A Cheshire Company has applied to Ofcom for a licence to bring six new digital services to Manchester for the duration of the 9-month trial.
Digital radio is the future of radio in the UK and the major political parties are firmly committed to an ongoing expansion of the existing networks. All the national BBC and Commercial stations and many regional favourites can already be found on DAB in Manchester, but the city falls a long way short of London where listeners have a choice of 65 DAB stations.
Now, though, the media regulator, Ofcom is looking at ways in which smaller, independently-owned radio stations may be able to join them. Later this year there will be ten UK trials of a new DAB system which, if successful, could lead to a massive increase in listener choice.
The Company plans to bring Oldham based Revolution, Gaydio, aimed at the Gay community, the Asian National Commercial Radio Station Punjabi, a new Manchester Venture offering business news, Manchester Business Radio, Chris Country, dedicated to American country music and the Steve Penk wind up channel.
Niocast Digital’s David Duffy said ‘Digital is the future of radio in the UK and all the major
political parties are firmly committed to an on-going expansion of the existing
infrastructure. The national BBC and Commercial stations and many regional favourites
can already be found on DAB here in Manchester. But we still fall a long way short of
London where listeners have a choice of 65 digitalNiocast’s Head of Programming and Content,
John Evington revealed ‘Niocast Digital’s
proposal brings together partners from commercial, community and online radio. Our six
great new digital services will cater for ethnic, lifestyle, specialist and general audiences
across the city for the duration of the 9-month trial. If successful, we aim to get things up
and running this summer.’
