Local stations unite for national push; last week's UK Music Week saw stations across the commercial sector boost their profile with both advertisers and the public.(Radio special)

It is Wednesday day morning in Birmingham and a group of schoolchildren are getting very hot under the collar at the prospect of a Q&A with rock band Starsailor.

Across the country, Ipswich dance music station Vibe FM East is readying itself to receive local R&B star Nate James to its breakfast show, while bands in Merseyside are rehearsing for a talent show that could land them the opportunity to support legendary rockers Status Quo at a local gig.

The link? All of these activities took place last week under the umbrella of UK Music Week, the biggest partnership to date from the UK's commercial music radio network. All in all, some 272 stations were involved across the country, from London giant Capital Radio to Bridge FM in South Wales, Xfm Scotland and the country's biggest classical station, Classic FM.

Such disparate activity is part of what made the event such a success, according to organisers. "We want to now show that we are fostering music at a grassroots level," says GCap group programme director Dirk Anthony, who sat on the event's steering committee. "What we really desire is to engage with listeners across the UK to promote British music, everything from a jazz band that plays in a pub, all the way through to a thrash band."

These events also help to illustrate the importance of local participation in UK Music Week, despite the event's national reach. Indeed, apart from a four-hour chart show broadcast across all participating stations on May 1 counting down the UK's 40 favourite artists and a number of "mini sessions" that were available for all stations to air, the project operated entirely on a local level.

"We wanted to use the power of local radio stations," says UK Music Week project director Jonathan Gillespie. "The local network delivered its programming to its own community. UK Music Week is centrally branded and imaged, but locally delivered."

"What we do best is dealing with music and also local and regional communities. This helps us to get some of the ground back on the BBC and some of the things that the BBC is doing nationally," adds Chrysalis Radio group head of programmes Pete Simmons, who also sits on the steering committee. "The highlights have been for stations that often get forgotten about, local stations and digital stations. It makes them seem bigger, being involved in something across a national reach."