The Brisbane FM licence came up for sale just one week after DMG narrowly beat the Virgin/Macquarie joint venture with a £43.7m bid for a new FM licence in Sydney. Macquarie Radio Network has said that it only bid £12m for the Brisbane licence.
DMGT has taken the £300m Australian radio market by storm with the success of its Nova music stations. It owns more than 60 Australian stations and plans further expansion to give it better economies of scale in its main markets.
The latest round of licence auctions is expected to escalate the battle for profits in Australia's competitive radio sector, which may add pressure to ambitious new entrants in a tight advertising market. Industry heavyweights such as Austereo, which owns networks Triple M and Sydney's 2DayFM, is unable to bid for more licences under strict ownership laws.
Australia has 250 commercial radio stations broadcasting to a population of 20m. The sector nets about 8% of total advertising revenues, compared with 6.6% in Britain. According to Nielsen Research AdEx, 80% of people listen to commercial radio in Australia.
The Australian Broadcasting Authority said full payment for the licence was due by June 8.
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