Radio Nova has expressed an interest in taking over RTE’s national DAB frequencies; the State Broadcaster announced last night that it is to close its DAB network as part of a major cost rationalisation drive at the station. RTE DAB services include RTE Gold, RTE Pulse, RTE Junior, RTE 2XM and RTE Radio 1 Extra.
Radio Nova’s Kevin Branigan said, “We have made no secret in recent years of our desire to bring Radio Nova national. We’ve made weighty submissions, backed up by strong independent research, to the BAI that shows we can bring more choice and diversity to listeners outside the Dublin commuter belt area and create new jobs in the radio indsustry. Unfortunately, current BAI policy is to maintain the status quo. It’s interesting to see that RTE now intends to switch off its DAB services and our message on this is clear – if RTE doesn’t want the national DAB frequencies, we will happily take them over”.
“We intend to investigate the matter in the coming days”, says Branigan.
Radio Nova is licenced as a guitar-based music radio service to broadcast to Dublin city, county and commuter belt (Kildare, Meath, Wicklow). It employs a team of 25 at its based in the Dublin Docklands. The service currently has 142.000 listeners.
