Simon Cole is Co-Founder and CEO of 7digital Group PLC. The company powers a huge amount of streaming and radio brands behind the scenes, providing both content and technology, serving 85 countries from four global offices with 150 employees, and a catalogue of 60 million songs. A self-confessed “radio industry lifer” he started out as an ambitious teenager working at BBC Radio Blackburn, and in 1989 he started the Unique Broadcasting Company, which became the market leader in network commercial radio production, creating iconic brands such as ‘The Pepsi Chart Show’ among the way. In this in-depth interview, Simon predicts how the next generation of digital music will combine both streamed and curated services, discusses the implications of the UK government’s plans to switch off the analogue signal altogether, and passionately makes the case for radio’s long-term future.