Exclusive: iRadio being sold to Caribbean media conglomerate
The Mosquito can confirm tonight that the local radio station iRadio is being bought by One Caribbean Media for a yet to be disclosed price.
iRadio is associated with the Minister of Natural Resources Robert Persaud. The licence holder for the allocated bandwidth is Telecor and Cultural Broadcasting Inc whose directors are listed as Persaud’s wife, Kamini Persaud, who is also the niece of former President Jagdeo, and Ruth Baljit of a New York, USA address. (SN report)
One Caribbean Media was according to its website “born in January 2006 from the merger of two of the region’s most distinguished and long-standing media enterprises, the Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) Group (Trinidad and Tobago) and the Nation Corporation Group (Barbados)…Caribbean Communications Network Limited (CCN) comprises of the Express newspaper, CCNTV6, and the Grenada Broadcasting Network Limited…The Nation Corporation is the parent company of Nation Publishing, which publishes the Nation newspaper and Starcom Network Incorporated, which operates four (4) radio stations.”
Group revenues for 2013 were US$85.5M with profits of US$15.6M.
iRadio has only been on air since March 2014 on 90.1FM with the tag line, “90.1 love FM, the heartbeat of Guyana”. Telecor was one of 12 successful applicants for radio licences granted by former President Bharrat Jagdeo after the 2011 election, a move or which he was widely criticised for having ignored applicants that had been in line for 12 years including the publishers of Stabroek News and Kaieteur News and broadcaster Enrico Woolford.
Instead he granted licences to what were considered his friends and family including Dr Bobby Ramroop. “New Guyana Company Limited – the publishers of the PPP-aligned Mirror newspaper – was also assigned channels 91.1, 90.7, 90.5, 105.9 and 105.3. PPP/C Member of Parliament Dharamkumar Seeraj, was listed as the contact person for these frequencies.” (SN)