Dan Milmo, media business correspondent
Monday March 7, 2005
The Guardian

Channel 4 will confirm today that it has made its first move into radio by
acquiring a 51% stake in Oneword, the national digital station.

The broadcaster has agreed to buy the shareholding from UBC Media, the owner
of digital station Classic Gold and Britain's largest independent production
company in the radio sector.

The station will not be rebranded with the Channel 4 name, however, or
broadcast formats adapted from series such as Big Brother or the Friday
Night Project.
UBC took control of Oneword last year by acquiring the 50% of the station it
did not already own for £740,000 in shares.

It is understood that Channel 4 is paying a premium to the price paid by
UBC. Channel 4 and UBC began talks on collaborating over Oneword last year
and the companies signed a development deal in August.

At one stage it was planned that Oneword would be rebranded as Channel 4
radio and be relaunched as a talk station aimed at Channel 4's key
demographic of 18 to 34 year-olds.

Andy Duncan, Channel 4's chief executive, said the broadcaster had no plans
to rebrand Oneword or repackage existing Channel 4 formats for radio.

"As we move towards a fully digital and converged world, we are actively
exploring opportunities that exist across all digital platforms and UBC
Media will be a valuable partner to help us further explore the sector," he
added.

Oneword programming includes serialisations of books, play readings and
Between the Lines, a radio book club.

Its schedule this month includes Thomas Hardy's the Woodlanders and A
Midsummer Night's Dream.

The station has existing slots on the national digital radio multiplex,
Digital One, and on Freeview, SkyDigtal and cable.

Oneword's audience has nearly doubled over the past year to 112,000, but UBC
has complained that the launch of BBC7, a station with a similar format to
Oneword's, has limited its growth.

Michael Hodgson, the head of corporate development at Channel 4, said the
deal would allow the broadcaster to launch its own branded station in the
future.
"This is a very strategic asset to hold," he said.

"The market will continue to develop and we have that capacity if we decide
to launch something along the lines of Channel 4 radio."

Ofcom, the regulator of the UK's television and radio industries, last month
urged Channel 4 to pursue "further operational efficiencies and market-based
initiatives" as the broadcaster seeks to plug a projected £100m gap in its
funding.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/s...431845,00.html