A second million-pound campaign is launched today by Birmingham radio station BRMB to promote its breakfast show.

The campaign, mainly on television and posters with other below-the-line offers, is to push the Phone Tap segment, which was launched with the Big Brum Breakfast show a year ago when BRMB was relaunched as "new BRMB".

The campaign, which will last for 12 weeks, has been developed in-house by a team led by marketing controller Howard Bradley.

It comes just weeks ahead of the final merger of BRMB's owner Capital with the GWR Radio group, owner of Wolverhampton-based Beacon and Coventry's Mercia FM.

Last year's campaign to rebrand the station and to boost ratings cost a million pounds and Mr Bradley judged it as a success.

BRMB, according to the joint industry research group Rajar, had mixed fortunes, with its weekly reach falling in the year to December, from 31 to 28 per cent of the available audience.

But the equally important market share rose from 10.9 to 11 per cent, while the audience listened for longer, averaging 10.1 hours a week against 8.3.

At the same time Heart FM, the biggest competitor, owned by rival radio group Chrysalis, saw its average listener hours fall from 9.7 to 8.6.

Mr Bradley said: "We are coming up to the anniversary of the new BRMB.

"We are delighted with the result, because we have grown listening hours year-on-year by 11 per cent.

"We are thrilled to be in that position but we need to build on the momentum."

The new breakfast show, fronted by Elliot Webb who had the difficult task of following the long-time incumbent Les Ross, was crucial to building the audience.

Today's campaign is based on promoting the "Phone Tap", a recorded call-out to unsuspecting victims who have been set up by their friends, which goes out at 8:10am.

"This feature has exceeded our expectations significant-ly," said Mr Bradley.

"Our research of listeners and non-listeners, tell us that it is a significant asset to take to the market."

Then station runs other features and competitions, by Mr Bradley said that the Phone Tap had taken off better than was expected.

"Within about six to nine months we were getting indications that we were really on to something. Our research also showed that it appealed."

The target audience is adults aged 15 to 44, which makes up 80 per cent of its total audience.

Today sees the launch of posters, phone box ads, bus sides and a television campaign featuring pigeons, which are given the voices of one of the set-ups broadcast last year.

There is also a give-away of recordings of the feature at 100 Greggs' bakery stores throughout the region.

"We feel we are on to a winner but we are not going to rest on our laurels," said Mr Bradley. "We want to turn the 8:10 slot on the morning into a key appointment for all our listeners."