RADIO NOVA has been given permission by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland for a three-week trial run in towns and cities in the rest of the country.
From the second week of September, the Dublin-based rock music station will broadcast as The Rock in Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Kilkenny, Drogheda and Dundalk, with the aim of getting a permanent licence to be heard in those areas.
“This is the second pilot we have run and the purpose is to assess the level of interest and the market potential for a rock station around the country,” said Kevin Branigan, Nova’s founder and chief executive. “This is purely a pilot licence so we are not regarding it as a commercial venture and there will be no ads on the station.”
The first pilot was run in the spring of 2013 in Cork, Limerick and Galway. “We got a fantastic response from listeners and the function of this trial is to follow up on the research we did the last time,” he said. “Ultimately we plan to go to the BAI and then convince them to allow for it in their licensing plans.”
Branigan said that expansion would create “the only national independent radio station that is not owned by Denis O’Brien”.
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Radio Nova was launched in 2010 and has a market share of 5% in the capital’s commuter belt, according to the Joint National Listenership Research survey