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February 16, 2009

Kelvin MacKenzie plots his return to the radio industry

By paulmcnally

Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie is reported to be plotting a return to radio, four years after selling TalkSport parent company The Wireless Group to UTV.

According to the Times, MacKenzie is working with Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Radio co-founder John Pearson. They are understood to have lobbied Ofcom for the current TalkSport analogue licence to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

A source close to MacKenzie tells the Times: “Since he was the first one to make money out of speech radio, he wants the chance to do it again.”

A UTV spokesman said TalkSport would run the station on digital only if the medium wave licence was put up for auction and it didn’t win.

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