Media&Marketing/Emmet Oliver: A majority stake in Kildare's only commercial radio station, KFM, is to be offered for sale, putting a value on the station of €11 million.
A group of shareholders at the station, including chairman Billy Mulhern, chief executive Noel Shannon and long-standing radio investor Padraig O'Dwyer, have decided to offer their stake to the remaining shareholders.
Under a shareholder's agreement any shareholders selling their equity must first offer the shares to existing shareholders. If the existing shareholders chose not to purchase them at an agreed price, the shares can then be put out to the market. Any sale will need the approval of the BCI and the Competition Authority.
Among the minority shareholders are journalist Clem Ryan, horse trainer Dermot Weld, the managing director of the National Ploughing Championships Anna May McHugh, and David Mongey, of the communications company Mongey Communications and East Cost FM, which holds a 12.5 per cent stake.
If the minority shareholders do not take the opportunity to subscribe for the stake, the station will be hopeful of reasonable demand from outside. The station expects to post turnover of €3 million early next year. The station came on air in February 2004 and while it has faced the challenge of signals from various Dublin stations spilling into Kildare, Mr Mulhern, the chairman, said it is one of the few stations in profit.
The availability of KFM makes the field somewhat crowded if you are looking to buy a radio station.
Already on the sales block is Dublin's Country Mix 106, Wicklow's East Coast FM and Waterford's WLR FM.
In the latter case the reluctance of chief executive Des Whelan to sell is regarded by many as a major drawback.
Companies such as Emap, UTV and Denis O'Brien's Communicorp, the most frequent buyers over recent years, tend to base their buying decisions firstly on the fundamentals, but secondly on the shifting population patterns in the Republic. The dictum over recent years has been "buy stations in the main cities and work out" from there. The fact that KFM is right in the heart of the expanding commuter belt may give it an advantage over the others.
Ratings row resolved
The long-simmering row over who controls the television ratings system in the Republic between RTÉ, TV3 and TG4 on one side and newer stations such as Sky, Channel 6 and Setanta on the other, appears to be close to resolution.
Sky and the other channels have long campaigned to have representation on the executive committee that controls and commissions the TV ratings research. The research is done by Nielsen, but the control of it falls to the three members of the committee from RTÉ, TV3 and TG4. But it now looks like the other stations will be given seats on the executive committee.
Why the sudden change of direction? Well, it might have something to do with threats by the newer stations to set up their own rival research platform.
There was also loose talk about lodging a complaint with the Competition Authority. Either way there are now increasing signs that the sample size involved in the research will be increased and individual digital channels will be measured for the first time.
All the parties to the talks remained publicly tight-lipped this week, but one source said: "There will be more transparency and better representation from now on, but the devil will be in the detail."
City Channel
Sticking with the television industry, City Channel, the community-based channel available in Galway and Dublin is one year old this week. The founder of the channel David Harvey said the station is now reaching on average of 30 per cent of its available audience each week and is profitable.
The station is available on the NTL platform and it gained some press attention over recent months after it decided to broadcast programmes for Dublin's expanding Polish community.
The market shares of the two newest channels to come on air - Channel 6 and City Channel are not dissimilar - but City Channel has incurred much smaller capital costs.
Paper goes mobile
The Freesheet newspaper, City AM, which targets London's financial district, launched what it called a Mobizine this week.
The Mobizine, called City M, will be an evening news round up service of the day's stories for mobile phone users.
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