Sun to launch online radio station

The Sun is set to launch an online radio station, Sun Talk, on April 20 as part of News International’s £1 million investment in to new TV and radio studios.

Former talkSPORT host and current Sun columnist, Jon Gaunt, will host the online-only radio station every morning between 10am and 1pm, according to reports.

News International is hoping to reach around 150,000 listeners within Sun Talk’s first year on air – and will feature Conservative leader David Cameron MP as its first guest in a bid to realign the Sun brand with a more upmarket audience.

The new radio initiative forms part of News International’s wider plans to expand the audio and video content across all its titles.

Journalists will be involved in producing content for the group’s websites in-house and take part in live broadcasts at the new purpose-built multimedia studios, which are thought to have cost the company around £1 million.

The Sun‘s website, thesun.co.uk. currently offers video content around its SunTV portal, which enables users to watch channels such as Sky News and TV Biz.

The Sun online was one of the only national newspaper websites not to lose users at the end of last year, and has experienced fantastic growth over the past few months.

In January, 21.9 million people clicked their way onto the Sun‘s website, an impressive year on year increase of 64.5% (see ABCe: January sees more record traffic).

The website also brought in 346 million page impressions, putting it ahead of its closest competitor Guardian.co.uk by an incredible 94 million impressions.