OFT greenlights Capital, GWR merger

The Office of Fair Trading today gave the green light to the merger of Capital Radio and GWR.

The merger of the two companies, valued at over £700m, will not be referred to the Competition Commission, the OFT confirmed today.

"Except in the East Midlands, the radio stations of Capital and GWR do not strongly overlap at a local level," said the OFT's director of competition enforcement, Vincent Smith, today. "So for national advertisers putting together a radio advertising package they are largely complementary rather than competing alternatives. However, the merger would result in a substantial lessening of competition in the East Midlands. The parties have offered to divest Century 106 FM to address the identified adverse competition effects."

In other merger-related news, Ofcom said today that it will modify the licences for two GWR stations in order "to safeguard local programming." GWR Bristol and Bath FM will be required to continue providing separate weekday breakfast shows for Bristol and Bath, while MFM/Buzz Wrexham and Chester FM will be required to continue providing a separate weekday breakfast service for the Wirral. The communications regulator added that no statutory ownership rules would be breached by the merger.