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Capital Scotland

Capital Scotland (formerly known as Beat 106, XFM Scotland, and later Galaxy Scotland) is a regional radio station owned by Communicorp UK and operated by Global. It broadcasts to Scotland's Central Belt, an area surrounding the two cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. It also broadcasts to the Perth and Kinross, an area surrounding the one city of Perth.

Beat 106 was established by the Big Beat Group, headed up by a group of nightclub promoters from Glasgow, and first aired on 19 November 1999 as a new rock and dance station. Notable presenters at launch included Graham Stewart and Jim Gellatly. After being sold to Capital Radio Group in July 2000 it switched towards playing more dance music, later changing back to a more rock/dance format. In 2005 Capital Radio merged with the GWR Group to form GCap Media, creating the UK's largest commercial radio group. Beat 106 closed on 1 January 2006.[citation needed]

The rebranding of Beat 106 to XFM was one of a number of measures announced by GCap to improve their corporate performance following the merger. The original XFM station was XFM London and the rebranding in Scotland occurred four months before the expected launch of XFM Manchester.

XFM Scotland programmes were launched by breakfast presenter Dominik Diamond on 4 January 2006 with Loaded by Primal Scream as the first song played on the relaunched station. A major marketing campaign was launched a year later in a bid to try to regain lost listeners since the rebrand. By September 2007, the station was only reaching audience shares of 2.6% in the West and 4.1% in the East.

On 11 February 2008 GCap Media announced that they would be selling the analogue licence for the station. GCap later became part of Global Radio and it was decided to keep the licence.

On 28 August 2008, Jim Gellatly announced that his last show would be broadcast that day and he would be leaving the station together with a number of colleagues. By the time of XFM's rebrand as Galaxy, station audience shares had fallen further to 2.4% in the West and 2.6% in the East.

On 27 August 2008, new owners Global announced they would re-brand XFM Scotland as Galaxy Scotland. The rebrand was part of Global Radio's major strategy to expand the brand across outside Scotland and into parts of England. Local programming on the station consisted of daily breakfast, weekday drivetime and specialist shows with networked programming broadcast from Leeds.

Galaxy Scotland joined the Galaxy network on 7 November 2008. XFM closed at approximately 3.30pm that day, followed immediately by a 15-minute launch sequence for Galaxy. Galaxy programming started by 4pm the same afternoon, with Gary Spence as the first voice on the air, followed by a special evening show with networked presenter Dave Kelly.

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British radio station in Glasgow
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