GCap beats MuxCo to Northants radio licence

LONDON - GCap Media has been awarded the latest local digital multiplex licence from Ofcom, after going head to head with a company run by its former corporate development team.

The Northamptonshire licence was handed to the GCap-owned Now Digital and will provide nine services, including Xfm and Gold and will air BBC Northampton.

Text to be hiddenGCap faced competition from MuxCo, the company headed up by its former corporate development director Gregory Watson and Matt Deegan, his former deputy.

This is the fifth local digital application in which the two companies have faced each other, and, while GCap picked up the first two, MuxCo was successful in the second pair.

This is the first application for which Deegan has not been on the winning side.
Watson set up MuxCo to work on behalf of smaller radio companies by partnering in local digital multiplex applications, which are often too expensive for companies to enter into individually.

The Northamptonshire licence is for 12 years and covers an area with an adult population of around 500,000.

Media Week 12-Oct-07, 16:00