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Media
UTV chief disses switchover plan, and Global chief Tabor
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 29 October 2009
The head of TalkSport owning UTV Radio, Scott Taunton, has told the Guardian that the government’s target for switching off AM and FM radio services – currently 2015 – is just a little bit loony.
Asked about the government’s aims for turning the UK’s radio listeners over to digital and internet services in six years, Taunton told the paper: “I don’t think there is anyone who genuinely believes 2015 is realistic”, adding that the proposals were “over-ambitious to the point of being farcical”.
Expanding on the point, he explained: “DAB [the primary digital network] is not necessarily a next-generation service. There is already DAB-plus, and in order to launch DAB-plus in the UK you would have to make the vast bulk of DAB sets redundant. The future at the moment is FM – the next generation is about iPhones with FM receivers”.
Taunton added that general commercial radio support for the 2015 deadline was being driven by his biggest competitor, Global Radio. They, he says, are supporting a fast move to DAB because – if digital was to be delayed for a significant time – certain existing FM licences would have to be re-auctioned off as existing franchises run out. Among them the valuable Classic FM licence owned by Global. The big guys of commercial radio, therefore, the UTV man argues, want a quick switch to DAB to ensure they don’t lose one of their most valuable outputs. But a quick switch would, Scott says, “be wrong for the industry and wrong for the taxpayer”.
Taunton’s dislike for Global is no secret, of course, and his recent decision to quit commercial radio trade body RadioCentre was over allegations Global management were too dominant within the cross-industry organisation. Taunton’s professional grievances with Global are at least partly down to a personal dislike for the boss of the relatively young but very big radio firm – Mr Ashley Tabor.
Noting that the Global chief’s sudden elevation to the biggest player in commercial radio was only possible because of his billionaire father’s money, which was used to acquire Chrysalis and GCap, Taunton dismisses Tabor as a “rich man’s son”. He continues: “He is a guy who is used to getting his own way. He isn’t from the same school of business, the same school of negotiation, that I am. Don’t get me wrong, he is a very clever guy but a very stubborn individual when it comes to negotiations. On a day-to-day basis I was not prepared to sit around an industry body with Ashley”.
The Guardian note that Tabor isn’t that keen on Taunton either. His response reads: “We believe it is utterly ridiculous for UTV plc to support an emotive and personal position taken by one of its executives, that must ultimately impact on its profitability. For UTV or any other small radio group not to align themselves with the RadioCentre in the drive to digital is tantamount to commercial suicide”.
Not sure what we should make from all that, though I do like it when rival business execs get bitchy, so let’s hope there’s plenty more briefing and counter-briefing between the two radio firms as the government’s plans for a digital radio future go through parliament.
