A NEW radio station may be on air by the end of this year. Negotiations between the station and the Independent Radio and Television Commission will be completed within a month.
But the chairman of Radio Ireland, Mr John McColgan, said that, while the station would be ready to go on air by November, commercial considerations might delay the start until next March.
He said the only delay was with RTE in supplying the transmission system. While Radio Ireland had no intention of going on air until it had a guarantee of reaching the whale country, he understood RTE had a heavy workload as it was also working on new transmission networks for Teilifis na Gaeilge and TV3.
Mr McColgan, who was speaking to The Irish Times at the Institute of Advertising Practitioners' annual media conference, said the consortium had decided to use its own name for the station, which would be known as Radio Ireland. It would not be chasing "big names" in RTE.