Leona Graham takes up afternoons on Absolute Radio for a three month stint

Leona Graham will be taking over Absolute Radio’s afternoon show from 1pm – 5pm, for three months from Monday 9th January after Nick Jackson sadly said he was leaving us. Nick told us a few weeks ago that he wanted to spend more time with his family and embark on new projects, so we wish him well.

Leona, an already trusted and well loved voice on the station, is an integral part of the No Repeat Guarantee’s success and after almost 12 years at One Golden Square, we’re really chuffed ‘the first lady of commercial radio,’ is going to be moving to weekdays.

 

Absolute Radio 70s is here!

Absolute Radio is launching another brand new station to add to its growing network, as Absolute Radio 70s is unveiled exactly a week after we brought you a new service dedicated to music from the 60s.

Absolute Radio 70s is the UK’s only all 70s radio station, and will feature pop, soul, new wave and mainstream rock, with a playlist that will include the likes of Elton John, David Bowie, Blondie and Stevie Wonder, to name but a few.

Presenter Richard Skinner was lucky enough to be there for the journey, playing the songs and interviewing the 70’s biggest stars when he presented Top of The Pops, and he kicked off the launch at 10am today with Marc Bolan’s T-Rex number one hit ‘Get It On.’ It was picked to be the first track to be played on the new station after music fans voted for their favourite song of the decade.

The Who, Abba and The Clash completed the top five, with The Sex Pistols, Bob Marley and Pink Floyd also making it into the poll of 50 tracks.

Absolute Radio 70s – The Soundtrack to 70s Britain, is available on DAB in London and on-line at www.absoluteradio70s.co.uk. It’s also coming soon to iPhone, Android, Nokia or Blackberry.

Absolute Radio Digital Digest by Owen Smith

What’s good, blog reader?  Another week down, another weekend passed, and what would you know, it’s already Monday.  But hey, don’t be too sad – what a week last week was!  We had dogs running around Richmond Park, we had deer running around Richmond Park.  We even had a man chasing said dog, chasing said deer, around said park.  And further to all of this, we even had someone filming it all.  Yes it really was an interesting week.  I mean where do you go from there?  I really do not know.

I actually don’t.  I’m struggling with the Digital Digest today.  It’s been a bit of a slow one.  In fact if this was a syndicated newspaper or televised news broadcast, this edition of the digest would constitute a slow news day.  But I’ll press on nonetheless, because I’ll be damned if I miss a week of everyone’s sixth favourite blog, leaving all of my dedicated followers in the lurch.  All three of you.  Thanks for hanging in there, mum.

So here we go, last week… …online.

We all know and love Google Street View, which takes Joey from Friends idea of ‘getting into his map’ and makes it an online reality.  Well, earlier last week Google extended the capabilities of their 3D maps to include Ski Slopes.  (I told you it was a slow week, alright?).  Just in time for this year’s Ski season, those clever chaps at Google jumped onto Streetview snowmobiles, and started taking photos of 13 different Ski resorts around the US and Canada.  I’m not entirely sure why…  it’s not as if they’ll give up to the minute, live updates of current conditions on the slopes.  Like the current Streetview, the images are going to be quickly out of date.  However, it does mean that there’s going to be an even higher chance of every now and then coming across some choice finds like this.  Or this.  Or maybe even this.  Still, if you can’t afford your own skiing holiday, why not sit in a sled with a laptop, open the new Streetview, and pretend you’re hurtling down a snow capped peak in Whistler.  It’ll be just like being there.  Without the pain.

In other Google news, do you smell what Barrack is cooking?  Well now you can, at all hours of the day.  Because he’s joined Google+3,926 +1’s since last Wednesday evening… …is actually slightly underwhelming, surely?  He’s the President of the United Bloody States!  After Obama’s 2008 campaign was fuelled by an extensive internet campaign, particularly via YouTube and Twitter, then it certainly seems that the new social networking site has received a vote of confidence from the 44th President and his PR team.  As it stands, The Muppets have 4,496 +1’s, which I think technically makes Sam Eagle more popular than Obama.  And for good reason.  Anyway, if the Pres wants to boost his popularity, he needs to upload more videos like thisAnd this.

I could go routing around for an app of the week, I could even nick Shortlist’s suggestion of Approach, but then I’d be done for plagiarism, and this very blog post would cease to be – so you can read all about it there instead.  What I am going to do, is leave you with some of the greatest Fenton remix videos on the net – namely the Jurassic Park mashup, Fenton Planet  and An American Fenton in London.

Oh, and for our American chums, I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.

Playlist: 25th November

The playlist is out now.

Adele moves up to A-list.

Ed Sheeran moves up to A-list.

Additions:

Noel Gallagher – If I Had A Gun (26/12/11)
3rd single from Noel Gallagher’s ‘High Flying Birds’ album. Noel plays an Arena tour across UK & Ireland in Feb/March 2012.

Foo Fighters – These Days (TBC)
Likely to be the next single from the Foo Fighters album ‘Wasting Light’.

Black Keys – Lonely Boy (19/12/11)
Geoff Lloyd’s Record of the Week. The Nashville band’s new album ‘El Camino’ is released 5th December and follows their 2010 breakthrough album ‘Brothers’ which picked up 3 Grammy Awards.

You Me At Sis – Bite My Tongue (05/12/11)
New single by the influential British rock band. Their 3rd album ‘Sinners Never Sleep’ is out now.

Fenton – the internet sensation

Who’d have thought a dog chasing deer in a park would generate over a million hits on youtube in just three days? Well if you’ve seen the video you’ll probably understand why!

Benton, or actually Fenton, as it was revealed on the Christian O’Connell breakfast show, has become a global internet sensation and Absolute Radio was catapulted to the heart of the story this week after the man who shot the video called Christian.

37 year old Ali Goodyear revealed the dog’s real name, as the subject was trending worldwide on twitter and other social networking sites, and Ali admitted he’s been inundated with requests for interviews from America and Germany.

But he chose to speak to us first – and you can hear the interview

 

Breakfast show host DJ Christian O’Connell added: “This is one of those amazing stories that everyone is talking about. Radio One tried to track down details on Fenton, but didn’t manage it yesterday. I knew the Absolute Radio listeners wouldn’t let me down and then an hour into the show Ali called in giving us the worldwide scoop of the day!”

You can see what other people have been writing about our scoop here, here and here