From cricket to Chris Evans: Rupert Murdoch invests in UK radio boom

When Chris Evans announced this month that he was leaving BBC Radio 2 for Virgin Radio, casual observers may have been confused about how a digital-only station that attracts a few hundred thousand listeners could afford to poach a presenter who earns £1.6m a year and reaches 9 million listeners a week on his BBC breakfast show.

What they probably didn’t realise is that Evans’ hire is part of a largely overlooked decision by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK business to invest heavily in the booming British commercial radio industry, hedging against the ageing readership of its print outlets such as the Sun.

“News UK are keen to diversify from newspapers,” said Matt Deegan, a radio consultant who works for Folder Media. “Radio is a pretty good margin business if you can keep control of your costs. It diversifies away from newsprint and allows them to grow advertising.”

Deegan said Evans’ recruitment was part of a strategy by News UK to make Virgin the biggest commercial radio station in the country. He said the plan required “good content, excellent marketing and an aggressive story” to persuade the public to tune in.

Spending is up across Wireless Group, which operates Murdoch’s UK radio brands. Its flagship station TalkSport outbid the BBC for the radio rights to the England cricket team’s forthcoming tours of Sri Lanka, the West Indies and South Africa, meaning there will be no Test Match Special coverage. The sister station TalkRadio has added Matthew Wright, the former Channel 5 presenter, to a lineup that already includes Eamonn Holmes, and further signings are expected.

The expansion is an opportunity for Rebekah Brooks to continue her public rehabilitation. The former Sun editor returned as News UK chief executive in 2015 after being cleared of any wrongdoing in a phone-hacking trial. Under her leadership the company has brought the Sun out from behind a paywall and made an unexpected £220m bid in September 2016 for Wireless Group, the Northern Irish broadcasting company once known as UTV, which had been ordered to break itself up after a disastrous incursion into the Irish TV market.

Multiple News UK insiders say Brooks’ reputation within the company, which took a battering after the high-profile collapse of its gambling venture SunBets, is increasingly staked on making the radio business a success. One described her as being very hands-on and involved in drawing up a long-term strategy for the group.

The addition of a radio audience, especially the younger listeners that TalkSport attracts, helps the News UK sales team when pitching to advertisers who are less interested in print products. Wireless Group stations will soon be based within the same central London building as News UK’s print newspapers.

With the majority of radio listening now taking place through digital devices – aided by the ubiquity of in-car DAB radios – commercial radio groups are increasingly confident of investing in stations that are not available on FM. In the last decade the UK industry has been dominated by two companies, Global and Bauer, who between them control stations such as Classic FM and Magic and have also combined dozens of smaller local stations into new quasi-national networks such as Capital and Hits, eating into the BBC’s audience share.

These companies have shown themselves willing to throw money around, such as when Global’s LBC pinched Eddie Mair from Radio 4. BBC and News UK sources suggested to the Guardian that Evans had also been in negotiations with Global about working for one its stations before plumping for Virgin. A spokesperson for Global declined to comment on the speculation.

Wireless Group, stuck in third place in the market, has turned to old brand names that listeners may recognise. The Virgin Radio that Evans is joining is not the same station that he worked for, bought, sold and then sued in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That station was rebranded as Absolute Radio in 2008. The current Virgin Radio, operated by Wireless under licence from Richard Branson, only started broadcasting in 2016.

The ability to cross-promote stations in News UK’s other media outlets means readers of the Sun can expect to see positive coverage of Evans when he joins Virgin Radio in the new year – a change of stance from 10 months ago when the newspaper ran pieces with headlines such as: “Why does the Beeb protect Chris Evans over sex scandal but sling out others?”

The relative lack of mainstream attention paid to Murdoch’s investment in the UK radio industry may have been a blessing for his wider interests, given the concerns around media dominance that have dogged his 21st Century Fox group’songoing takeover bid for Sky TV, due to be resolved this weekend.

Robert Thomson, News Corp’s global chief executive, told a conference last month that the acquisition of Wireless Group was working out “very, very favourably for us” given the potential for commercial growth.

Deegan said: “It’s easy sometimes to think of radio as a Cinderella medium. But its commercial and audience success is why everyone’s quite bullish.”

Murdoch’s big radio signings

Chris Evans The Radio 2 breakfast show host was said to have been upset that his salary was made public in a series of pay disclosures and, having just had twins with his wife, Natasha Shishmanian, is looking for a new challenge at Virgin Radio, where he will be tasked with helping to lift the station out of obscurity.

Matthew Wright The presenter quit Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff this year after years as a daytime TV staple. He’s now presenting the afternoon show on TalkRadio, which is taking on Global’s LBC.

Eamonn Holmes The former Sky News Sunrise host now presents the drive-time programme on TalkRadio, where he sits on a schedule that includes Julia Hartley-Brewer, Iain Lee and the unlikely Murdoch employee George Galloway.