{"id":84399,"date":"2025-10-17T13:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/84399\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:40:07","slug":"galway-bay-fm-acquired-by-bay-broadcasting-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/84399\/","title":{"rendered":"Galway Bay FM acquired by Bay Broadcasting \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Irish radio group Bay Broadcasting has added a fourth Irish radio station to its portfolio, with the acquisition of Galway Bay FM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Bay Broadcasting already operates Radio Nova and Sunshine 106.8, which are Dublin\u2019s second and third most popular radio stations, as well as Ireland\u2019s Classic Hits Radio. It employs almost 60 people at its offices in Dublin and Cork.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Bay Broadcasting is owned by Isle of Man-headquartered Step Investments, which is a privately-owned company established in 2014 with a portfolio spanning media, hospitality, education and medical sectors across Ireland and Britain. It has a turnover of more than \u20ac60 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Step Investments secured financing of \u00a33.7 million (\u20ac4.3 million) from British financier, Duke Capital Limited, which typically targets SME owners. It said the investment would \u201cenable\u201d Bay Broadcasting to complete the acquisition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Established in 1989, Galway Bay FM is the leading radio station in the Galway region and broadcasts a mix of programming, including news, sport, current affairs and local content.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe acquisition of Galway Bay FM represents an exciting addition to Bay\u2019s growing radio portfolio and aligns with our strategy of investing in high-quality media assets,\u201d Step chief executive Mike Ormonde said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pippa.io\/shows\/619faf1af8d4dc0013bca20f\/1754647931518-c07d65db-55b5-463e-ae51-976300c5837e.jpeg\"\/>Dublin Bus CEO on recruitment challenges, going electric, and stamping out anti-social behaviour <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cGalway Bay FM has been the voice of Galway for over three decades and, with the support of Bay\u2019s experienced management team, we see a clear opportunity to strengthen its commercial performance, broaden its reach and move Bay into the position of being the second largest commercial radio group in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The financing increases Duke\u2019s total credit financing in Step to \u00a315.2 million. The investment terms are in line Duke\u2019s typical cost of capital, which includes a starting yield of 13.5 per cent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Duke has supported Step for over seven years with various forms of follow-on capital and the enlarged group now has substantial operations across the Ireland and Britain with more than 400 employees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Neil Johnson, Duke Capital chief executive, described Galway Bay FM as a \u201cnatural addition\u201d to Bay\u2019s existing radio portfolio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish radio group Bay Broadcasting has added a fourth Irish radio station to its portfolio, with the acquisition&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-84399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}