Virgin leads commercial stations onto Freesat

The broadcaster, which is being bought by the Times of India Group from SMG for£53.2m, will add its flagship station along with stablemates Virgin Classic Rock and Virgin Xtreme next month. The stations will be rebranded once the sale of the stations is completed.

Virgin Radio will be joined on the new platform by other commercial broadcasters including DX Media's NME Radio and GCap's Xfm, Choice, Gold and Capital Classic, which are all scheduled to launch between July and September.

“We're extremely keen to adopt new distribution media and make Virgin Radio available to listeners however they wish to listen to us,” said Virgin Radio digital media director Andy Grumbridge.

Freesat already airs 18 BBC stations and is aiming to offer 40 public service and commercial stations by the end of the year, according to Freesat managing director Emma Scott.

“We hope to have at least 20 of each,” Scott told Broadcast. “If you are already broadcasting free to air anyway it makes sense. It only costs£5,000 a year to be on the platform.”

Scott said although she did not anticipate digital television becoming the radio platform of the future, it was a viable alternative to existing options because Freesat has 98% UK penetration.

“People who listen to Radio Cumbria, as well as listeners in remote parts of Wales, are very happy with the service because they are not getting great coverage from DAB at the moment,” she said.

Scott said that Freesat was also speaking to broadcasters about how to enhance the on-screen offering so that listeners were not just looking at a blank screen.

“We have introduced a ‘now and next' information button which tells viewers which programme or composer they are listening to, and what is to follow,” she said.

Scott added that the soon-to-be-launched Humax DTV digital recorder will take things “a step further” by allowing listeners to record their favourite programmes when they are out, just as they would on television. The product will be on sale later this year.

“If you are a big fan of The Archers then you will be able to series link the show,” she said.

Other stations set to launch on the Freesat platform later this year include Insight Radio, British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) Radio and four stations run by Irish broadcaster RTE: Lyric FM, Radio 1, Radio na Gaeltachta and 2FM.

Freesat is a free-to-air digital satellite television service developed by the BBC and ITV which launched last month.

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