Friday, 9 October 2020

Is Farage looking to buy talkRADIO?

The Telegraph is reporting that Nigel Farage has been involved in talks about a bid to buy talkRADIO from News UK for £15m.

A spokesman for the media giant said the station has "a growing audience" and "is not for sale".

If true, I predict they’ll eventually lose the license, Farage will claim Ofcom “hates the English” or something ludicrous and relaunch it online - which he might as well just do and save a fortune, not only the disclosed fee but also running costs without being part of an already well-resourced News UK.

Is £15m a good deal?

In the grand scheme of things, no.

While a broadcast outlet is still crucial to building a radio business in the UK at present, even national DAB spectrum isn't worth THAT much!

Furthermore, the station has never made a profit (speech radio is very expensive) and it attempted to dodge a £75k fine earlier this year by arguing there were very few listeners or advertisers and that it relied largely on internal revenue from sister outlets. A start-up would lose access to that safety net.

No comments:

Post a Comment

A Swift boost for radio

If you were anywhere near a radio this morning, you’ll know it was Taylor Swift’s world and we were all just living in it. The billionaire s...