Sunrise Radio's £1.5m bid to acquire London's Mean Country station has been given a preliminary go-ahead from the radio industry regulator, the Radio Authority. Sunrise (Asian radio in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Coventry and Wolverhampton) made a bid to acquire the Mean Fiddler owned station after the gig promoters announced they were departing the radio industry to concentrate on live music. However current media ownership rules say no one company can own two AM licences in one city without specific permission being granted. However it looks likely the Radio Authority will allow the Sunrise takeover – firstly because Sunrise are a small player in the radio arena, second because up coming media legislation will remove the ruling anyway.
Mean Country made a loss of £119,000 last year and was blamed by Mean Fiddler as a contributing facto to their overall £8.3m loss in 2002.