Comedy-friendly station goes into administration

Comedy and music station Union Jack Radio has gone into administration.

The channel disappeared from the DAB spectrum last week – but is still currently available online and on smart speakers.

It was a sponsor of Leicester Comedy Festival and its programming included a weekly stand-up programme recorded at various clubs around the country;  Josh Berry’s Fake News and the improvised historical comedy series Dead British .

And it just launched a podcast called 3 Foreigners Walk Into A Bar, hosted by   Jarred Christmas and featuring fellow comics including Russia’s Olga Koch, America’s Reginald D. Hunter, and Japan’s Yuriko Kotani.

The British-themed channel confirmed its parent company had collapsed on Twitter.

Responding to a listener’s question about when it would return to DAB, the station said: ‘Sadly we won't be…The company that owns the stations is in administration. You can still hear us, but just online for now.’

And the broadcaster’s newly redundant head of digital, Owen Hughes tweeted yesterday: ‘Shortly before 6pm today, all of my amazing, talented and lovely colleagues and me were made redundant from @unionjackradio.

‘The business went into administration last week and the decision has been made to terminate our contracts by way of redundancy with effect from EOP [end of play] today.

‘I’m kinda heartbroken about the way @unionjackradio is ending. Without meaning to undermine any of the astonishing things achieved previously, I really felt I was this 👌 close to doing something really special there. 2022 was gonna be the year. And now that opportunity has gone.’

The latest accounts filed at Companies House showed the parent company Jack Media National Ltd was £6.2million in the red as of September 30, 2020.

Sister local radio stations using the Jack name in Oxfordshire are unaffected by the collapse of the Union Jack brand.

Published: 3 Mar 2022