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Reproduced from Music Week 24 May, 1997
Waterman bids for 'forgotten' female radio audience
Pete Waterman is heading a consortium to apply for two
regional FM licences, in north east and north west England.
The veteran producer and writer has teamed up with Emap
and Apollo Leisure to form Virus Radio, which is bidding to
establish two stations playing new, cutting edge music across all
popular genres.
Emap has a 20% stake in Virus, while a 70% share is held by
the privately-owned Apollo Leisure group, which runs more
than 80 venues in the UK, including theatres, restaurants clubs
and hotels. Waterman, who chairs the group, holds the
remaining 10%. "My aim is to try to break from the way
radio has always worked in the past," he says. "We will
play some current hits, but we aim to play records before
anyone else. We will also find artists ourselves, put them
in the studio and then put their records on air."
The stations would be aimed at 19- to 24-year-old females,
who Waterman believes are being turned off radio at the
moment because there is nothing that appeals to them. Radio
only plays a small percentage of the 100 singles and 250
albums released every week, Waterman says, with the result
that many good tracks fall through the net. A narrow approach
by programme controllers means a number of acts that do not
fit into a particular format are overlooked, he adds. "If The
Beatles popped up as a new act now, where would you
put them? They wouldn't make playlists because the
selection is too narrow," he says.
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