Virgin Radio station to launch in Middle East John Plunkett Tuesday September 11, 2007 MediaGuardian.co.uk Richard Branson is to launch Virgin Radio in Dubai in a deal with the Arab Media Group. Mr Branson's Virgin group will help oversee programming, marketing and promotions on the English music station, which will be called Virgin Radio Dubai. It joins a number of other overseas Virgin Radio stations in Italy, France, Thailand and India. Mr Branson said he was exploring opportunities to establish the network in other parts of the Middle East. "Virgin Radio is experiencing phenomenal growth at the moment, having announced launches in Italy, France and now Dubai in the last two months alone," he said. "I have no doubt that we'll be launching many more stations over the coming years." The station will launch towards the end of this year and will broadcast over the Arabian Radio Network, a subsidiary of the Arab Media Group, from studios in Dubai. Mr Branson no longer has a stake in Virgin Radio in the UK but licenses the Virgin brand to its parent company, SMG. The station is being lined up for a float later this year, although the defection of the Virgin Radio chief executive, Paul Jackson, to GCap Media late last month could delay the process. Under the terms of the licence, Mr Branson can veto any sale to a UK competitor of his Virgin group. Abdul Latif Al Sayegh, the chief executive of Arab Media Group, said: "We have a vision of filling the many niches that have been left unaddressed in popular media up to this point, and through better understanding and knowledge of our audience we will keep delivering. "Virgin Radio is a major step towards achieving this vision."
http://media.guardian.co.uk/radio/story/0,,2166714,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=4 -------------------------------------- Alokesh Gupta New Delhi, India. ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Preorder your WRTH 2007: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2007 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html