Nick Goodway: Market knew BBC wouldn’t kill Radio 5 live

Recent reports that the BBC was thinking of closing Radio 5 live or moving it to an online presence have been widely denied.

It was, of course, just one of those myriad kite-flying exercises the BBC regularly uses to gauge the reaction, not particularly of listeners but of the politicians who set its licence fee.

For many people, Radio 5 live (and its sister station 5 live extra) is their last free access to most football matches, test-match cricket and boxing.

No one is really going to try to save £66 million a year by wiping Nicky Campbell, Eleanor Oldroyd and Mickey Clark off the airwaves.

But what really told you this was a non-starter was the share-price reaction of UTV, the broadcaster that is selling its television business to ITV. It owns talkSport — a station I have only listened to when I have had the misfortune to find it on in the back of a black cab.

TalkSport has actually been giving 5 live a run for its money. The latest Rajar ratings showed it with an audience of just over three million against the 5.6 million who tune into Radio 5. It plans to launch a second sport station, a talk station and relaunch Virgin Radio in the coming months.

So if Radio 5 were really to disappear, surely UTV’s share price would have shown at least a small positive spike.

In fact, nothing took place. As ever, the market knows best.

Or perhaps that’s what happens when you threaten listeners with taking away Danny Baker on a Saturday morning and forcing them to listen to Alan Brazil every day of the week.