East Antrim stations gets together for small-scale DAB application

A new consortium has been created to apply for the East Antrim small-scale DAB licence.

The team behind East Antrim SSDAB includes Blast106, Belfast 89 and Sunshine 1049 who have already launched the Lagan SSDAB Mux earlier this year covering Greater Belfast.

Sean Og Mac Braoin, Launch Coordinator for East Antrim said at the launch of East Antrim SSDAB’s bid earlier this week: “The experience that launching and successfully operating the Greater Belfast DAB Mux puts us in an unrivalled position to guarantee the success of a DAB multiplex for the people of Larne, Carrickfergus and Newtownabbey.

“For radio stations it also means that they can choose to be on the East Antrim Mux only or to expand across the wider region from Lisburn to Larne, something we can uniquely offer.”

Chairman of East Antrim SSDAB is local Newtownabbey man, Chris Barber who is also a director of Blast106. Chris is confident of the success of SSDAB in the East Antrim region saying: “I’ve been involved in local broadcasting in Belfast for almost 20 years so it will be nice to bring that experience and those contacts to my home area and making sure that local people from Larne to Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus to Ballyclare will have a raft of new local radio stations to enjoy with varied music and speech output.

“To quote a famous Irish chat show host, there’s one for everyone in the audience.”

East Antrim SSDAB has signed up 11 of the 24 stations that the mux can accommodate and are looking to hear from other services such as online stations or aspirant community audio services to join the mux.