The deadline for the new Manchester wide FM radio licence closed last week, and it looks like the city may be getting a speech station. Or a rock station. Or possibly a bit of both.
Chrysalis submitted one of each - one proposal for a terrestrial output for its digital rock station The Arrow, another for a talk station to be called GMBC. Should the latter be successful, it may well follow a similar format to the two LBC talk and news stations that Chrysalis operate in London, though in their application the radio group called it a "24-hour conversation station" that will "revolve around user-generated content" which sounds like non-stop phone ins to me.
EMAP's big bid was also for a talk service. EMAP, of course, already own Manchester's two main commercial stations, good old Piccadilly Key 103 and its AM spin off, formerly Piccadilly Gold, (now the Manchester outpost of EMAP's Magic brand). The new station they are proposing is Piccadilly Talk, a service where, and I quote, "listeners' opinions will play a key role". Hmmm, sounds a bit like non-stop phones ins to me.
The Guardian Media Group's proposal (which I'm pretty sure we've previously reported on) includes both the rock and the talk. Their RockTalk format - which they unsuccessfully proposed for the recently awarded North East licence - has rock music by night, talk by day. Not sure what the talk will consist of - fully integrated station audience interaction I suspect - or non-stop... yep, that's it.
Predominantly rock orientated applications came from four others - Absolute Radio's Jack FM, Original 106, MNR FM and Manchester Citylife - while one other also had a combination of music and speech, UK1 FM Manchester, which is promising a "contemporary and unpredictably wide music mix as well as a fresh and intelligent approach to news, sport, current affairs and talent development in key genres such as music, journalism, comedy and enterprise", which is all well and good, but what about the classic rock and phone ins?
Actually, UK1FM does sound very interesting, though really the licence probably ought to go to one of the two final bids, from Manchester Sound and Masti Radio, which are both proposing stations to service Manchester's Asian community.