Initially, each station broadcast its own local programmes on both frequencies but, later, following the lead of Capital Radio in London and others, split their transmissions: CBC, which became Red Dragon in 1985, split off its AM frequencies as Touch Radio in 1990, and at around the same time Marcher Sound's AM franchise became Marcher Gold.

Both Touch Radio and Marcher Gold would later go on to join network services after their parent stations were absorbed into larger entities.

Ofcom would later introduce content-sharing guidelines for AM stations, allowing all AM services to share programming with their sister services provided that at least ten hours a day of content came from within the nation (England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) to which the station was broadcast, although stations which had already been given permission to carry less than ten hours from their nation could retain their existing provision; this allowed Global Radio, who had purchased GCap (and by extension Gold) in 2008, to drop local programming on the Gold stations in England from June 2010, whilst continuing to provide the four-hour daily opt-out for Wales as previously constituted.

The Gold stations in England which changed over simply swapped out Gold network programming for that of the London Smooth service, retaining local news and advertising opt-outs, whilst the regional Smooth FM stations regained local breakfast and drivetime shows.

All networked programming originates from Global's London headquarters, including The Smooth Drive Home with Angie Greaves.

[3] Global's Newsroom broadcasts hourly national news bulletins for Wales from 6 am – 7 pm on weekdays and 6 am – noon at weekends.

The Cardiff Bay newsroom also produces bulletins for Heart and Capital's stations in north and south Wales.