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Radio stations join forces to apply for East Lancs DAB Multiplex licence A consortium of local radio stations are set to apply for the Blackburn, Burnley and Darwen SSDAB Multiplex licence. Blackburn’s 102.2, Radio Hospitals Blackburn, Burnley College, Ribble FM and Infocus Digital Media, the digital arm of Sunrise Radio in Yorkshire, have come together to apply for the licence as advertised by Ofcom. The new SSDAB platform will reach some 350,000 adults in and around the three core areas and the ambition applicants say ‘is to provide an affordable long-term digital future for many existing broadcasters (community and commercial), as well as new entrants’.
A new consortium consisting of local radio stations and Infocus Digital Media, the digital arm of Sunrise Radio in Yorkshire, has been created to apply for the East Lancashire small-scale DAB licence.
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“Obviously most of our advertisers are small businesses. No matter how much business marketing tells you that you should still spend money on marketing irrespective, the first thing to go is marketing budgets.”
Raj Parmar says small independent radio stations need support as they navigate through increased competition and coronavirus disruption.
Sunrise Radio in Bradford was launched in 1989 and Mr Parmar’s family took a majority shareholding in the station a year later.
He says that a lot of local radio stations have been impacted by the lockdowns. Independent radio has already been facing pressure from larger services.
Mr Parmar said: “All these local stations with the local knowledge, with local people have been swallowed up by these big organisations who feel that they can network the programmes for the local audience from Manchester or London with maybe a two-hour daily local show. That is not local radio.