Scottish Radio Holdings has plans to launch a radio station in Scotland that will broadcast throughout the UK.
Chief executive Richard Findlay said that, if his company was granted a licence by Ofcom, he could have the business up and running within 18 months.
“I would like to see a national station based in Scotland. To do things properly, I think we would be looking at a minimum cost of £25m, which is less than Radio 4 costs at the moment.”
Findlay said that SRH was set on expanding its reach. The group already owns 42 local newspapers in Scotland and Ireland and 13 radio stations.
“There are still one or two independent Scottish newspaper groups that we would look at but radio is the big opportunity,” said Findlay, who would expect to run the national station on the FM network.
The company is currently awaiting permission from the Irish authorities to buy Dublin-based radio station FM 104.
By Hamish Mackay
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