No Rock And Roll Fun

WE DON'T NEED NO FOREIGN CLEAR CHANNEL, WE'VE GOT ONE OF OUR OWN: The most interesting aspect of EMAP's plans to try and scrabble what will probably be the last new analogue licence in Manchester for Kerrang is more-or-less ignored in the MediaGuardian piece, although there is a hint in EMAP's Shaun Gregory's musing on how this new round of licences will be approached:

"The city [Manchester] lends itself to an alternative rock format, just as Belfast would lend itself to a softer format, maybe Magic."

Now, you might wonder why the young folk of Belfast would be considered to be uninterested in Kerrang while the softer folk of Lancashire wouldn't be worth pitching Magic to, but, of course, the reason why EMAP won't be trying to get a licence for Magic in Manchester is it's already got one. Indeed, EMAP already have Magic1152 and Key 103 in the city, which is why they're falling back on their fourth-favourite format (Kiss won't fly; they'd tried licensing that brand to another operator for the North West but it all ended in tears and a renaming to Galaxy). Surely, though, Ofcom wouldn't hand yet another licence for the same place to EMAP. Would they?