Heard of the new trends in digital radio? Absolutely you say? Ok, so the pun wasn’t great, but music and entertainment brand, Virgin Radio, has changed its name to Absolute Radio.

TIML (part of the all-powerful Times Group) announced that the brand has radio and digital at its core, a new presenter line up and will see its team at Golden Square expanding the business into new areas for its five million existing listeners and users.

The station has begun on a period of apparent ‘cross-fade’ as the station transitions the audience who are used to hearing Virgin Radio to Absolute Radio, with station to fully adopt the name later in the UK Autumn.

Absolute has expressed its ‘passion for music discovery’ – its campaign phrase ‘Discover real music’ is evidence of that. Its starting its campaign by demonstrating wish for fresh new content and is pushing the open OneGoldenSquare.com blog, along with a new approach to playlist meetings with listeners, a luxury the digital radio medium can now afford broadcasters.

Golden Square (or TMIL, depending on who you ask) aims at launching the largest multi-platform marketing campaign in UK commercial radio history for Absolute, described as ‘a large-scale multi-platform strategy’.

Donnach O’Driscoll, CEO of Absolute, says “We are going to develop this brand, with radio at its core, and diversify the business and revenue opportunities into other related areas. Our ambition is international – this is just the start.”

A rather ominous message, so let’s see how far the Absolute digital radio message will travel.