THE former boss of Radio Forth was yesterday being tight-lipped about reports that he is part of a consortium preparing a bid – to be in by midday today – to buy XFM Scotland, along with its sister XFM stations in Manchester and South Wales.
Adam Findlay said he was unable to comment on widespread reports that he is working alongside Scottish PR executive, Gordon Beattie, to buy the three stations from owners, GCap Media, which is threatening to hand the licences back to broadcasting regulators, Ofcom, if they can’t be sold by the end of next month.
He told allmediascotland.com: “I am sorry, but it has to be a ‘no comment’ at the moment.”
But Beattie was quoted in The Guardian saying: “The Manchester station has a potential audience of five million and the Scottish station spans the Central Belt. We believe the Scottish station is breaking even at the moment but the Manchester station is haemorrhaging cash.
“We believe by changing the format of the stations we can quickly turn them around by boosting the audience and growing the advertising revenue. A big focus would be on the internet.”
The consortium is expected to face competition from Global Radio – relatively recent purchasers of Chrysalis – led by former ITV boss, Scot, Charles Allen.
