With UTV's €144m Wireless Group bid, chief executive John McCann is showing investors his eye is still on the big picture...

Kelvin MacKenzie produced some of the most memorable headlines in tabloid history when he edited the Sun, the most famous of which was “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”. If John McCann, a straight-laced, no-nonsense accountant, ever decides to write a memoir detailing his own media experiences, he might consider calling it “I Ate Kelvin MacKenzie’s Lunch”.

Last week McCann, the chief executive of the Belfast-based UTV since 1999, successfully bid £98m (€144m) for The Wireless Group, the British radio operator with one national and 17 local licences. Wireless is headed by MacKenzie, who had plans of his own to buy the company before falling out with his equity backers.

It is the biggest and boldest move yet for a company with a stock-market value of £270m, particularly as the radio advertising market in Britain is weak. McCann says UTV has spent the past five years searching for the right UK radio deal. “This is an important and significant acquisition for us and provides the opportunity to do something of scale in the UK.”

As you would expect from a man who has just completed a transformational deal, McCann is decidedly upbeat about the latest addition to his mini- media empire. This good mood even extends to TalkSport, the Wireless-owned national analogue sports channel that has had its share of financial difficulties in recent years but last year made an operating profit of £2.6m. It has, McCann states, turned the corner.

“It’s gained traction with advertisers and overtaken Virgin Radio with 2.5m listeners a week. The intention is to build the business,” he said.

McCann doesn’t strike you as the type of person who is at home in the world of breakfast television, low-rent confessional talk shows and non-stop rolling news, but having spent the best part of 22 years in the industry he has clearly been bitten by the media bug.

He cut his teeth at Ernst & Young before spending 18 months with the Industrial Development Board, in a section devoted to rescuing companies. He became general manager of UTV in 1989 before taking the reins 10 years later.

He admits to having joined the company with the intention of staying for just two to three years. More than two decades later, he professes to enjoying the job as much as ever. “It has changed so much that it has genuinely never been the case that it’s a chore to get out of bed in the morning and come in here.”

When McCann joined UTV in 1983 the station didn’t come on air until midday and went off just before midnight. “There was no GMTV (ITV’s breakfast show) and we made about half the programming we produce today. Now, we’re effectively a 24-hour channel. It’s all changed,” he says.

McCann, who has been chief executive since 1999, joined the broadcaster as the head of finance at a time when it had a virtual monopoly on television advertising in Northern Ireland. “We even sold ads on behalf of Channel 4,” he says.

That monopoly in the north has long since disappeared with many viewers now having access to 100 or more channels thanks to satellite and digital television. Today the company also owns five radio licences in the republic and provides telephone and internet services to households north and south of the border through a division called UTVip.

Even as the business has grown, the number of people employed has shrunk. It went from employing about 340 staff in television in the mid-1980s to fewer than 200 now. “It was a factor of moving from a monopoly situation to a more competitive environment,” said McCann. “It was tough at the time but we’re now much stronger as a result.”

McCann has become something of a dab hand at acquisitions. The Wireless deal follows last February’s €9.5m acquisition of LMFM, the Louth-based local radio station and the decision by Ofcom in March to award it the new FM licence for Belfast. Radio last year contributed £2.5m to the group’s £17.8m pre-tax profit.

But the foray into radio has not been without complications. UTV paid €15.6m in 2002 to buy Lite FM, a loss-making Dublin local station. It has since spent another €1m-plus rebranding the station as Q102. It still lost money last year, but if McCann is concerned he doesn’t show it. He says Q102 “is on target to reach breakeven this year and record a profit in 2006”.

Radio is the growth play but television remains UTV’s bread and butter. It was UTV that first brought Coronation Street and Emmerdale into homes in the republic and Gerry Kelly’s Friday night talk show has built a loyal following in the republic.

Media watchers often speculate about how TV3, which is 45% owned by ITV plc, and UTV might one day be merged into an all-Ireland business. “There’s a merit in that argument,” says McCann. “I’m sure we could find a way of doing things more efficiently but it’s not on the agenda.”

McCann decries the fact that TV3’s schedule is becoming more and more a mirror image of ITV. “It’s a shame that TV3 is essentially attempting to do the same things as us rather than doing something different for the viewer. The vast bulk of TV3’s peak-time schedule comes from the ITV stable. It should do what RTE does, that’s something different.”

Many analysts believe it is only a matter of time before ITV plc, which grew out of the merger of Granada and Carlton, makes a move on UTV.

“Scottish Media Group made a dawn raid on our shares in 1997 but we soon rebuffed that and have stayed independent,” he said. “Ultimately, every part of every business is for sale if the price is right but we’ve no plans to sell anything. The radio business is not a defence against a takeover. We see it as an opportunity to build a successful business.”

Vital statistics

Age: 52

Education: St Malachy’s College in Belfast

Home: Belfast

Family: Married with three daughters and one son

Hobbies: Cycling and reading

Favourite film: The Last of the Mohicans

Favourite book: Seek the Fair Land by Walter Macken

Working day

I generally come into the office at about 8.30am. Every day is different. I could be in meetings about finance, the schedule, investment roadshows or other issues.

The past couple of weeks have been crazy trying to finalise the Wireless deal. We were working around the clock — but that’s not typical.