Grant to head Capital sales

Capital Radio Group commercial marketing director Linda Grant has been promoted to commercial managing director of its London stations. The new role will absorb her marketing responsibilities.

Grant, who joined Capital Radio from newspaper Metro in January 2002, will oversee the national sales business across the Capital FM Network, Capital Gold Network, Xfm and Century FM Network. She will also be responsible for agency sales, sponsorship and promotions, client sale and group research. Grant will report to Capital Radio Group commercial director Linda Smith.

The appointment follows last week’s promotion of sales director Chris Bennett to commercial development director (MW last week). He will work on developing sales revenue from new areas such as content and licensing deals, events and digital platforms.

Capital Radio has been through turbulent times over the past six months. The group has seen sales drop and has predicted a three per cent drop in revenue for the first three months of 2003. It reported a six per cent drop for the first quarter of its financial year.

The company also battled to keep breakfast show DJ Chris Tarrant after he decided to retire from his early-morning slot and then changed his mind. The show has been revamped and is now co-presented by former Newsround presenter Becky Jago (MW January 30).

Observers are eagerly awaiting the next set of Rajar figures, announced on 8 May, to see whether Capital has stemmed the loss of listeners. It lost 132,000 listeners in the last three months of 2002.