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On the stroke of midnight of the new millennium, Talk Radio, as it was then known, rebranded as TalkSport - and the national commercial broadcaster, bought by UTV as part of the Wireless Group in 2005, has never looked back.

Scott Taunton, managing director of UTV Radio, who credits Talk­Sport's former managing director Kelvin MacKenzie with the "stroke of genius" that was the station's name-change, says: "This immediately changed the proposition in the view of listeners and advertisers who want to be associated with sport."

In the recent Rajars, TalkSport reported a weekly reach of 2,470,000 adult listeners in Q1 2008, edging it ahead of its nearest commercial rival Virgin Radio, which had 2,466,000 listeners, for the first time. Its ad revenues, which come largely from 30-second spot advertising (40%) and sponsorship (40%), were a healthy £21m in 2007, with an operating profit of £11m. Further revenues come from non-traditional sources such as online, premium rate text messages and branding deals, such as TalkSport-branded radios, on sale in Dixons and Currys.

Personality and voice
TalkSport, which broadcasts about 13 hours a day of non-sports and 11 hours a day of sports programming, is positioned as a "blokey, irreverent, tongue-in-cheek" station with "a personality and a voice".

Occasionally, the station's controversial presenters, such as the "objectionable" John Gaunt, who provoked 48 official complaints to Ofcom in 2007, land the station in hot water. Last week, late-night presenter James Whale was fired, after Ofcom ruled that he had breached the regulator's Broadcasting Code for showing political bias.

Taunton says: "We are in breach of the Broadcasting Code about twice a year - pretty amazing really, considering we put out the equivalent of six tabloid newspapers in content every day. We are not gratuitous, but we do push the boundaries."

TalkSport is also in the news for its online offshoot TalkSport Magazine, which will launch in July, pitched at 15-44 year-old men. With former Monkey publisher James Mallinson and Esquire sports editor Bill Borrows on board, the free weekly digital magazine will be sports-led, but will also contain "a girls element". Taunton concedes: "There might be a girl in a bikini, but not in a Nuts or a Zoo way."

But away from the headline- grabbing antics, TalkSport is quietly getting on with reaching "more men than any other medium", holding the attention of its male audience for an average of nine hours per week. The backbone of the station is football, after 2005 research found that 80% of listeners rated their enjoyment of football as between eight and 10 out of 10.

TalkSport has transmission feeds to every football league ground in the country and gives the games full coverage. He says: "Football has built the station. But we cut to updates of sports such as golf, rugby, snooker and cricket every 15 minutes."

In 2006, TalkSport won one of seven packages for the national radio rights to Premier League games from Five Live: a three-year deal effective from August 2007. It is now "definitely bidding" for the radio rights for the FA Cup and England home international games, which are up for formal tender next  month.

However, although Taunton would love to win more radio rights from the BBC, the scale of the BBC limits his ambitions. "The BBC is under no pressure to publish how much it spends on rights, and that is absolutely outrageous. I understand the BBC spends almost as much on Premier League radio rights as TalkSport's entire turnover - and that is not a level playing field at all."

Future plans
Further behind-the-scenes activity is TalkSport's two-year battle to acquire Virgin Radio, either independently or as part of parent company SMG. Although the most recent attempted deal broke down in March, Taunton does not rule out a further approach. He says: "There are enormous synergies between Virgin Radio and TalkSport. But we are not going to overpay for any asset."

Also in the pipeline for TalkSport is the launch of the talk-based TalkRadio station. The digital-only service, due to launch in Q4 this year, will have the same irreverent tone as TalkSport and will allow TalkSport to upweight its sports programming over time. But with the future of the second digital multiplex uncertain, there is speculation that TalkRadio will launch on Digital One rather than Digital Two as planned.

There are doubts over the launch of the second multiplex, which could be delayed, for some time, but as a shareholder in owner 4Digital Group, Taunton is toeing the party line: "We are committed to being on Digital One until the end of the D1 licence. I have no intention of taking TalkSport off D1 and the second TalkRadio digital-only service will launch on D2."

However, hinting at "loose ends to be tied up" and "issues to be examined", he adds: "No one is talking about not having a second digital multiplex. But if there are other possibilities open to the 4Digital shareholders that don't dilute the proposition we have on D2, then we will look at those discussions."