Belfast-based broadcaster UTV will launch a national digital talk radio station in the UK in the summer of 2008.
Called Talk Radio, it will feature "news, views and entertainment" and will broadcast 24 hours a day. UTV said it would be available to some 90 per cent of the population in the UK, including Northern Ireland.
The new station will be broadcast on a multiplex platform awarded by UK regulator Ofcom yesterday to 4 Digital Group. UTV is a 10 per cent shareholder in 4 Digital. The other shareholders are Channel 4 Radio, Sky News Radio, Emap Radio, The Carphone Warehouse and UBC Media Group. Under the terms of its licence, 4 Digital has committed to launching 10 stations on its multiplex platform over the next couple of years.
John McCann, UTV's chief executive, said the Belfast-based company would make a seven-figure investment in the launch of the digital station. "I think the launch of these new channels will help to strengthen the market for digital radio in the UK," he said.
Digital radio is still in its infancy in the UK. Since the late 1990s, commercial radio stations have spent about £100 million (€148 million) trying to persuade listeners to trade in their analogue sets for digital ones. Sales of digital radio sets are predicted to reach five million by the end of this year.
By contrast, digital television is available in 25 million homes in the UK. Digital radio offers a number of potential advantages over analogue. Listeners who hear a song they like will be able to buy it from their radio set, or pause and rewind a live transmission.
Audio books will be broadcast for download on to radio sets.
Radio is now the biggest part of UTV's business. The broadcaster has 24 stations in Britain and Ireland. It has stakes in five digital radio multiplexes in the UK, mostly regional ones. These include the Wireless Group, which comprises national station TalkSport and 17 local channels; and licences in Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Louth and Limerick.
UTV is also one of six groups bidding to acquire Emap's three stations here - Today FM, FM104 and Highland Radio.
