GCap admitted that it would not have made sense to sell the stations at the level of the offers it received, although it claimed there were several bids.
The interested parties are believed to include The Local Radio Company, UKRD and Ulster Television. Five of the stations are in the South West, including Plymouth Sound, and four are in the North West and Wales, including Coast FM.
Having originally justified their sale as a way to tighten the company's focus on other regions more important to advertisers, the company said it wanted to retain them.
"The stations concerned remain attractive assets, which will be managed for growth under the existing structure," it said.
The news is set to disappoint shareholders, who were told by the company in November to expect a special dividend from the proceeds of selling the stations.
The company also released a trading update warning that its revenues for January to March this year will be down 17% year on year, and consequently its revenues for the year to March 31 will be down 13%.
It said the latter figure was better than expected due to realising merger synergies more quickly than allowed for.
The performance was blamed on a number of reasons, including the "inevitable disruption" experienced during the integration of GWR and Capital Radio, which merged to form GCap last May.
Other reasons were weak advertising conditions and audience declines at core stations, as well as the expected effects of reducing the number of ads on London station Capital Radio.
The company argued the reduced advertising policy was working. Capital's premium pricing has been maintained and GCap still expects audience growth to come through from the last quarter of 2006 followed by revenue growth.
In early trading following the news, GCap shares were down 4.1% to 232p from 242p at yesterday's close.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
