Ten pillars to success are laid as Absolute builds new foundations.

New open approach and concentration on "real music" set out Absolute Radio's stall

Absolute Radio's common-ALITY with Abbey Road goes far beyond them possessing the same initials. According to the national radio station, it also shares with the world-famous recording studios a sense of what real music is about.

So it is no coincidence the newly-named commercial station is carefully aligning itself with the NW8 location, having recorded its new station identities there and then marking its first week on air last week since losing the Virgin Radio name by featuring programming and artist sessions from the EMI-owned complex.

Those first-week broadcasts included Elbow playing live and Noel Gallagher discussing the new Oasis album, while within the same four walls Absolute turned to leading sonic identity company Music Four - whose clients include Radio One's Chris Moyles - to create its on-air identity music in The Beatles' celebrated old recording home of Abbey Road Studio 2.

"Music Four are widely recognised as being at the forefront of what they do and we wanted to use Abbey Road as it is all part of our brand DNA," says Clive Dickens, chief operating officer of Absolute Radio's parent company TIML Golden Square. "Absolute Radio has to stand for something musically and how we behave will define our brand values."

What Dickens says reflects the challenge the new owners face in trying to position and market a station that spent the first 15 years of its life as Virgin Radio. On the one hand they have a station with a long- established reputation and audience base, but on the other - largely thanks to the name change - are effectively in charge of a brand-new service that requires a new set of aims and values.

According to Chris Lawson, who joined from Bauer Consumer Media as brand director around seven weeks ago, there is a lot of work to do to forge a clear identity for the station. "Over the past year or two it had lost its way in terms of what it stood for and we want to be really clear what our new brand stands for," he says. "It's about real music - it's a phrase our audience used. It's real music; it's guitars; it's live music. It is singer-songwriters. It's not manufactured stuff. It's not reality TV and that's what we stand for."