Marching to the tabor

The most powerful man in UK commercial radio just got a bit more powerful. Still in his mid-thirties, Ashley Tabor, CEO of Global Radio has bought the Guardian Media Group's clutch of radio stations, for an undisclosed figure.

However, the future shape of the merged company remains unclear - whilst the competition authorities review the acquisition, staff and presenters at Smooth and Real Radio will have to wait to see if they'll be rebranded or just subsumed into Global's existing portfolio, which includes Heart, Capital, Gold and XFM as well as Classic FM and LBC. In all, Global stations reached a total of 19.2m listeners in the most recent RAJAR figures; GMG stations attracted 5.6m.