Darlington-based Star Radio is to close and hand its licence back to Ofcom.
UKRD confirmed the move to RadioToday, with Chief Executive, William Rogers saying it was a difficult decision but needed to be made as the station wasn’t making any money.
He said: “The station has struggled to deliver commercial viability for a number of years and in spite of the considerable efforts by those involved and a good deal of time, money and resource allocated from the group, the station has simply been unable to deliver commercial viability, hence this decision.”
Star Radio is made up of three Ofcom licences – which launched as A1FM (then Alpha 103.2), Durham FM and the more recently licenced Minster Northallerton. It also took over the Richmond/Catterick frequencies from Fresh Radio, whilst the rest of the station changed to Stray Dales. The merged station launched in November 2009 and uses six frequencies around Thirsk, Richmond, Durham, Darlington, Northallerton and Bishop Auckland.
UKRD has asked Ofcom to transfer the licence for Northallerton to Minster, as it was originally intended.
William continued: “These things are always difficult and I had hoped that we might be able to see success in the longer term but the reality is that success has proved to be far more elusive that we had hoped and so we now need to draw a line under those efforts and focus our resource on our other stations and the range of new initiatives we are working on.”
The station will close on Friday 31st March 2017 with a number of job loses.
Newton Press who partnered with Star Radio over a year ago are disappointed in this announcement and wish all the staff success in any future employment.
