I just heard this morning by word-of-mouth that Planet Rock is to cease broadcasting:

“…the owners are looking to shut their 4 DAB stations because they are losing listeners. According to the Guardian Planet Rock is continuing to add listeners while the others shed them. Surely, if GCap don’t want Planet Rock, someone else must recognise a good thing when it’s out there.”

Also in the cull is TheJazz, a ‘sister’ station to ClassicFM which I enjoyed as well.

News elsewhere:

  • Station profile at GCap’s own site.
  • Press release referring to closure of ‘non-core brands’ here.
  • BBC article about it here.
  • Reuters article here.

Thanks to John Popham on Facebook’s Planet Rock group for the first bits of info. Knowing how faithful the Planet Rock fanbase is, I can’t see this being a ‘going quietly’ thing, and I must admit I’ll be very surprised if it does shut down for good.

Update: Jon pointed out the Planet Rock Messageboard is full of threads about it, and noted that “…someone asked what the DJs thought about it – no responses (probably not allowed) but – ‘”Rocking In The Free World” immediately after saying “thanks for the huge number of emails today”… Subtle, but beautifully timed, I thought.”