Tuned in: UK radio's 2006 ownership and audience review

If STV and UTV did merge they would create a company quite powerful in radio as well as TV, given that the former owns Virgin Radio and the latter TalkSport and a load of other regional stations. As it was, there was no earth shattering ownership changes in the UK radio sector in 2006, although some stations did change hands. Commercial radio continued to face a significant fight for audience with the BBC, who still have a bigger audience share, though talk of the commercial groups collaborating on big name networked shows in order to better compete with the Beeb never really came off, despite the creation of a new body to represent the commercial sector - Radiocentre. In fact the name once linked to such a collaborative show - Chris Evans - signed up to present the afternoon show on the BBC's Radio 2 (though not without controversy - quite a few Radio 2 listeners didn't approve of the choice). Elsewhere in the world of radio the Xfm network grew with its new station in Manchester going live and with parent company GCap's Beat 106 outlet rebranded under the Xfm banner. Elsewhere at GCap, London's once flagship commercial station Capital Radio continued to struggle to compete with younger rivals Heart and Magic, despite a revamp. While over at EMAP, Kiss FM got a radical overhaul (as well as getting rid of its flagship breakfast presenter Bam Bam after they received a record fine from OfCom in relation to rule violations on his show). And across the board more time and effort was put into digital radio - both DAB and online (especially in the domain of podcasts) - which continues to grow in terms of audience share and potential ad revenues though, in the online domain, much debate continued between the radio firms (especially the independents) and the music companies over what kind of royalties online broadcasters should be paying - especially with on demand services. Don't rule out a Copyright Tribunal on that issue in 2007.