Making (Radio) Waves

The seven-way battle for what had become known as the Dublin dance radio licence was always going to be high-profile. The licence was for the potentially lucrative 15-34 youth market, and the battle was widely portrayed in the media as being between U2's The Edge (who was part of the Storm FM consortium), U2 manager Paul McGuinness (Pulse FM) and U2 accountant Ossie Kilkenny (Spin FM).
On the ground, there was a widely-held belief that the strongest proposals, and those most beneficial to the Irish dance scene, had come from Pulse, Storm and Fuse, so the IRTC announcement in October that Spin FM had been awarded the licence was greeted with surprise in many quarters.
However, it seems that the game is not yet over. As I write, Paul McGuinness sits in the High Court seeking a judicial review of the outcome, believing that the IRTC moved the goalposts with regards to its policy on cross-ownership. IRTC policy had been that a company which owns one radio station could own only 27% of another - and not more than one other - station. This would have ruled Spin FM out of the running for the dance licence, because one of its principal shareholders Denis O'Brien, is the principle shareholder in 98FM - a station which also has a sizeable portion of Wicklow's East Coast Radio.
The IRTC later suggested that Denis O'Brien's 25% stake in Spin FM was only a "passive shareholding", and therefore did not affect the cross-ownership policy. If O'Brien's role is to be that of a passive shareholder, one has to wonder what convinced the IRTC to award Spin FM the licence, given that Denis O'Brien is the only Spin FM shareholder with any experience in running a radio station.
Paul McGuinness may not be the only unsuccessful applicant to seek a judicial review. Matt Cooper's recent investigations in The Sunday Tribune uncovered how, while all the applications were being considered, an IRTC board member, Colum Kenny, had paid a visit to the Drugs Squad in Harcourt Street to get a character assessment of PoD owner, John Reynolds, Storm FM's principal shareholder. (Earlier this year PoD was one of 19 Dublin city centre nightclubs ordered to clean up its act by the Drugs Squad or risk being shut down.)
Matt Cooper suggested that if Kenny had gone to Harcourt Street on behalf of the IRTC, he was acting well outside his brief. The questions that John Reynolds wants answered are: whether Kenny spoke to the Drugs Squad in a personal or professional capacity, whether he was the only applicant to be put under such scrutiny, and why?
The PoD owner believes that a dirty tricks campaign may have been afoot, and he intends to go before the High Court next Monday (20th) to seek a judicial review on the grounds that he was a victim of bias, and that the procedures involved were unfair.
He told me: "I received a letter from the IRTC at the outset which stated clearly its cross-ownership policy. As a result, I dropped my plans to team up with FM104 [for its experience in running a station], and instead decided to bring in UK company EMAP. I therefore didn't put in my strongest proposal and should have been told in advance, as should all the applicants, that the cross-ownership policy had been relaxed."
Both McGuinness and Reynolds will also ask the High Court to grant an injunction preventing Spin FM from proceeding further until after the judicial review, which will take place at the end of January at the earliest. The battle for the dance licence is clearly hotting up - indeed one gets the impression that we ain't seen nothing yet. n