BBC told to carry out public interest test after commercial competitors said new channel would hit their audience
The BBC’s plans to launch a Radio 2 “golden oldies” spin-off station have hit the buffers after commercial rivals complained to the media regulator.
In February, the BBC announced that Radio 2 planned to target older listeners with a new online channel, which would feature music from the 50s to the 70s, as well as “some of the people who shaped the cultural landscape at the time”.
Radio 2 remains the UK’s biggest station with 13.2 million weekly listeners, despite a decline in audience since Ken Bruce’s departure last year. In recent years, along with Bruce, Graham Norton, Chris Evans, Vanessa Feltz and Simon Mayo have left the station, while DJs such as Vernon Kay, Scott Mills and Zoë Ball have joined the fold.
The BBC had hoped to launch its new online station – which is not automatically subject to the same level of scrutiny as analogue or digital stations – on BBC Sounds as soon as this month. An internal BBC investigation found it would not have a significant negative effect on its competitors.
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