O’Brien’s €200m radio swoop not unexpected

ALTHOUGH just a few months ago Denis O’Brien was distancing himself from speculation regarding a bid for Emap’s Irish radio operations, his emergence as the successful bidder — through his Communicorp Group — this week, has really come as no surprise to the industry.

The Irish radio market may be in good shape at present, but it’s pretty well saturated. While it may be tough for a new investor to gain entrance from scratch, there’s definitely a market for existing industry players to ramp up and increase their portfolios.

Mr O’Brien obviously falls into the latter category — as Communicorp already owns Newstalk 106, Spin 103.8 and Dublin station 98FM (as well as a raft of stations across Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Czech Republic and Ukraine).