A battle is under way between two heavyweight contenders for the right to run Ireland's first regional radio station, to be aimed at the youth market in the south-east.
The contest has pitched the likes of U2 manager Paul McGuinness, Waterford-Wedgwood chief Redmond O'Donoghue and music promoter Vince Power into competition with Bob Geldof, Sunday Business Post chief executive Barbara Nugent and former ESRI chairman Eugene McCarthy.
It has also brought one of Ireland's more successful local broadcasters into direct opposition with a European giant.
The McGuinness-O'Donoghue camp is led by WLR FM, which runs a radio and TV service in Waterford and has the second largest market share of any local radio station in the State. If granted the licence by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, it hopes to have its station, Beat 101 FM, on air by July next year.
Its rival, Power FM, anticipates an earlier start and, if awarded the licence in time, says it could be up and running before the end of the year.
SBS Broadcasting, which has television and radio stations in a number of European countries, has a 51 per cent stake in the applicant company. Geldof's Ten Alps Broadcasting Ltd owns 20 per cent.
A public hearing on the respective bids is to be held by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland in Kilkenny on April 8th.
Both stations would be music-driven and aimed at an audience in the 15 to 34 age bracket, but there are considerable differences of emphasis in the applications each has made to the BCI.
Whereas Beat 101 says "overly eclectic-style programming such as indie hour or live music programmes are too alienating", Power FM says its format will move into "indie pop mode" from 6 p.m. each weekday.
There are also significant differences in the way each proposes to meet the requirement that 20 per cent of its output be devoted to news or current affairs. And while Power FM promises to create 27 full-time jobs, Beat 101 would have a full-time staff of 13, because of plans to share some resources with WLR. A further eight new jobs, however, would be created at WLR as a result of the new set-up.
On a visit to Waterford last week, Geldof said Power FM would be a "pop-dance" station catering for a young audience. "And that isn't a personal choice, that's determined by deep research into what would work here . . . I mean if I came in and said I want to play the music I like or Vince (Power) said he wants to play the music he personally likes, 10 people would listen." The Dublin-born rock musician and human rights campaigner was in Waterford to present a life-time arts achievement award to Mr Power, the chairman of the Mean Fiddler group and a member of the rival Beat 101 team. Mr Power believes his contacts in the music industry would be of significant benefit to the operation. And he has no doubts a regional station is a viable prospect in a highly competitive market.
"I think it's a big commitment. I think there is money to be made and I think we will make money but I don't think it's an overnight thing. It will be a tough job and there are lots of local stations, but we will be catering for a different audience." Geldof claimed, however, that to give the licence to a WLR-led group would create something "very close to" a monopoly. "We would argue that you need new blood, that you've got to have competition in the market place. That would be part of our pitch," he told The Irish Times.
Another member of the Power FM team, Mr Colm Dunphy, who ran the Waterford-based pirate station ABC Power 104, which closed in October, said his group's bid was the only one offering diversity and pluralism of ownership in the market.
The monopoly claims are disputed, however, by Mr Des Whelan, the chairman of the Beat 101 board and managing director of WLR, which would have a 30 per cent shareholding in the new station.
Mr Whelan said his group had lined up a chief executive who would run Beat 101 independently of WLR. The Beat 101 application states that while the station would share WLR's sales and advertising team as well as administration and secretarial services, there would be "no on-air relationship" between the two.
Both stations would, however, broadcast from the same building, a new studio complex WLR plans to build on the new Waterford ring road. It recently purchased a one-acre site for the centre and says it does not expect any "undue planning delays". Power FM would operate from an existing building outside Waterford city, facilitating the earlier start-up date.
