John Myers kickstarted his radio career in 1980 by finding mothers for lost lambs on BBC Radio Cumbria's Lamb Bank. The experience did not exactly launch the former plasterer into radio superstardom. In fact, he made a hash of it, causing chaos among farmers of the Border region when he got his list of ewes and lambs mixed up. The station switchboard exploded with calls from complaining farmers.

The chief executive of the Guardian Media Group (GMG) radio division soon realised that his forte lay behind the scenes, even if he has not quite given up on his early life in front of the microphone. He has a studio in his Newcastle home, where he provides holiday cover for GMG's presenters - and still attracts the ire of some listeners. “John can be very direct on air, which doesn't appeal to everyone,” one colleague said.

Mr Myers morphed from Eighties broadcaster to Nineties executive, launching and developing the Century brand and, after being spotted by Sir Robert Phillis, the former GMG chief executive, on the BBC2 series Trouble at the Top, taking on the challenge of building its radio division, from scratch, in 1999.

Commuting weekly between London and Newcastle with the help of Eddie - his brother, driver and fellow motorbike fanatic - Mr Myers has created a radio group with 13 stations, including Real Radio, Smooth Radio, Century Radio and Rock Radio, and he thinks that industry consolidation will see more radio brands added to the mix.

“There are going to be just two super radio groups in the UK. The industry has just a fraction of the advertising cake and, considering the amount of companies there are, it needs to consolidate,” he said.

While Mr Myers is sure that GMG's role will be as consolidator rather than the consolidated, he has to answer to Carolyn McCall, GMG's chief executive, who, in the past year, appears to have shown more interested in publishing than radio. GMG recently acquired Emap's business-to-business unit in partnership with Apax Partners, the private equity group.

Mr Myers, 48, who is a grandfather of two and is regularly rides between GMG offices and studios on his Honda Goldwing, refers to Ms McCall as “an absolute dynamo” and “the only person I know with my energy”. He insists that he has full backing of his parent company. “If Global wins GCap, they are unlikely to keep all of their assets, and we may be interested,” he said.

However, consolidation is not at the forefront of his agenda, highlighting that the future of DAB digital radio is a more pressing matter. After GCap's shock announcement that it sees no future for DAB - closing stations Planet Rock and theJazz and selling its stake in Digital One to its partner Arqiva - Mr Myers has been involved in meetings with the rest of the industry to establish whether DAB has a future.

“GCap has made this choice because they are fighting a takeover,” he said. “I believe there is still a lot of love in the room for DAB. My feeling is that there has got to be digital future. Is it DAB? I hope so.”

GMG has been one of the first toreact proactively to GCap's decision to close the digital stations, with Mr Myers hoping to bring back Jazz FM in London. Yet although a supporter of DAB, Mr Myers is also a realist. With six million DAB sets sold over nearly a decade, he recognises that DAB has grown at nowhere near the speed of digital television.

With GMG investing £2 million a year into DAB, he remains committed to the platform. Mr Myers said that a new deal with Ford, which would result in digital radios being installed in some models of the Ford Focus, was a step in the right direction. He believes that the motoring industry is key to the success of DAB.

As commercial radio continues to fight the dominant position of the BBC, Mr Myers is keen to innovate in more ways than launching new stations. Last year GMG Radio announced a £1million fund for commissioning radio programmes and interactive ideas from independents and Mr Myers said that the first batch of commissions would be announced next week.

“People should be pleasantly surprised,” he said. “We hope it will encourage anyone with a good idea to come to us first instead of the BBC,” suggesting there would be a selection of non-music-focused documentaries set to air across GMG's stations.“Advertising agencies are telling us that this will attract a new breed of sponsor to commercial radio,” he said.With Smooth FM listeners mainly in the 40- to 59-year-old age bracket, appealing to those advertisers has not proved an easy feat.

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