Radio 1 will not launch on digital radio in the UK

RTÉ Radio 1 will not launch on digital radio in the UK after the proposed bid it was part of, lost to the only other competitor.

RTÉ was part of the Listen2Digital consortium, which proposed 18 services including country music, sports and Asian stations on a new national transmitter network broadcasting DAB and DAB+ services.

They lost out to Sound Digital – a mixture of transmitter provider Arqiva (40%), Bauer Media (the second largest UK commercial radio group) (30%) and UTV which owns a number of local stations in Great Britain, plus national talkSPORT (30%). The company wants to launch within 12 months, and launch all services on a single day with the exception of UTV which plans to launch four new radio stations over time.

RTÉ will no doubt be disappointed with the news, as it could have enabled them to point listeners missing out on the 252 LW frequency in the UK to DAB instead.

Here’s the full line up (mostly) launching in the next 12 months:

talkRADIO (news, current affairs and general speech)-UTV Media (GB) Limited
talkSPORT 2 (live sport and sports talk)-UTV Media (GB) Limited
talkBUSINESS (business and finance)-UTV Media (GB) Limited
Virgin Radio (rock and pop music)-UTV Media (GB) Limited
Kisstory (old skool dance tunes and anthems)-Bauer Radio Limited
Magic Mellow (relaxing and melodic music)-Bauer Radio Limited
Heat Radio (pop music, celebrity gossip and entertainment)-Bauer Radio Limited
Planet Rock (classic rock music)-Bauer Radio Limited
Absolute 80s (80s music)-Bauer Radio Limited
Sunrise Radio (Asian music and speech)-Sunrise Radio (London) Limited
British Muslim Radio (Asian music and speech, with elements of Islamic content)-Asian Sound Radio Limited
UCB Inspirational (Christian music)-United Christian Broadcasters Limited
Premier Christian Radio (Christian music and speech)-Premier Christian Media Trust
Jazz FM (non-mainstream music)-Jazz FM Investments Limited
DAB+ channel – TBC