Mike Owen bids for GCap West Midlands stations

Former BRMB programme controller Mike Owen has emerged as a bidder for the GCap West Midlands stations put up for sale by Global Radio.

Owen is part of a local consortium bidding for BRMB in Birmingham plus Wyvern (Worcestershire), Mercia (Coventry) and Beacon Radio (Wolverhampton) and their AM Gold services, describing the purchase as “a golden opportunity”.

“My phone has been red hot with people ringing to express interest in creating a locally based consortium that would bring radio back to the region,” Owen said.

“We already have the financing in place to handle the business elements of an offer and I am totally confident the stations would make money.

“It will be brilliant to recreate stations in the Midlands that dominated the market 25 years ago.”

Global Radio looks to have succeeded in taking over GCap Media without being forced to dispose of any London stations, after the Office of Fair Trading ruled that Global’s Heart was not a “close competitor” to GCap’s Capital.

In what has been seen as a landmark decision, the OFT decided that the bringing together of the two radio groups would, in fact, benefit advertisers and listeners – because it would drive prices down and increase rivalry in the London market.

Global did, however, agree to sell a number of stations in the Midlands to avoid the deal being referred to the Competition Commission.

“Most of GCap’s 71 local stations across the UK do not compete with Global for the same audiences or advertisers,” the Office of Fair Trading ruled.

“However, advertisers trying to reach a regional radio audience in the East Midlands had a prime choice between airtime on Global’s Heart regional station or a region-wide package of airtime based on local GCap stations.

“Similar circumstances applied in the West Midlands [where Chrysalis also owned Galaxy]. The divestment remedies in the Midlands are about restoring competition to make sure customers will not be harmed.”

The OFT concluded that although both GCap and Global had a 20 to 30 per cent share of radio advertising in London, the bringing together of Capital, Choice, XFM, Heart and LBC under one company had “no realistic prospect of harm to London advertisers or listeners” because of “substantial differences in audience demographics”.

The regulator said: “Global will have to continue to compete hard against its closest competitor, Bauer, as well as others such as Virgin, Smooth and, for audience, the BBC.

“The OFT expects the deal to generate significant efficiencies that will benefit advertisers and listeners, for example, by delivering cheaper prices for multi-station advertising packages and programming changes capable of attracting larger and more focused radio audiences, thereby enhancing rivalry in the London market.”