Q102 to share hours with other hubs?

And there could be networked productions at weekends.

The Sentinel asked the Northern Media Group (NMG) - which owns the three Q Radio Network stations in Londonderry, Coleraine and Omagh/Enniskillen as well as three other stations in Ballymena, Cookstown and Newry - whether it could confirm the changes were due to take place.

The paper also asked if it intended concentrating resources at Seven FM in Ballymena; whether Q102’s current schedule would remain in place until the current licence expires in October 2012; and whether Q102 would maintain its current staff complement in Londonderry until the expiry of the licence. NMG had not responded to our queries at the time of going to press.

However, a spokesperson for the communications watchdog Ofcom suggested the way had been cleared for production-sharing and rationalisation across the six stations by an application granted to NMG in the summer of 2010.

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “In April 2010, Ofcom published a statement on the regulation of commercial radio which sought to adapt commercial radio regulation to reflect the changes in the radio industry.

“As a result of this, NMG applied to Ofcom in June 2010 to share all local hours between all of its licences, with permission also given for each licence to be able to co-locate within any of the other station licensed areas. These permissions are reflected in the current published Formats of the licences.”

Under Q102’s current licence “locally-made programming must be produced within the licensed areas of Ballymena, Londonderry, Omagh and Enniskillen, Coleraine, Cookstown, Magherafelt and Dungannon or Newry.”

The licence format stipulates at least seven locally-made hours a day during daytime weekdays which must include breakfast and at least four hours on Saturdays and Sundays. However, all programmes may be shared between all the above licences.

The potential reduction in Londonderry-produced content would mark a further blow for local radio following the marginal reduction in local programming at Radio Foyle last December - Radio Foyle formerly put out eight hours of local programming as part of its day time schedule but this was cut by just under 30 minutes from December 2010.

A recent review of the state-backed station - classed as one station alongside Radio Ulster - `found it the most listened to radio station in Northern Ireland but the BBC Trust has warned of fiscal uncertainty ahead as the station tries to maintain its current strong performance, remain distinctive and continue to reflect social and political change.