The heritage and success of Radio City in Liverpool was just one of the reasons why Emap won the new FM radio licence for the area.
Together with opportunities for cross-promotion and the sharing of resources made Ofcom choose City Talk as the winning bid.
Emap's resource sharing with Radio City 96.7 and Magic 1548 gave Ofcom confidence in its ability to maintain a 24 hour talk service.
The RLC considered the applicant’s proposals in the light of clarification contained in its response to Ofcom questioning that it would commit, inter alia, to “a minimum of 30 hours per week of content rich non-mainstream programming” and “a minimum of 14 hours per week of ‘flagship programming’”. In the RLC’s view, the provision of an all-speech service, with a commitment to studio discussions, documentaries, and other non-phone-in based programmes, will both cater to the particular local tastes and interests identified in CityTalk’s application, and broaden choice.
Ofcom said that Emap conducted "a good range of research whose methodology was considered to be robust and the findings from which were deemed to be reliable. This research also identified the challenges likely to face this type of service, allowing the applicant to address these in its application. It identified a clear market gap, particularly amongst older listeners, and found a high level of support for its programme proposals."
The station will be locally produced and presented 24 hours a day (other than a limited amount of national and international news coverage which will be provided from elsewhere); while its Format includes commitments to deliver a wide range of local material.
Emap fought off competition from 10 other high quality bids to win the licence on Nov 9th.