transmitters is announced.
• Absolute TV is launched. The other TV channels are rejigged a bit to match their radio brethren more.
• Wildcard: a rethink of the Place portfolio happens, driven by the fact local brands can’t be cross-sold with other media in the way a national brand can be.

Global:

• Gold merges with Smooth Extra.
• Smooth London rises to Commercial Top 5.
• Global’s brands make an appearance overseas.
• Completely mad punt: Global merge their operation with that of Simon Cowell’s, creating a European ClearChannel or Disney.

UTV:

• Purchase either Lincs FM Group, Quidem, or both.

Orion:

• Free Radio refocuses its proposition to try and take back “ownership” of Birmingham. A slightly hotter, tighter and younger sound arrives on FM. Meanwhile the AM side becomes a more general male-skewed, slightly Jack-a-like brand extension of Free, which fits better with the football carriage.

Celador:

• Are due an acquisition or two. Quidem is a possibility if UTV don’t go there, The Breeze for their main network and Jack for their Never Grew Up stations seems a logical fit. More realistically though I see Media Sound or Adventure getting picked up.

Here's a station which broadcasts on analogue, out of London, on AM. They've been at the forefront of high-tech since the Virgin days. Surely, therefore, one would expect future growth to come from digital, allowing Bauer to start shutting down the AM transmitters and helping drive us towards this promised land of The Digital Future the larger players in the industry are so keen on.

So why on earth have Bauer reduced the sound quality of Absolute so much in order to shoehorn Magic onto D1? Are there any commercial stations even in stereo on D1 now, apart from Classic FM? I have no doubt Heart Extra will launch with a similarly one-track mind.

This continued race to the bottom for audio quality on DAB just baffles me. The public are being sold DAB as a medium with superior sound quality, "sweet sounding" in fact - the claim is, to quote Roy Hodgson, fucking bollocks. Fact.

Yes, there's more choice but it either sounds like a dial-up Internet stream or like it's coming from either the middle of your head or down a toilet. Never mind the quality, feel the width.

I'm not suggesting a return to the IBA days of rediculously high techincal benchmarks being set, but does the regulator need to mandate a minimum acceptable audio quality, such as 112k Stereo? Or should we just get the hell on with it and migrate to DAB+?

I don't want to get into the DAB vs. Internet Radio debate, but it's now at the point I barely use my DAB radio, as the Internet streams are generally of a better quality. Likewise, even if FM went tomorrow, DAB in-car wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me when buying a new motor because as I have all-you-can-eat data, I can just use Radioplayer on my phone in the car, and 97/8% of the time, the reception is rock solid.