| Planet Rock has been saved from closure1st July 2008 GCap has sold Planet Rock for a nominal sum to entrepreneur and classic rock fan, Malcolm Bluemel. This news didn't impress Brian May, though, who was heading another consortium to save the station from closure, as he explains on his blog. In my opinion, Brian May only has himself to blame for losing out on buying Planet Rock, because his hair is simply far too curly.
Planet Rock: serious business or bottomless pit? Unless this Malcolm Bluemell character is some kind of Roman Abramovich figure for DAB, in that he doesn't mind losing a lot of money just so that he can keep a station on-air as some kind of personal hobby because he personally listens to it, Planet Rock is going to have to eventually start making a profit. And when GCap sells a station with over 500,000 listeners for a nominal sum, that speaks volumes about its financial prospects. For example, Will Harding from GCap said the following at the Radio 3.0 conference a few weeks ago on the subject of advertising revenues:
Planet Rock obviously wouldn't be able to bundle its advertising with any analogue stations' packages, because there are no other stations to bundle it with. Planet Rock is now effectively the only station in a miniature commercial radio group, whose owner has no prior experience of radio, and whereas the other commercial radio groups can take advantage of the efficiencies that owning a large number of stations brings, Planet Rock is at the opposite end of that scale. Then there's the slight issue of the £1m+ annual cost of transmitting on the Digital One multiplex, which was the main reason why Fru Hazlitt decided to close/sell the station in the first place, because this was the main reason why Planet Rock was losing so much money. Having said this, Malcolm Bluemell started what turned into a very successful company which has made him a lot of money, so it's not like he won't already know what problems he faces, and he sounds very bullish about Planet Rock's prospects:
Planet Rock is already broadcasting on DAB, digital
satellite, digital cable and via the Internet, so the only remaining
platform to launch on is Freeview, which I think would be a sensible
move for a digital radio station with big ambitions. The best way to grow listenership
is on the Internet, though, because 60% of people have broadband at
home, and Internet radio remains a largely untapped market.
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