Media

UKRD boss on Star rebrands

By | Published on Friday 2 October 2009

The boss of local radio company UKRD has said that while the company is rebranding three of the stations owned by The Local Radio Company under the Star Radio banner, a brand UKRD already uses on two of its local stations, there will not be a massive rebranding programme across either the UKRD or TLRC networks.

As previously reported, UKRD recently became the majority shareholder in its rival TLRC and the former’s boss, William Rogers, took over the running of the latter. He has since reviewed the TLRC station portfolio and sold some, closed others, and rebranded three stations in the North East under the Star Radio banner, currently used by UKRD in Cambridge and Weston-Super-Mare.

Rogers recently confirmed there were no more plans to offload or close any more TLRC stations. Asked whether plans to rebrand three Northern stations as Star Radio was the first step in a rebrand of the entire TLRC network, Rogers told RadioToday: “Three of our stations in the north east are to be brought closer together and re-named Star Radio and this is anticipated in a month or two. By creating a larger more commercially viable area under a new brand identity we are looking to provide the areas of Durham, Darlington and Northallerton with a more secure and dynamic future. [But] we don’t have any plans to re-brand any of our other stations”.

Earlier this week TLRC, a company previously listed on the Alternative Investment Market in the City of London, delisted from the stock exchange. It was Rogers’ decision to remove the company from the investment market, telling RadioToday that being listed there simply brought added costs and hassle with little obvious return.

The decision was significant because it now means there are no radio businesses listed on the London Stock Exchange. GCap, once the big radio firm on the LSE, is now, of course, in the private ownership of Global Radio.



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