Funferal

Ownership of Irish commercial radio

UTV has announced its purchase of LMFM (Louth-Meath) based in Drogheda. They already own stations in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. Seemingly they have already received approval from the BCI, just as the BCI announces a review of ownership guidelines, along with an interim policy. The interim policy is meant to keep matters pretty much at current levels until the new policy (if there is a change) comes into effect.
Currently, the ownership cap is based on the number of licensees an investor can be involved in. Under 15% is unregulated. 15%-25% requires an investigation and approval (15-17.9% under the interim policy), over 25% is unacceptable (17.9% under the interim policy). Several investors (including now UTV) are currently at the 17.9% level, with none over that amount, which is why it was chosen. Given that there are 28 commercial stations (1 national, 1 regional, 26 local) this works out at 5 stations at 17.9%. 4 stations are under 15%, while 7 stations would be 25%.
It’s obvious, first off, that this is quite a crude measure – it doesn’t differentiate between licensees, so the national station is weighted the same as a local station in Dublin, which is weighted the same as, for example, NWR FM in the North West. So UTV own stations in 3 or Ireland’s four largest cities, along with two more rural stations (the Louth-Meath one covering the growing suburbs of Dublin). There is a separate section in the ownership policy dealing with the totality of communications media in any particular area, but is this sufficient?