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In a deal announced on Wednesday, the UK-based controller of UKbetting.com and Totalbet.com said it will sell its majority interest in Radio Tara to RTE for an undisclosed "nominal" sum. RTE, which already owned 20 percent of the business, will now be the sole owner of the radio station formerly called Atlantic 252, later renamed Teamtalk 252.
UKbetting, which is run by Eric Semel, the son of Yahoo founder Terry, said the radio station, which also transmitted over the Web, will stop broadcasting immediately.
The British company's share of Radio Tara was purchased just weeks ago when the company acquired Teamtalk Media Group plc, a competitor in the sports content business, for around STG14 million. TeamTalk itself purchased its share of the station from Luxembourg's RTL only nine months earlier for around STG2 million.
In a statement released on Wednesday, UKbetting said that after the station was acquired by TeamTalk, Radio Tara lost approximately 60 percent of its weekly reach and also incurred unaudited pre-tax losses of STG2.2 million. "The disposal of this shareholding will stem a significant cash drain on the Teamtalk business," UKbetting said.
The station, which was previously called Atlantic 252 and was renamed TeamTalk 252 earlier this year to correspond with its sports-based content, broadcast from a 500 kW long-wave transmitter at Trim in County Meath. Its audience was primarily in Northern England.
It is thought that UKbetting will now focus on the other assets of Teamtalk, mainly its sports Web site Teamtalk.com, but also its text messaging service and other media assets. The company already has tremendous experience integrating new assets thanks to a series of acquisitions in the Internet gambling arena which included Sportinglife.com, Sportal.com and Sportal.co.uk, plus the on-line betting assets of the collapsed Sports.com.
Currently, it remains unclear what RTE will do with the station, and a spokesperson for the the state-owned broadcaster said RTE was, "considering its options." The spokesperson could not comment on what will become of the station's employees, who number around 5.
Separately, UKbetting on Thursday announced the promotion of Sportinglife.com managing director David Annat to the position of content director at the group. Annat will also join the company's board of directors as pert of the move. Annat founded PA Sporting Life in 1996 and was formerly managing director of The Sporting Life newspaper.
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