Ofcom has received two applications for Plymouth FM licence relinquished by Macquarie, including a submission from UKRD, owners of Pirate FM in Cornwall. The people of Plymouth will finally find out who will provide their new local radio station within the next three months.
Macquarie won the licence in March 2006 and was expected to launch as Diamond FM this year. Rival bidders took the case to the government after the award, objecting to the decision. The licence was handed back to Ofcom by Macquarie last November.
One application has been made by UKRD, who own Pirate FM in Cornwall. Their proposed station for Plymouth is also called Pirate FM, though it would be a unique service for Plymouth. Only the name will be shared with Cornwall's Pirate FM, while the application promises no shared output and no co-location.
The other has been submitted by Radio Plymouth, which appears to be backed by Sunrise Radio, owners of Palm 105.5 in Torbay.
The Radio Plymouth application promises [i]"a locally-focused radio station specifically for Plymouth that is designed to appeal to a broad range of adult listeners with a full service of comprehensive news and local information, entertaining speech, features and conversation with a wide variety of music from today and the previous four decades, with no particular era dominating output."[/i]
