Newtalk's Dublin ILR licence

L1011

Newstalk are returning their ILR licence when they start broadcasting on the quasi-national licence (but keeping the 106.0Mhz frequency for Dublin).

Is there any chance this will be readvertised this side of 2010 or so (the ODTR were.... slow at readvertising the Century licence, and thats the only prior example of a returned licence), if at all?

With frequencies having to be left clear for the multi-city licence as well as longer distance signals from the north east IRR, and Phantom, is there enough bandwidth for another ILR in Dublin - I can't see more than a few tenths where theres not risk of even portables picking up interference from other sites.

Ulsterman 1690

IIRC during the tortous process if getting TV3 on the air a licence might have been handed back at some stage only for them to change their minds (Im a bit fuzzy on the details the saga lasted eight years and was difficult to follow at times)

There was also a licence handed back in Sligo years ago (not to be confused with the crowd that lost their licence a couple of years back) and one or two community stations went bust down through the years and had to hand back their licences.

Technically Irish stations (apart from RTE) dont have licences as such but contracts The licence is awarded to the IRTC/BCI who then contract out the actual provision of the service. Its similar to the old IBA system up here in many ways except that stations are allowed to operate their own transmitters !

flogen

I wonder; if they were to readvertise the licence, it would need to be on a talk-based format, perhaps the BCI will wait to see if Newstalk still cover the remit of the licence (serving the Dublin community) before they offer it to another station... who knows, perhaps we'll see an Irish version of TalkSport coming along if it was put on the market; I can't imagine anyone trying to compete with Newstalk for talk radio in Dublin just yet, even if they do have to take their focus off the city

L1011

I was thinking that, it would have to be a sports station if the talk remit was kept, either that or something a bit like Oneword in the UK (which doesn't make any money and has been bailed out twice already I think)

Either that or a god bothering station would try to get it...

flogen

MYOB wrote:

Either that or a god bothering station would try to get it...

I think all the God bothering stations are being granted at a community level; one world seems like a nice idea that would be commerically unviable (as you mentioned)

flogen

Just an update, I spoke to the BCI and they're not planning on auctioning the licence at the moment, mainly because the frequency of the licence will still be used by a national newstalk.
That could change at the next licencing review though