Reproduced from Northern Echo 20 May, 1997

Pop music multi-millionaire and rail enthusiast Pete Waterman doesn't turn a hair as he responds to direct doubts about the region being able to support another FM broadcaster.

He says: "Quite right. Why do we need another radio station? There are too many radio stations anyway. But the previous government decided to issue more FM licences and that's why we're here."Mr Waterman, who last year got involved in the four-year battle to save the Weardale railway, is currently looking for a Newcastle base for his Virus Radio company which is bidding to create 30 jobs and go on air towards the end of 1998. Virus are also bidding for a similar Manchester licence where Waterman has created a £2m recording studio.

He criticised the current output from North-East commercial stations as "narrow-cast" as opposed to broadcast. Waterman feels the North-East needs a no-news, few blues and open to choose radio station which will be more like a glossy magazine.

"That's why Virus will not be called FM. I don't want us to be on a pedestal, preaching to people, I want to create a new music community," he says.

Waterman is chairman of Virus with financial backing from leisure group Apollo and Britain's second largest radio station owner Emap.

He claims that radio, particularly BBC Radio 1, is going through a great turn-off. Waterman adds: "I wrote to the last government asking who gave the BBC the right to create a minority interest station. Radio 1 feels they shouldn't be talking to anyone over the age of 22 or 23 and is now so college cultish and laddish that no-one is frightened of them any more."The man who has made an estimated £60m from creating worldwide pop record sales of around 500m has until the autumn to lodge the Manchester bid, with the North-East bidders facing a January 1998 deadline. The winner is decided on content by the London - based Radio Authority because there is no charge for the actual licence to broadcast.

Mr Waterman also said that the £500,000 deal between Railtrack and the Weardale Railway Company to re-open the 22-mile Bishop Auckland to Stanhope line had been derailed by indecision.