Some interesting news was revealed today about the rise of commercial radio. 

Commercial radio revenues rose slightly to almost £150m in the second quarter of the year, the trade body Radio Centre said today. 

The sector made £149.4m in the three months to the end of June, up 0.8% from the £148.2m it chalked up last year.

Revenues from national advertising were up 3.4% year on year to £85m, while local revenues increased by 1.2% to £40.4m.

The results come on the back of a resilient showing in last week's Rajar audience figures, in which the commercial sector clawed back some of the BBC's ratings lead.

Simon Redican, managing director of the Radio Advertising Bureau, part of the Radio Centre said: "Radio is the multiplier of the digital age and advertisers are recognising the important role it is playing as part of the media mix."

In the coming months the RAB is rolling out the Advertising Effectiveness Tracker, which is designed to show the value of the radio medium to advertisers.

Industry figures published last week showed that commercial stations grew their share of the audience to 43.5% in the second quarter of 2007, up from 42.1% in the previous three months.

Meanwhile, BBC’s radio share slipped back to 54.3% from the record 56% in the first quarter of the year.

Finally all the rumours about the Bath Chronicle have been quashed as they have now revealed that the title is to become a weekly paper.

The move will leave the city without a local daily paper which I think is a great shame as the Chronicle is one of the oldest local papers in the country and has been published since 1760. But the demand for up-to-the minute online news and budget constraints mean that this ‘new look’ weekly rag will still be able to offer all the latest news daily via its website, and a weekly round up via traditional print.

The Bath Chronicle has seen sales fall from 13,871 in the second half of 2005 to 12,363 in the same period in 2006.

Following this week’s announcement, Editor Sam Holliday, said: “The staff have worked fantastically well to try and keep the Chronicle as a daily title but in a fast changing multimedia world we now feel the paper’s long term future will be best secured by converting to a weekly title. It is our belief that we will create the best weekly newspaper in Britain – and in our opinion Bath deserves the best.

“No-one else has ever attempted to do what we’re about to do and no-one else will end up with the high quality paper that we are committed to producing. This is a very exciting time and we know our readers and advertisers will support us as we make this important move to secure the future of our precious local newspaper.”

The paper, to be published on Thursdays, is due to switch to weekly on 27 September.

Northcliffe has predicted that the weekly Bath Chronicle will be up to 250 pages, making it one of the biggest newspapers in the industry. Daily news updates will still appear on the website.

Holliday said: “Not all of our readers have internet access, but the rise in our on-line readership is remarkable and it shows that whether people are reading in print or on-line there is a real hunger for the kind of quality journalism that the Chronicle provides.

“It is our intention to use every medium possible to make sure our readers and advertisers do not miss out – and the cornerstone of it all will be a fantastic new product which we believe will set the benchmark for the whole of the newspaper industry”.

It is a bold but necessary move and we wish them all the best. Online news and the age of the digital media really is having a strong impact on the way that media is reported and received and I suspect we may well witness other titles moving to the same approach over the coming months.