Fru Hazlitt, who, we revealed yesterday, has been named CEO of commercial radio group GCap, was hired in part thanks to her online experience. Hazlitt was with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) UK & Ireland for six years from 1999, becoming managing director for the final two after a stint as European sales and marketing director. Then she became CEO of Virgin Radio, the first European radio station to broadcast online (although not on her watch) and one with a considerable zest for broadcasting in multiple digital formats to an array of platforms.

GCap chairman Richard Eyre: “The broadband opportunity is a big one which we feel has not been fully seized by any of the regular groups yet, and the right kind of person needs to be able to make the company really sing in those areas.” (Via Guardian). Hazlitt will be reunited with former Yahoo Europe product operations director Robin Pembrooke, who become GCap’s online and interactive director in July.

She will present her plans for the group “in early 2008”, but will inherit an online strategy already trying to pull itself up by the bootstraps. In May, GCap announced an extra £2.1 million (on top of £2.5 million for 2007/08 and £5.9 million for 2008/09) to radically improve the portfolio of station websites - all aimed at piggybacking the online advertising boom to drive up web revenue to an undisclosed target by 2010. Earnings reported in November talked of ”an additional £2.5 million year on year” for online. In this fiscal year, GCap made £1.6 million from online - that’s double last year’s figure but a rate in keeping with general industry performance.

GCap’s One Network station sites were redesigned in the autumn but it was just a new lick of paint in keeping with a network-wide rebrand. A full overhaul is due next year, when the group has boldly promised all manner of personalisation features, and it’s rolling out its really rather limited mi-Xfm personalised music player across its station sites. GCap could be doing so much more online - perhaps Hazlitt’s web experience will rub off.

• Earnings: GCap Doubles Annual Online Revenue To £1.6 Million
• Industry Moves UK: GCap Lures Yahoo Europe Director Pembrooke To Head Interactive