It was reported on Friday that eight radio stations currently owned by Global Radio in the Midlands have been sold to a group led by experienced radio executive Phil Riley (full story here ). The stations, BRMB in Birmingham, Beacon in Wolverhampton and Shropshire which of course also serves  Bridgnorth, Mercia in Coventry, Wyvern in Hereford and Worcester, Heart 106 in Nottingham, and Gold in Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry, were put up for sale to avoid referral to the Competition Commision after Global acquired the radio assets of Chrysalis and then GCap Media.

This is a fantastic twist in the development of commercial radio in the UK. Phil Riley started his radio career as a graduate trainee at BRMB in the early 80's and led the successful launch of Xtra am when the then Midlands Radio Group "split" frequencies (prior to then the station transmitted the same programming on am and fm). Later Phil returned to the Midlands to launch Heart fm in Birmingham for the Chrysalis Radio group, the expansion of which he led until he stepped down to make way for the acquisition by Global. The irony of this is that it puts Phil Riley in charge of BRMB up against Heart, the station he so succesfully launched to BRMB's cost. It also puts Phil back in charge of one of his Heart creations, I am curious as to how having Heart in the West Midlands owned by Global, and Heart in the East Midlands owned by the Riley consortium will work, this represents yet another change of ownership for the Nottingham station which seems to have changed hands every two years since it's launch.

The deal could be good news for commercial radio in the Midlands. It puts the "heritage" Midlands stations back into relatively local hands led by someone who is committed to radio, knows how to do it and knows the Midlands well. It is also the birth of a new radio group at a time when the commercial radio industry (what used to be called independent local radio) has consolidated up its own backside. So what of the future? I don't expect to see a return to the "glory" days of Midlands Radio with autonomous radio stations producing most of their own programming. To realise the potential for growth in these stations some radical changes may be required. A note of concern has been expressed in blogs and forums about the long term intentions of financial backers Lloyds TSB Development capital. Global needed to sell and LDC invested at the bottom of the market. A later sale, maybe to Bauer ( at one time reported to be the favioured bidder), at a profit a few years hence wouldn't seem improbable, but for the time being this is good news. We will watch, and maybe even listen, with interest.