CURRENT ACCOUNT: UTV's €15.7 million acquisition of Limerick's Treaty Radio and last year's acquisition of Cork's County Sound means that the Belfast media group has now spent more than €50 million on Irish local radio.

With Scottish Radio and Ulster Television and now Tindle Radio on the prowl, and Irish Examiner owner Thomas Crosbie Holdings also on the lookout for acquisitions, it has never been a better time to be the owner of media assets in the Republic.

The prices that SRH and UTV are apparently willing to pay for profitable radio stations and regional newspapers must surely be sending many proprietors in the direction of their corporate finance advisers to see how much they are worth in the brave new world of the Irish media.

So far, SRH's radio acquisitions have been confined to the Today FM national station and its regional expansion has been limited to buying up regional newspapers at very fat prices.

This week, UTV made it clear that the Limerick acquisition is not the end of its ambitions in the Republic, so the obvious question is who will be next to sell out.

Like regional newspapers, Irish local radio stations have tremendous loyalty from listeners and the vast bulk of local stations have listenerships above 40 per cent.

Some, such as Treaty Radio's Live 95, have a 66 per cent listenership in a compact urban area, while the undoubted star of the local stations is Donegal's Highland Radio, which enjoys a phenomenal 72 per cent listenership.

Given that UTV's first acquisitions in the Republic have been in Cork and Limerick, it seems clear that the boys from Belfast have a penchant for stations with a strong urban base.

That would suggest that stations with high urban listenerships, like Galway's Galway Bay FM and Waterford's South East Radio, would be appetising morsels for an expansionist media group.

The big question then is how much of the local radio market the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) would allow a single operator to control. Somehow it's hard to see the BCI or the Competition Authority allowing most of the independent urban radio market outside Dublin being controlled by a single entity.

That would mean that UTV may have to be content with some of the smaller stations that have a more rural base.

SRH's presence in the regional newspaper market might also pose problems if it tries to add local radio stations to its Today FM flagship operation.

Certainly, it's difficult to see SRH being allowed to buy radio stations in Longford, Kilkenny and Tipperary - the three counties where SRH owns the main newspapers.

PS: Obviously the former management of Golden Vale Co-op have been astute investors in local radio.

Jim O'Mahony, who was dismissed by Golden Vale some years ago after a boardroom row, was one of the main beneficiaries of UTV's acquisition of County Sound, netting some €6 million.

And now Liam Woulfe, who managed Golden Vale's dairy division and now runs Kerry's dairy operations, has trousered €3 million from UTV's takeover of Treaty Sound.