Hazlitt to head GCap's London radio stations

Amanda Andrews GCap, the UK's largest commercial radio group, will today announce the appointment of Fru Hazlitt to its board, alongside a restructuring of the group's operations that will see the former Virgin Radio boss take charge of its London radio stations, The Times has learnt. Ms Hazlitt, who resigned as boss of SMG-owned Virgin Radio at the beginning of January, will join GCap in May and have responsibility for stations including Capital Radio. Steve Orchard, GCap's group operations director, will take responsibility for Classic FM and the group's local radio stations. Both he and Ms Hazlitt will report directly to Ralph Bernard, the chief executive of GCap. Ms Hazlitt, who will also be in charge of the group's online operations, will join an executive board on which there are currently three members — Mr Bernard, Mr Orchard and Wendy Pallot, finance director. City sources said that Mr

Bernard is keen to have the likes of Ms Hazlitt on the board as a potential successor for when he eventually decides to step down from the chief executive role. Mr Orchard would be another possible future successor. Ms Hazlitt, who has become popular in the City for her work in transforming Virgin Radio and is thought to be well liked by a number of leading institutional investors, would be a strong contender. Ms Hazlitt's online experience is understood to have helped her to win the role at GCap. She joined Virgin Radio in 2005 from Yahoo! UK and Ireland, of which she was the managing director. Ms Hazlitt had been tipped as a possible future chief executive of SMG, Virgin Radio's parent. However, SMG suspended the recruitment process in December after deciding to commence discussions with UTV about a merger of the two companies. GCap and Ms Hazlitt refused to comment.